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“Yes.” She’d already explained, saw no reason to go over it again. Tired and worried sick, she glared at Kendrick. “You know that happened. The police and the fire department went out there. I know that. I heard the sirens. So, please, tell me. Did they find a baby? Or a . . .” Her throat had closed. “The body of an infant.” Her heart had ached at the thought.
“No baby’s body,” Davis had interjected, and for the first time in days, Remmi had felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe Ariel had survived. But how? And where was she?
“But you were there in your mother’s car?” Kendrick again.
“Yes! You can ask me a million times, and I’ll always tell you the same thing. Because it’s the truth.” And that part was. Still, she went over her story one more time, told him about hiding in the back of the big car, watching in horror as Didi met another car and she and a man exchanged a baby carrier for a briefcase full of money that turned out to be filled with phony bills. She told him how Didi, feeling cheated, had torn off to go somewhere, but Remmi had no idea where or how far. “She just said she was going to an appointment at a ‘private residence.’ ”
“Whose?” Kendrick had asked.
“I told you, I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“And she didn’t give any indication of how far away it was?”
“No. Just that it was ‘out of town,’ not here in Las Vegas, and that she’d be back in the morning and we could go shopping or something.”
She’d seen a movement in the doorway as Detective Davis had walked out of the office and down the hallway, her footsteps barely audible. Obviously, she’d decided Remmi wasn’t a flight risk. Finally. But that meant Remmi was stuck with the hard-nosed, disbelieving senior partner of the duo. Great.
“And she didn’t come back or call?”
“No.”
“And she left you with a kid, only a few months old, after trying to sell the other one.”
“Yes!” Remmi bristled at his tone and what he was saying. She almost came out of the molded plastic chair in which she’d been told to sit, but she forced herself to remain seated. “She . . . she acted like she would get Ariel back.”
“After she figured out she was paid in counterfeit bills?”
“No–I mean . . .” What did she mean? “I don’t know.”
“Now I believe you,” he said with a snort.
Footsteps returned, and thankfully Davis walked in and dropped a can of Coke and a wrapped sandwich on the desk. “Here,” she said to Remmi. “Ham and cheese. Not great, but trust me, it’s the best we’ve got in the machine.” Then she shot Kendrick a “back off ” look and hitched her chin toward the hallway. Frowning, his desk chair creaking in protest, Kendrick met his partner outside the door that remained ajar, and they got into a heated, but muffled discussion. Remmi, popping the tab on the soda and unwrapping the sandwich, had listened hard, but over the crinkle of the plastic unfolding and the partially shut door, had managed to hear only snatches of the conversation.
Davis’s voice: “Back off. Bud . . . she’s just a kid.”
And the response: “Doesn’t matter . . . lying. I’d bet my pension on it . . .”
Davis’s answer was low, but Remmi had caught. “. . . scared, and, sure, her mother . . . major flake. Owes money all over town . . .”
“What the hell’s all this about selling a baby? Jesus H. Christ, now I’ve heard everything.” Then he’d lowered his voice, as if he’d realized he might be overheard. Remmi’d wanted to walk to the doorway but didn’t dare, and so, over the beat of her heart, she’d strained to listen. “. . . probably dead . . . No body, though . . . knows more than she’s saying . . .”
“. . . give her a break. She’s fifteen. Remember what you were like at that age?”
“Oh, hell.”
“Yeah, I know . . . don’t press too hard. All I’m saying.”
Remmi had started nibbling the sandwich, but a bite of bread, cheese, mayonnaise, and ham had stuck in her throat, a glob she had to wash down with the Coke. She should never have come here. They didn’t believe her. Maybe they’d arrest her for . . . what? Withholding evidence? Lying to a police officer? They might even think she was some kind of accessory to the crime. And who were they talking about who was dead? Ariel? The babies’ father? Maybe even Didi?
Her mind racing, she heard Kendrick say, “. . . need a smoke.”
“Don’t we all?” had been the reply just before Detective Davis had come into the room. Alone.
“This is gonna be okay,” she said with a kind smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
The smile is fake. She knows it won’t be okay. It never will be again.
Davis had rested her slim hips against the edge of Kendrick’s desk. “Is there anyone else we can call for you? The number for the woman you told us about, Seneca Williams? It’s been disconnected. Do you have any relatives?”
