CHAPTER SIX
Laura watched Nate get out of the car, resting for just one moment before she got out and joined him. It felt like she was already coming out of a long week. Even though she’d managed to recover somewhat from the last case she’d been on – which wasn’t always a given – there was still a lot going on. Her burned hand, which still ached whenever she accidentally brushed it against something without warning, even though it was protected by the bandages. Zach and the revelation that she wasn’t the only psychic in the world. Trying to find the new balance in her dynamic with Nate.
Even though she’d longed to have him back as her partner, she was already beginning to find that she needed a moment here and there to herself to breathe. Being with him felt like hard work, in a way it never had before.
Well, not never. She had to remind herself sometimes that, once, they hadn’t known each other at all. They’d had to learn to trust one another back then.
She hoped they could do it again.
Laura walked behind Nate up the short path to the front door of the property, steeling herself for another interaction now: with the grieving family of the victim. That was never easy, either. So much heavy emotion, and it could easily become rage – and it could easily be directed at anyone. That was the thing with grief. Even those who tried to help could sometimes find themselves in the firing line.
Nate knocked on the door, and it was only a brief moment before it opened to reveal a plain-clothes detective – the badge hung around his neck made him obvious. Ortega must have called ahead to tell him to expect them, because all he did was look at their outstretched badges with a glance, nod, and then beckon them in.
They emerged into a home that was almost unnaturally quiet. Laura followed the detective and then Nate to the first door on the left and was thus the last person to enter the room, only seeing the group inside once Nate had stepped aside and she could move into her own clear space. There wasn’t anywhere to sit; the small sofa and one armchair were occupied by an older man and woman as well as a girl who looked to be in her late teens.
The grieving family, no doubt.
“Mr. and Mrs. Lankenua?” Nate asked. There was a slow nod from both of them, and the girl looked up dimly at him through red-rimmed eyes.
“You’re the agents we were waiting for?” she asked. Even though she was the youngest person in the room, she seemed to be naturally taking control. The older couple – the parents – were subdued and numb, hands clutching one another, tracks of tears visible on their cheeks. The woman was wrapped in what looked like a traditional print, brightly colored over her dress and a wrap over her hair, somehow incongruous with the atmosphere in the house.
“Yes,” Laura said, speaking up in the hopes that a female voice would be reassuring for her. “We’ve just arrived in town, so please forgive us if we end up asking questions that you’ve already answered – we want to be as thorough as possible in finding out who did this to Kenya.”
“Keen-yah,” the girl said, correcting Laura’s pronunciation. She had a stern jut to her jaw, braided hair flying about her face as she shook it warningly. “I keep trying to tell these dumb cops!”
“Precious,” the mother said in a low tone, a warning.
“It’s alright,” Laura said. “Kenya. I apologize. We won’t get it wrong again.”
“Shouldn’t get it wrong in the first place,” Precious muttered.
Laura glanced at Nate. This wasn’t a good start. The parents were obviously too numb and lost in their grief to help much – the father hadn’t even really reacted to their presence yet. The sister, meanwhile, seemed to have taken a knee-jerk reaction of anger to all of this. It did happen. But maybe Laura needed to step back and let Nate deal with this, because she’d already poisoned her own image in front of the girl.
“What can you tell us about Kenya?” Nate asked, his voice gentle, very careful to get the pronunciation correct. “What was she like?”
“She was a normal woman,” Precious said in a bitter tone. “Normal. She had a job. She didn’t like it very much, but it paid the bills. She had friends that she spent time with. She had dreams. She was a good sister. I don’t know what you can possibly want to know that could explain why someone would do this to her.”
“There’s never a good reason for something like this,” Nate assured her. “But the killer might not see it that way. They might have convinced themselves they were doing the right thing somehow, or that they were provoked. It’s our job to figure that out, so we can catch them and put them away.”
“That’s not going to bring my sister back, is it?” Precious spat. The mother shifted on the couch again, pressing a tissue to her forehead and squeezing her eyes shut, but she said nothing.
“No,” Nate said, taking a harder tone as he moved to sit on the edge of the coffee table. It was a power play, though in opposition to the expected direction: it put his huge frame lower than Precious, made him look up towards her, gave her the dominant position. “But it might stop him from killing someone else’s sister. Or brother. Or daughter, or mother. That’s what we’re trying to do here. The quicker we catch him and get him off the streets, the better.”
Precious seemed to stumble a little on this premise, realizing it was fairly hard to argue against. She wanted to, but she floundered for a moment and then rolled her eyes. “What do you need to know?”
“Kenya’s relationships,” Nate said, leaning in and getting to the point now that he had her grudging permission. “Did she have a partner at all?”
Precious shook her head, glancing at her parents as if this was a secret they were not supposed to know. “Her boyfriend broke up with her last week.”
Her father muttered something under his breath, something Laura couldn’t understand, rolling his head from one side to the other like he couldn’t bear to hear of it.
“He was a nice boy,” her mother said, in a strained and almost broken voice, as if she needed to say it. Needed to reassure her husband that things were not as they seemed – that the ‘boy’ wasn’t a predator or the one who had done this to her daughter. She had no suspicion of that, Laura could see easily. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t professional law enforcement, and even if she had been, she was too close to the situation. Laura and Nate would have to make up their own minds about this boyfriend.
“What was his name?” Nate asked, looking at Precious for the answer as he had been doing so far.
“Pete Yalling,” Precious said, glancing at him through round eyes as if warning him to be cautious. “She’s right, though. He doesn’t have anything to do with this. He was alright. They didn’t even fight or anything. It was a pretty good breakup, the way Kenya told me. He suggested that they weren’t the right fit for each other anymore and she agreed. No one got hurt.”
“Why weren’t they right? What had changed?”