The cat left his bowl and walked over to curl around and through Samantha’s legs. In a gesture Eve recognized as habitual and automatic, Samantha bent to give the cat one quick scratch between the ears.
“Where’s my mother?” Now that the worry was heading toward fear, Samantha’s voice cracked.
There was no part of the job Eve dreaded more than this, no aspect of police work that scraped at her heart with such dull blades.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Bennett. “I’m very sorry. Your mother’s dead.”
Samantha said nothing. Her eyes, the same warm honey tone as her mother’s, unfocused. Before she could fold, Eve eased her into a chair. “There’s a mistake,” she managed. “There has to be a mistake. We’re going to the movies. The nine o’clock show. We always go to the movies on Tuesdays.” She stared up at Eve with desperately hopeful eyes. “She can’t be dead. She’s barely fifty, and she’s healthy. She’s strong.”
“There’s no mistake. I’m sorry.”
“There was an accident?” Those eyes filled now, flowed over. “She had an accident?”
“It wasn’t an accident.” There was no way but one to get it down. “Your mother was murdered.”
“No, that’s impossible.” The tears kept flowing. Her voice hitched over them as she continued to shake her head in denial. “Everyone liked her. Everyone. No one would hurt her. I want to see her. I want to see her now.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“She’s my mother.” Tears plopped on her lap even as her voice rose. “I have the right. I want to see my mother.”
Eve clamped both hands on Samantha’s shoulders, forcing her back into the chair she’d sprung from. “You’re not going to see her. It wouldn’t help her. It wouldn’t help you. What you’re going to do is answer my questions, and that’s going to help me find who did this to her. Now, do you want me to get you something? Call anyone for you?”
“No. No.” Samantha fumbled in her purse for a tissue. “My husband, my children. I’ll have to tell them. My father. How can I tell them?”
“Where is your father, Samantha?”
“He lives—he lives in Westchester. They divorced about two years ago. He kept the house because she wanted to move into the city. She wanted to write books. She wanted to be a writer.”
Eve turned to the filtered water unit on the counter, glugged out a glass, pressed it on Samantha. “Do you know how your mother made her living?”
“Yes.” Samantha pressed her lips together, crushed the damp tissue in her chilled fingers. “No one could talk her out of it. She used to laugh and say it was time she did something shocking, and what wonderful research it was for her books. My mother—” Samantha broke off to drink. “She got married very young. A few years ago, she said she needed to move on, see what else there was. We couldn’t talk her out of that, either. You could never talk her out of anything.”
She began to weep again, covering her face and sobbing silently. Eve took the barely touched glass, waited, let the first wave of grief and shock roll. “Was it a difficult divorce? Was your father angry?”
“Baffled. Confused. Sad. He wanted her back, and always said this was just one of her phases. He—” The question behind the question abruptly struck her. She lowered her hands. “He would never hurt her. Never, never, never. He loved her. Everyone did. You couldn’t help it.”
“Okay.” Eve would deal with that later. “You and your mother were close?”
“Yes, very close.”
“Did she ever talk to you about her clients?”
“Sometimes. It embarrassed me, but she’d find a way to make it all so outrageously funny. She could do that. Called herself Granny Sex, and you had to laugh.”
“Did she ever mention anyone who made her uneasy?”
“No. She could handle people. It was part of her charm. She was only going to do this until she was published.”
“Did she ever mention the names Sharon DeBlass or Lola Starr?”
“No.” Samantha started to drag her hair back, then her hand froze in midair. “Starr, Lola Starr. I heard, on the news, I heard about her. She was murdered. Oh God. Oh God.” She lowered her head and her hair fell in wings to shield her face.
“I’m going to have an officer take you home, Samantha.”
“I can’t leave. I can’t leave her.”