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“I didn’t always keep my thoughts—ugly or otherwise—to myself. That’s learned behavior, that’s experience. Sometimes you’re just writing a paper for school, and they get into your comp, and you get punished for writing how you like riding an airboard. So you start doing those papers in school, mostly. Or you’re bored and unhappy and you write down some stupid wish list, and they find that, and you get your ass kicked over it.”
Roarke brushed a kiss over the top of her head, said nothing—which said everything.
“It’s not about me, it’s just about . . . A couple of times when I needed to write something down—when you just need that tangible act—I figured out how to sort of hide it on another comp. One they didn’t bother with. You’ve got a real kid—I mean the foster’s real kid—in the house, and he’s gold in their eyes, you can use that. The thing is, if she used that method, she’s probably a hell of a lot better at it than I was—than I am.”
“Let me.”
When she rose, he took her by her shoulders, looked into her eyes. “What did you need to write down?”
“I kept a calendar—almost always, wherever I was—marking time till I could get out. For good. How many years, months, weeks, days, hours sometimes, before I could. How I was going to get out, go to New York. New York seemed so big and full, so I focused on New York pretty early. And the Academy. How I was going to be a cop because cops took care of themselves, and everyone else. Good cops, anyway, and I was going to be a good cop, and no one was ever going to tell me what and when to eat, what to wear—”
“And now I do.”
She shook her head. “Not the same. Not close to the same. No one loved me, and maybe along the way that became my fault as much as the system’s, but no one loved me. No one said eat something because I love you, because you matter. I was just another number until I earned the badge. I was just a badge, mostly just a badge, until I earned you.”
She took a breath. “I could have been this girl, Roarke.”
“No.”
“Yes, or at least something like her. If Feeney had been a different kind of cop, a different kind of man. If he’d been like Mackie, broken and twisted like Mackie. He saw me. Really saw me, and he pulled me out of the rest, paid attention, gave me time, gave me him. No one had, ever, offered me what he did. No one, ever, saw me like he did. I wanted to make him proud of me, wanted to be the kind of cop he’d be proud of. It drove me.
“And doesn’t it look like she wants to be what her father wants? That is part, a big part, of what drives her.”
“If the last part of that’s true, it means she’s turned her back on everything else she has. A mother, a brother. A good home from the looks of it.”
“Maybe, but looks don’t always mean dick. We’ll see about that. But perception’s truth, right? If nothing else, she perceived no one sees her, gets her, cares about her—not like her father. And she’s killing for him. Killing because he’s trained her, taught her to see that as her right, or at least as an answer.”
She shook it off, had to shake it off. “It only matters why right now if the why helps us find them, stop them. So yeah, you take a look. Given his age, they probably have parental controls on this unit, but she could have hidden her own files in there.”
“Easily enough.”
“If so, you’ll find them. I’m going to go back to her room.”
Eve checked in with Peabody—no movement—then stood in the center of Willow Mackie’s bedroom. A good space, fully triple the size she’d been able to claim at the same age. Nicely, comfortably furnished. The clothes all good quality.
No photographs, not of herself, her family and friends. Not even of her father. Maybe some on her computer, Eve thought, and she’d look there.
She searched through the three drawers in the desk, found a few school-type supplies. No junk. None of the weird junk teenage girls—and boys, for that matter—collected.
No discs, she realized. Data or music. No other electronics. No PC, no tablet.
Because she carted them with her, one week here, one week there?
Her gaze passed over the posters. Weaponry, violence. Would a teenager so focused on weapons live every other week without access to any?
She stepped back into the closet. A smallish space with that same sense of organization. The fussy clothes—obviously the mother’s pick—in the back. And there, still in their boxes, a pair of heels, a pair a boots—both clearly, even to her eye, meant to go with the dresses or more stylish pants.
And both, she determined, studying the soles, never worn.
In the toe of a well-worn boot she found a little stash of cash. Just a couple hundred, which made Eve feel as if it had been put there deliberately, something her mother could find.
In the pocket of a hoodie she found a notebook and, engaging it, heard a girl’s voice—a shock how young—complaining about her brother, her mother, her stepfather. How they didn’t understand her. And on and on.
Also so her mother could find it, Eve thought, bagging it for evidence. They’d listen to all the whines and complaints, but the last entry at least had been clearly designed to make her mother feel guilty if she searched and found it.
So she wouldn’t hide anything important in the closet, Eve determined.
Though she didn’t believe she’d find anything in usual places, she checked them anyway.
