A proud little smile tempted his lips. ‘I make way more money than Sunny does.’
‘Seriously?’
Now he was openly smiling, enjoying my surprise. ‘I made two hundred dollars last week.’
‘Wow.’ Actually, I was impressed. ‘What do you sell?’
‘Games and stuff mostly.’ His plump little shoulders lifted and relaxed again. ‘When I get sick of my own things I sell them. I sell stuff for Sunny, too. For a commission.’
I was warming to this kid. With his attention focused on the screen I could study him at leisure. He would become a beautiful man one day, with those expressive blue eyes and ridiculously long lashes. ‘I have to use Dad’s account because of my age, but he doesn’t mind.’ It was the first time he’d spoken to me unprompted. Having launched himself into conversation, he became downright chatty. ‘I could get into all his online accounts if I wanted. He uses the same password for everything. All dads do that.’
Before I could respond, the inner door opened and Sunny swung into the room. I balked. She was wearing an oversized singlet and shorts. The transparent material adhered to her little breasts, revealing pink juvenile nipples. The singlet ended at her crotch where the words ‘eat me’ were emblazoned.
‘You like?’ she said, pirouetting to show me the back view. The cutaway shorts revealed three-quarters of her little buttocks.
‘Not so much.’ It was all I could manage.
She laughed and pulled a sweater over her head. ‘Salena will totally loathe it!’ Her face emerged, smiling brilliantly. ‘It’s Dad’s latest import.’ Thankfully, the sweater dropped over her buttocks. ‘I think it’s awesome.’
I hoped she was only wearing the gear to get a reaction from her stepmother. If she wore that outfit on the street I was pretty sure she’d get a whole different kind of reaction.
‘You okay, little bro?’ she called, leading me to the two sofas by the entrance windows.
‘Yup,’ Neo replied, clicking away at the keyboard.
‘Don’t worry about Dad turning up,’ she leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially. ‘He won’t be here until after eight now.’
I was still recovering from the sight of her pubescent flesh but managed to produce a response. ‘Does he use the gym much?’
‘He’s mostly just into importing this stuff now,’ she said, adjusting what there was of the shorts.
We each claimed a sofa, our knees facing. Sunny looked at me, waiting. I launched right in. ‘When Karen hired me to find you, she gave me a pile of stuff. Her treasures, I think. Things she’d kept. I thought you might like to see some of them.’ I’d put together a selection of photos of Sunny and Karen, the record her mother had kept of her childhood milestones and the lock of hair. The photos of Falcon I’d left in my faux ‘Tax’ file box back at the office. Sunny looked from the envelope to my face and back again, but made no move to open it. My heart gave a lurch. I hoped this wasn’t a mistake.
‘Have they figured out what she died of yet? Sunny obviously didn’t know or suspect her mother had been murdered.
‘They’re still working on it, I think.’
‘She probably OD’d or she was high and did something stupid.’ She threw me an unconvincing sneer. ‘She was always doing stuff like that when I was a kid. It was bad when she had taken something. She’d be all hyper and that. But when she couldn’t get anything, that was far worse. Falcon and me used to try and keep out of her way when she was like that. She used to call it the yips. “I’ve got the yips,” she’d say, and I’d try and clear us both out of her way.’
It was safer not to respond. Feigning a casualness I knew to be false, Sunny slid the contents of the envelope into her lap. Head bent, she studied each item. Her long fine lashes fluttered. I had the creepy feeling I was looking at Karen again, the day I found her dead; head bent and long lashes pencilled against her cheek, the beseeching hands in her lap.
‘I wish Karen had been able to tell you how sorry she was.’
Sunny’s head snapped up. ‘Yeah?’ Her eyes were dry. ‘Go tell Falcon that. He’s buried in the same cemetery as Gran.’
I didn’t respond. I had no right to. Sunny slid the photos back into the envelope. I noted how carefully she did that.