Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,56
past Jaylon’s shoulder to where Mia’s body sat.
“Why don’t you take our guest over to the body,” Aaron said to Ramos with a nod of his head. “He can get his own perspective while Jaylon and I talk with Ms. Matthews.”
“Sure thing.” She gestured to Carson and he accompanied her over, adjusting his long, loping stride to meet hers.
“Kinda odd he just turned up here,” Jaylon said, staring after the pair.
“If he can help us find who’s killing these people and why, he can be as odd as he wants.” Aaron turned his attention back to Brianna, who looked a little less pale. “Feeling better?”
“Yes. It was just such a shock,” she said, still sounding a little shaken. Then she took a deep breath, sitting straighter on the car seat as if steeling her resolve to talk about her friend. “Mia was a heroin addict who came to the shelter after her boyfriend and supplier beat her badly. He threatened to kill her, saying she’d stolen drugs and money from him. She stayed for about a year, slowly getting off the drugs. Methadone first, then she managed to kick her dependence on that, too.”
“And she was a musician?” Aaron asked.
Brianna nodded. “Classically trained. One of those kids you put the right instrument into their hands and they just make it sing. Her parents own a little Asian foods store in the Asiatown area. They scrimped and saved to get Mia private lessons for the violin.”
“So she was a child prodigy?” Jaylon asked, leaning his back against the front door of the cruiser to keep an eye on the scene around them.
“No, she wasn’t one of those, but she was really quite talented. Would’ve gone far if the drugs hadn’t gotten into her life.” Brianna stopped to take another drink of water. “When she was fifteen, one of those expensive violin instructors, the one who promised her parents to get her into Juilliard, raped Mia.”
“Sonofabitch,” Aaron said, and Jalon swore something else under his breath.
“The abuse went on until she graduated high school. She began taking pain pills and managed to hide it from her parents, but her playing suffered. Surprise that, huh? And the promised Juilliard audition?” Brianna shook her head. “That never came through. Still, Mia did secure a scholarship at Case Western Reserve. The stress of college and her self-medicating on opioids took its toll on her. She dropped out after two years. Her parents disowned her, and that led her to living on the streets. When she arrived at the shelter, she had the clothes on her back and her violin.”
“No drugs?” Jaylon asked. “A heroin addict wouldn’t leave without a kit. They’d want to know they had their next fix.”
“Especially if she’d been beaten. The pain would increase her need for the drugs,” Aaron said.
Brianna nodded. “True. But Mia had already made the decision to quit. I guess when she got the courage up to leave her abuser, she’d decided to make more than one change in her life. The minute she was in the intake room, where the doctor and nurse do a physical assessment, she let them know she was an addict and asked to go on the methadone program.”
“That did take some guts,” Aaron said.
“That’s why I’m so surprised she was using again,” Brianna said. “She’d been clean for six months and her abuser was no longer a threat.”
“He was in prison?”
Brianna shook her head. “No, he was shot down in a drug deal gone bad.”
“Karma’s a bitch,” Jaylon said, and Aaron couldn’t argue with him. In his opinion, justice had been served.
“So, with him six feet under, Mia thought it was safe to leave the women’s shelter,” he said, and Brianna nodded.
“She’d planned to go back to school to get a teaching degree in music education. Paula and I actually helped her fill out her application and get her a housing scholarship near the campus. We’d meet up for lunch or breakfast every so often.” Tears filled Brianna’s eyes and she blinked hard. “After a few months though, we just lost contact with her.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” Aaron asked as gently as he could.
“The last time I met with her was a year ago. But Flora, one of the other shelter employees, said she’d run into Mia last autumn, just before the cold weather set in. So, October? She was playing her violin.”
“So, she was with one of the bands at one of the parks?” Jaylon asked.