Nikki sat brooding behind Nick's desk, her head in her hands, while Katherine paced up and down in front of it like a cell inmate, which annoyed the officer.
"Can't you sit down?" she growled.
"No. When the mind moves, the body has to move too. The best ideas always come when you're not sitting somewhere thinking. That's the 3-B rule."
The officer slowly lifted her head. "3-B?"
"Yes. Bath, Bicycle, Bed. It always gives you the best ideas."
Nikki chewed the inside of her cheek. "There's something to that, I'm afraid. Ma devised how to get the God of Blood in a bar yesterday. It starts with a P, but it almost sounds like a B."
Katherine stopped abruptly and looked closely at her niece. "You see! Have you got any ideas yet?"
"For the sake of good order, we need to speak to the Mcbrides first. Or rather, Mrs. Mcbride, she already knows us."
"Trust me the most because I'm a mother, and my marriage is intact. And you've been in a relationship for more than two years."
Nikki leaned back in the desk chair. "Let's hope she trusts us. But for now, let's tell her we wanna talk to Melanie alone."
"Exactly. We need to discuss the idea of the horror application video with Melanie alone. She has to outgrow herself on this, and if her parents are around, or at least her mom, it might inhibit her, and she'll fall back into a child role."
Nikki pulled out her cell phone and opened the case file on the desk in front of her, which also contained the cell phone numbers of both parents.
"One more thing," Katherine said suddenly, "is Noah back with his parents?"
Nikki looked at the psychiatrist for a long moment and blinked slowly. "I think so. Minors are very rarely kept in custody."
"Noah can't find out about this. I can imagine he's still in touch with the God of Blood and will pass something like this on to him immediately. Noah was so in bondage to him that he killed for him. That can't be straightened out with two chair circle sessions and passing a talking stone around the child psychiatrist. It's best if he isn't even home when we spoke to Melanie."
Nikki furrowed her brows. "We took his laptop and everything --," Nikki began.
"Which, in these days of libraries with computers, friends' smartphones, Telegram, and whatnot, doesn't do much good. You know that better than I do."
Nikki pursed her lips and cleared her throat. "Okay, there's no way he can be at the Mcbrides' house." She dialed Mrs. Mcbride's cell phone number and put the call on speaker. She heard the dial tone and was still mulling over what she had just said, without concluding, when the call was answered at the end of the line. Instead of responding with her surname, a woman's voice said: "Yes."
"Good morning," Nikki said, frowning, "am I speaking to Mrs. Mcbride?"
Katherine took a step forward.
"Uh, yes --" Mrs. Mcbride responded exceptionally cautiously. She probably feared that some reporter had found out Noah's identity and would soon besiege the house with OB vans, as the media had done with the Slaughterman murders. Or, even worse, now that the God of Blood was done with Noah, he wanted to get in touch with his family.
Nikki didn't want to keep the poor woman in suspense any longer. "Mrs. Mcbride, my name is Officer Veronica O'Laighin from the Boston Police Department." She avoided using the word homicide or, preferably, special unit for serial murder. "We spoke a few days ago, along with Dr. Katherine Isles."
Mrs. Mcbride could hear the relief. "What ... what is it...?" Even though she had sounded relieved initially, there was still desperation in her voice.
Nikki wondered for a moment whether she should start the conversation with the phrase à la "How are you now?" but she could count on one hand that the parents were unwell. "Mrs. Mcbride," she said, "Dr. Isles and I would like to talk to you again. Or rather with your daughter."
"With Melanie?"
"Yes, with Melanie."
"Did she also --"
"No, Mrs. Mcbride, Melanie hasn't done anything. But we still need to talk to her."
"About Noah?"
"That's right, about Noah."
"Well," Mcbride said, "Melanie's not home today. She's with a friend. It's a good thing she's getting out. She's been back at school since Monday. Way too early, actually, but maybe it's good for her to be distracted."
Nikki frowned and nodded. "That's true. How's Melanie doing?"
Mrs. Mcbride took a deep breath as if she didn't know what to make of Melanie's condition. "She's ... quite well, surprisingly well. She's coped the best of all of us. As parents, we should be comforting her, but she's comforting us."
Well, if Melanie wants to become ME, it doesn't hurt to have a thick skin, thought the officer. "We don't necessarily need to speak to Melanie today. But we'd like to visit you and Melanie."
"When."
Katherine looked at her wristwatch and mumbled, 'Tomorrow.'
Nikki continued to look at her aunt and frowned deeply. "Tomorrow would be best. Would that be possible?"
"Basically, yes. Melanie's back from school in the afternoon, too."
"There's one more thing. Is Noah back at home with you?"
"Yes, he is." Mrs. Mcbride didn't sound as if she was happy about it, no doubt due to her utter perplexity at the question of how to deal with her son now. Her son had gradually mutated into a murderer without his parents noticing, and at some point, his homicidal rage had erupted without warning. "He's seeing a therapist with my husband tomorrow afternoon. My husband came straight back from his business trip from Abu Dhabi when he found out about the murder."
Katherine made a hand gesture for Nikki to continue talking to Mrs. Mcbride. "That must have been a tremendous shock. Mrs. Mcbride, it would be perfect if we could talk to Melanie while your husband is with Noah at his therapist. Noah can't find out about our visit or conversation with Melanie."
"That would be possible. The appointment with the psychologist is at 3 pm. The two of them will leave the house at 2.30 am. And they won't be back before 5 pm."
"Two and a half hours, that's enough. If it's okay with you, we'll be at your place tomorrow at 2.50 pm. You just have to make sure Melanie is actually at home."
"I will."
"And one more thing: please don't tell Melanie we're coming. We don't want her to somehow ... um, blab to Noah."
"Not. Then I'll expect you at our place tomorrow at 2.50 pm."
"That's exactly what we'll do," Nikki replied. "Thank you very much, and see you tomorrow." Nikki hung up and leaned back in Nick's chair, looking at her aunt. "Well?"
Katherine arched an eyebrow. "Not spilling the beans?" she asked. "Later, we'll have to trust Melanie a lot more not to spill the beans all the more."
"First of all," Nikki explained with a furrowed brow, "we have to be sure she will take part. And ultimately, it's up to the parents to decide anyway. She's older than Noah and seems a lot more mature, but at the end of the day, she's not an adult yet. And we'll know whether we can trust her by tomorrow at the latest when we've spoken to her." She stood up and stretched. "At least we'll have a world-renowned psychiatrist with us."
Katherine furrowed her eyebrows and looked over her shoulder. "Who?"
Nikki grinned broadly. "Well, you! Who else?"
Katherine rolled her eyes and followed her niece to the coffee machine. "Thank you very much! We need a bit of luck, though. I don't know if a mother who cares about her children, and I think Mrs. Mcbride is one of those, would agree to a deal like this."
Nikki nodded with pursed lips as she poured herself a cup of coffee. "I don't know if I'd do that either."
xxx
Elizabeth turned into the street where her house stood and frowned deeply. "I'm surprised you'd hand over a body without resistance."
Maggie looked out of the passenger window and took a deep breath. "It's not like I had much of a choice. The chief and the mayor were breathing down my neck."
Elizabeth looked at her wife briefly and then once more, drawing her eyebrows together. "You're angry."
Maggie took a deep breath and turned her head slowly toward the lieutenant. "I'm not exactly thrilled, but I'm not angry either. I can understand that in this case, you have to consider every conceivable way to take Slaughterman, God of Blood, and their followers out of circulation before more people lose their lives. It would have been nice if you had filled me in before Jane yelled at me in my office."
Elizabeth made a face and took a deep breath. "I'm honestly sorry. I had no idea this was going to happen."
"It's okay," Maggie muttered with pursed lips, but then her eyebrows drew together as she saw Nikki and her boyfriend Lee standing by his car on the side of the road, the young woman gesturing wildly with a deep frown.
"Uh-oh," Elizabeth said as she turned into the driveway of her house. "I think there's trouble in paradise here."
Maggie twisted in her seat and turned back as her wife made a hissing sound. "What are we going to do?"
Elizabeth took a deep breath and shook her head. "I don't think we can do anything about this, Mags. Nikki will have to go through it alone this time."
"I've always hated conversations like this."
Elizabeth nodded slowly and unbuckled her seatbelt. "Yeah, me too. The last time I had a conversation like that, you wanted to divorce me."
Maggie looked at the lieutenant with wide eyes. "I didn't want to divorce you. I just told you that I needed a break from our relationship."
"You said that you love me so much that it hurts you. This temporary separation would have ended in divorce."
Maggie rolled her eyes. "You're a pessimist."
"A realist," the lieutenant replied, leaning her head against the headrest, then grinned at her wife.
"You're an idiot," the redhead replied as she leaned over the center console to kiss Elizabeth.
The lieutenant grinned broadly and opened the driver's door. "An idiot who got herself shot back then and fell into a coma. Otherwise, I'd be a divorced idiot today."
Maggie followed Elizabeth to the front door and rolled her eyes. "Really?"
Elizabeth nodded eagerly. "Yes."
"I don't know why I love you."
The lieutenant turned to the redhead and gestured dramatically down at himself with wide eyes.
"Yes," the ME laughed and shook his head. "Your body is the only reason."
"Thank you," Elizabeth laughed and placed the bag of Chinese food on the kitchen island.
"I'd love to," the redhead replied with a conspiratorial grin. She raised her eyebrows as the front door opened once more and turned in that direction, her smile disappearing instantly when she saw the puzzled look on Nikki's face.
Elizabeth noticed it herself and automatically stood up from her chair. "What happened?"
Nikki blinked a few times, pointed her thumb over her shoulder, and frowned deeply. "Lee just broke up with me."
"Oh no," Maggie said with wide eyes.
Elizabeth exhaled loudly, and she slumped her shoulders. "You okay?"
Nikki blinked a few times again, drew her eyebrows together, and licked her lips. "I think so."
Maggie looked at her wife for a long moment and nodded slowly.
Elizabeth cleared her throat, went behind the kitchen island, opened a cupboard, took out three whiskey glasses, and pointed to one of the high chairs. "Have a seat."
Nikki gritted her teeth, licked her lips again, and complied with her mother's order without argument.
Elizabeth nodded slowly and filled the three glasses with pursed lips without saying a word.
