Page 70 of Concealed in Death

He’d connected two of the vics, the first two found together. Killed together? she speculated. One had been a resident, one hadn’t. One a girl of good family, the other from an abusive home who’d churned her way through the system.

But they’d been together before they died, and right next door to where they’d been hidden away.

She stepped inside. Just stood.

Linh hooks up with Shelby after The Sanctuary moves out. A runaway, looking for some excitement before she goes home, a street kid who knows where to find the excitement. And the two of them end up all the way back here.

Because the building was empty, Eve thought.

Street girl says to runaway: I’ve got a place you can flop. We can hang, we can party.

Easy enough to get in. Maybe street girl had keys or passcodes, or a way she’d found before to sneak in and out.

Maybe Shelby’s looking to score, Eve mused. Looking to barter the old bj for something good. Maybe Linh’s just a mark to her—a mark with money—or maybe not. Eve doubted either one of them lived long enough to decide.

Was the killer already here, or did he come in after? Was it a meet or just bad luck?

He had to know Shelby, at least, would come back. So he watched, waited. Arranged?

Were they the first? DeWinter’s magic might not be powerful enough for them to ever know which of the twelve died first, or last.

She heard the door behind her, turned, and pulled it open so an off-balance Peabody stumbled inside.

“Whoops. Hey.” Cheeks pink from the hike from the subway, Peabody held out a takeout sack. “Got you half a spicy turkey sub. I had the other half, and it’s pretty good. Hey, what happened?”

“About what?”

“About the bruise on your face.”

“Oh, that. Little tussle with a rabidly enthusiastic private security skirt. I won.”

“Congrats. I’ve got a med pack in my field kit.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Well, I’ve got it if you want it. You got a drink. Good, ’cause I forgot that, and they’re not lying about the spicy.”

“Thanks. Did you get anything else?”

“You wanted chips or something? Oh, oh, the notifications and interviews. Not a lot. First the aunt—LaRue Freeman.”

Peabody took out her notebook.

“I don’t think she knows anything. The kid didn’t live with her, but she filed the report when she found out—from her sister’s neighbor—the kid had run away again. Mostly she just sounded tired and resigned.”

“All right. I didn’t expect much there.”

“Carlie Bowen,” Peabody continued. “The sister was a little shaken, but it felt like she’d already resigned herself she wasn’t seeing Carlie alive again. They were tight, them-against-the-world kind of thing. She knew when Carlie poofed, something happened to her. The vic didn’t really have friends, couldn’t have anyone over, was embarrassed to hang when she’d have bruises or a busted lip half the time since she was in and out between foster and the home. She stayed with the sister every chance she got. Went to school, went to church, kept her head down.”

“What church?”

“Ah...” She swiped the notebook to the next entry. “Different churches, according to the sister. She didn’t want to draw any attention so she spread it around. The foster family she was with had a good rep, no violations. They reported she was doing well, and with some encouragement had joined the school band. Was learning to play the flute. She went to practice, left at about five-fifteen, went to the school library to study in this after-hours group, also approved.”

Lowering the notebook, Peabody looked back at Eve. “Basically, Carlie was doing everything she could to have the normal, to keep it steady until she could move in permanently with her sister. She contacted the sister the night she went missing, asked if she could come over, got that cleared. She left the library just after seven on the evening of September eighteenth, according to the log-outs and wits at the time. And that was it.”

“Just two days after Lupa didn’t come home. This Carlie, she’d have walked by here on the way to the sister’s?”

“It’s the most logical route, yeah.”