In Death 29 - Kindred in Death

anyway.”
    “We came back here after and crashed,” Darian told Eve. “Time, I don’t know, exactly, but the log’ll have it below.”
    “Okay, see? Easy.” Eve thought of connections, and Jamie’s comment about partying late on Saturday night.
    “So . . . I did good?” Darian offered the same blasting smile from his ID shot.
    “Yeah. No lawyers necessary,” she said to Luce. “Do you know Jamie Lingstrom?”
    “Sure. We’ve had some classes together, hang sometimes. Hey, he was at the party last night for a while. You could ask him. . . Wait. Is he in trouble? He’s not trouble. He wants to be a freaking cop. Sorry, I mean, he’s studying to be an e-cop.”
    “He’s not in trouble. It happens I know Jamie, too. You’re not in trouble either, but I still have questions. Everybody else, clear out.”
    Bodies lurched up, scrambled. Luce remained glued to Darian’s side, and the boy Coby stayed on the floor.
    Eve pointed at Coby, pointed at the door.
    “But I live here and all that.”
    “Find somewhere else to be. And close the door behind you.”
    When he had, Eve looked at Luce.
    “I’m not leaving. I’m within my rights.”
    “Fine. Sit down, both of you.”
    Eve showed them Deena’s ID photo. “Do you know this girl?”
    “No. Wait. No . . . Maybe.”
    “Pick one,” Eve advised Darian.
    “I think I’ve seen her maybe?” He looked at Eve as she imagined he might have looked at one of his professors. Earnestly. “Maybe with Jamie? But not like at the party last night, or for a while. I just think maybe. Luce.”
    Luce frowned over the image. “Yeah. A couple times with Jamie. Not a girlfriend. I asked because she’s younger. He said they’d been buds forever. I didn’t really talk to her much or anything, but I saw her a couple of times with Jamie at Perk It—the coffee shop. Why?”
    Eve ignored the question. “Darian, you requested a new student ID in January.”
    “Yeah. I lost mine.”
    “How’d you lose it?”
    “I don’t know. If I did, I’d probably find it.” He smiled, a little weakly.
    “Let’s try when did you lose it?”
    “It was right after winter break. I know I had it when I got back—I went home for Christmas—because you’ve got to show it to log back into the dorm and all after a break. I got back early, for New Year’s and like that, because, well, who wants to be with the fam for the big Eve. Plus, Luce and I had started . . .”
    “We’re a unit.”
    Eve nodded at Luce. “Got that.”
    “We started uniting last fall, and I wanted to get back. I missed her.”
    “Aw.” Luce cuddled closer.
    “And we had a big bash for the Eve here. Major bash. I know I had it on the Eve because I had to show it to get the discount on supplies. Not like brew or anything, being underage.” He smiled again, very, very innocently. “So we partied until way into the new, and we didn’t go out again until the third—the day classes started. I mean, we cleaned up, dumped trash and all that, but we stuck around. We were all wiped from the party, and it was freaking cold anyway. Then I go to check in for class, and no ID.”
    “On the third? Why is your replacement for the fifth?”
    “Ah . . . Well, you know you report and apply, and . . . crap. Okay, okay, so I slicked on the third. I just figured I’d left it back here or something.”
    “Slicked?”
    “I, ah . . .”
    He glanced at Luce for direction, but she was staring hard at Eve. “She doesn’t care about that, Dar. She’s not going to care about slicking.”
    “Okay, yeah, well, I got another student to pass me through on his ID. You’re not supposed to but, it’s not against the law. Is it?”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “I looked everywhere when I got back. No go. Then, okay, I slicked my early classes the next day, cut a couple so I could go back to the stores where we bought stuff, in case I left it there. No go again. I reported it, end of day on the fourth, so it got issued on the fifth.”
    “Where do you keep the ID?”
    “In the wallet, or sometimes just in my pocket ’cause it’s easier. You show it a lot, so it’s handy in the pocket.”
    “Where was it on the night of the party?”
    “I don’t know. My pocket? Maybe. Or I maybe tossed it in my room, which is why I tore the place up when I realized it wasn’t on me. It costs seventy-five for a reissue, plus the forms. It’s a hassle.”
    “I’ll need a list of who was at the