Whatever Remains (4 page)

             
Clara nodded.

             
“Tonight…well, tonight…” A child psychologist would have wanted to lock her up for what she was about to say. “Baby, something bad happened to Heidi next door.”

             
A Haley, through and through, Clara nodded solemnly. It helped that she and the Latham girls hadn’t been close. “Did she get murder-red?”

             
“Murdered, yes.” Jade sighed. “And Daddy’s here to investigate that. See? Of course he wants to see you – and I want him to see you – but he has to find out what happened to Heidi, right?”

             
Clara sighed too. “Right.”

             
Jade reached to smooth her tangled dark hair back. “I know you miss him. I’m sorry.”

             
Her eyes were still wet, face still quivering; the dam could burst at any moment and the tears would return. It seemed disturbing, somehow, that in the middle of a child being murdered, Jade and her own child were wishing selfish things. “Do you miss him too, Mommy?”

             
How awful of her, she thought, to know that Alicia would never hold her daughter again, and yet here she was, just wishing for a real family outing, Clara’s little hands held between the two of them, something normal and loving. “Yeah.” She forced a smile. “I miss him a lot.”

The dining room was Carver’s work: glass-top table, slippery, candy-colored chairs, obnoxious modern art on the walls, potted ferns. The color display would have been bright in the
sunlight, but now, in the dark, with scattered crystal light from the weird-ass chandelier falling between them, all the color was garish as clown makeup while Alicia Latham cried across from him.

             
She had composed herself a fraction; her nose wasn’t leaking anymore and the tears seemed staunched for the moment. In this light, her hair was the color of iodine spilling across her shoulders, dull and dark, and her skin was gray. Her eyes – if he was being objective – were a nice shade of green, but the whites were red and the bags under them defied plausibility; crying had wrecked the youth she was clinging to.

             
Ben uncapped his pen. “Mrs. Latham, I’ll need you to walk me through your – Heidi’s – night.”

             
She blinked, like she was surprised by his brusque tone. He’d never found any use in acting sympathetic; crimes were best discussed in a clinical way: facts and time stamps, no frills.

             
“I…um…” She had a fresh tissue and started folding it on the table top, giving Ben a sudden mental picture of Jeremy coming along behind them with Lysol wipes. “I’m not sure, exactly. Um…”

             
“Did you have dinner?”

             
She frowned; her brows knitted together. “Yeah. Yeah, we…”

             
“What’d you have?”

             
“Fish sticks.” She glanced up at him and nodded. “Fish sticks and mac and cheese. Kraft: Grace’s favorite.”

             
It was a good sign, recalling small details. That’s how it happened. A victim latched onto something small and insignificant – a brand of pasta, a song on the radio, something – and their memories shook off the shock and started filling in the larger, scarier gaps.

             
“What time?” Ben asked, pen ready.

             
“Six-thirty.” She sounded sure. “I got home at six and the girls were hungry, so I put dinner on first thing.”

             
“They were already home?”

             
“Yeah. They both had keys, but Grace gets off the bus at Mrs. Davis’s two houses down. She waits there – she likes their son – until Heidi gets off the bus; then they walk home together. Heidi’s older; she’s the responsible one.” She tried to smile, but it wouldn’t stick.

             
“So you had dinner. Then what?”

             
“Homework. No…TV. The girls wanted to watch a show.” She nodded again, gaining momentum. “Then homework. They were finishing up when I went to lie down.”

             
Ben paused, pen leaving a streak on his pad. “Lie down?” he asked, unable to keep the speculation from his voice.

             
“I get migraines,” she said, looking guilty. She sniffled. “It was a bad one, so I took some Excedrin and went to my room; I have to be in the dark when it happens, detective. But the doors were locked and we were in for the night,” she said in a hurry, “so it wasn’t like the girls were outside or unsafe or anything.”

             
“What time was this?”

             
“Seven-thirty.”

             
Ben made a note. “And you realized Heidi was missing when?”

             
Her eyes dropped, and beneath her lashes, Ben saw the glitter of fresh tears. She blinked, and pressed the folded tissue between both hands. A sniffle. A deep breath. “God,” she whispered. “I feel so terrible…”

             
“Mrs. Latham –  ”

             
“Oh, please.” Her face was crumbling as she lifted it. “Please, call me Alicia. This is all so horrible, and I just think it would help if it weren’t so…so…impersonal.”

             
“When did you notice she was gone?”

             
The tears came; Trey would have done a better job with this. “Oh,” she said, anguished, tissue pressed tight under her nose until it muffled her voice. “I didn’t notice! Gracie came to get me; she woke me up and told me Heidi was gone!”

             
Ben needed to know things; for starters, he’d have to talk to Grace. But Alicia put her head down on the table and her shoulders leapt with sobs. He sighed to himself and hoped it was going better for Trey.

**

“And that was when you called 9-1-1?”

             
“Asher called,” Jade told Detective Kaiden. “I walked” – talking about it brought back the panic of the moment – “over to –  ”

             
“The body,” he supplied, and she nodded.

             
“I meant to check if there was a pulse, but when I saw her, I knew she was gone.”

             
“Then what’d you do?”

             
Jade reached to push her hair back and saw a tremor in her hand. “I went back and leaned against the fence; tried not to pass out.” Her vision had been swimming, her pulse galloping; she’d been as breathless and shivery as she was on the way to a show. “I called my mom, so she could come watch Clara; then I called Jeremy. He walked down when Mom got here.”

             
Detective Kaiden gave them all a glance. “Did any of you touch the body?”

             
Asher sounded choked. “Why would we
touch
it?”

             
Kaiden blinked, nonplussed. “If any of you did, we’d need to collect samples for elimination.”

             
“Samples of
what
?”

Jade didn’t suppose she blamed him for freaking out, but she was fast becoming acquainted with a side of him she’d just as soon not know any better.

              “Prints. Hair and DNA. Cheek swab,” Kaiden explained, miming the action with a finger. “It’s painless.”

             
Asher shifted – he’d been doing that since the detectives had come back inside – and blew out a sharp, agitated breath. “Look, this has all just been a lot in one night, okay? We answered your questions. Can’t you guys just…leave?” His manners had abandoned him, apparently.

             
He was just a kid – her age if not younger – but Kaiden flicked a glance to her that was flat and efficient, much like one of Ben’s looks. They were all alike on some level: cops. Honest, but shifty. Like horses. She understood them; she understood, too, what Ben’s young partner was asking her.

             
Jeremy saved her from answering, graceful as always. “Detective,” he said smoothly, “I’m sure you can appreciate that this has all been shocking. Maybe, if it’s alright, you could talk to us some more tomorrow? I know solving the case is important, but none of us are going anywhere.”

             
Shannon nodded her approval of the idea.

             
Kaiden held her gaze a moment longer; Jade held up her end without flinching, giving him nothing. “Sure.” He flipped his notebook closed. “Lemme check with my partner, but I’m pretty sure we’re –  ”

             
“All done here,” Ben supplied as he reentered the room on cat’s feet. He was tall – a hairsbreadth under six-three – and he wore obnoxious biker boots and sounded like a water buffalo moving through her house most of the time, but when he wanted to be, he was silent.

             
Asher had been shrugging into his jacket, but froze at Ben’s appearance, one sleeve dangling limp off his hand. His pale face went paler.

             
Ben’s eyes came to her, flat and professional. “Mrs. Latham doesn’t have any family in the area,” he started, and she nodded.

             
“We’ll look after her.”

             
He gave a single, sharp nod. “We’ll be in contact. None of you go out of town.”

             
“We won’t.” As he turned for the door and Kaiden got to his feet, she said, “Detective Haley,” in a loud, too-obvious voice that had him frowning as he turned back; he didn’t appreciate the formality. “Clara wants to know when she’ll see you next. What should I tell her?”

             
He held her a gaze a moment too long, a muscle in his jaw working; Asher watched him like he might watch a copperhead. “I’ll make some time,” he said evasively. Then, with a thin, bare scrap of a fake smile: “You have my card?”

             
She flashed him a similar smile and said nothing.

             
“Thank you, Detective Kaiden,” Shannon said as they went out into the night, the smell of cool air and curling leaves tumbling in around them. “For being so polite.”

             
Expressionless, Ben shut the door with a bang before his partner could respond.

             
“That man,” Shannon said, “is why God invented condoms.”

             
“Mom!” Jade whirled on her mother before she could take hold of her temper; she’d been cool in front of Ben – because she had to be – but the night was catching up to her. “Stop that! Clara is here, and unless you propose I give her away –  ” Shannon looked scandalized “ – then you have to get over Ben. We have such bigger things going on than him right now.”

             
“Jade.” Jeremy touched her arm. “Take a breath.”

             
“I don’t need one.” She got to her feet. “What about poor Alicia, huh? We’re in here talking about my love life when she’s…she’s lost her
daughter
.”

             
The door opened; Asher was trying to slip away unnoticed.

             
“Asher, God, I’m sorry,” she said.

             
He quirked a grin. “Don’t worry about it.” He looked terrible. “I’ll call you, okay?”

             
She wasn’t sure if he would, or if she wanted him to. “Yeah, okay.”

             
With only half an ear to Shannon and Jeremy’s chatter – Shannon wanted to spend the night and Jeremy was thinking that was a “perfect” idea – she went to the counter and made a fresh mug of coffee with lots of sugar. It seemed like a stupid offering, but what else could she give? What did you give someone whose world had just imploded?

             
Alicia was still in the dining room, arms folded on the table, forehead pressed to the back of one wrist, silent, but shaking. The light – small diamond-shaped pockets of it from the chandelier – slanted over her hair, turning it a brassy red. Jade paused in the threshold, gripped by terror for a moment. It could have been her instead. She liked to think that she was a careful mother, but the world was full of evil: creeping in through tiny cracks, pressing at windows, lurking in shadows, breathing down necks of even the most cautious. God, what if it had been her daughter taken instead of Alicia’s? And, if Alicia had wondered the same thing, how could Jade face the woman?

             
She took a deep breath, wiped her mind clean with an effort, and slid into the seat Ben had vacated. “Alicia.” She set the coffee where it wouldn’t be spilled. “I know it sounds stupid, but it might help to drink this.”

             
Slowly, like she was under water, Alicia pushed herself upright and sat back in her chair. Her face – always smiling – was so lined and wet and swollen it was almost unrecognizable. She glanced at the coffee, uncomprehending.