The Other Daughter by Lisa Gardner Page B

she looked at once vulnerable and pensive. She looked lovely, David thought. Then he shook the thought away.
    “We have a few more questions. You ready?”
    “I made my brother cry.”
    “He's a big boy. He'll get over it.”
    “There is a shrine to a murdered child in my bedroom.” Her voice rose a notch. “It's in my head, David. Dear God, it's in my head.”
    She pressed her forehead against the window, as if the contact might chase the images from her mind. She took a deep breath, then another. Her hands were shaking. David watched her weather the storm and didn't do a thing. After another minute she pushed herself away from the window and squared her shoulders.
    “Well,” she said briskly in that tone of voice he'd come to know well, “what's done is done. Detective Chenney will take care of everything and let me know what he learns?”
    “He'll send the evidence to the lab. See what comes up.”
    “Like fingerprints, right?”
    David arched a brow. “There won't be any fingerprints.”
    “You don't know that—”
    “Come on. This guy spent hours staging a scene. He's not going to make a mistake that obvious.”
    She looked deflated for a minute, then bounced back stubbornly. “Well, the detective will learn something.”
    “Maybe. Look, if you want answers, let's start right now. Lab work isn't everything. Most info comes from interviews, and we have just a few questions for you.”
    “You mean Detective Chenney has some questions.”
    “Sure, you can wait for Chenney, but he's gonna be in your room for at least an hour. By then it'll be six, your mom could be home anytime …I don't think you want to have this discussion then.”
    “Oh.”
    David pushed the advantage, not wanting to give her time to think. He strode forward brusquely. “We'll start with the standard drill. Get through it all in a jiffy.”
    Melanie still looked hesitant, but in the face of his curt determination, she finally nodded.
    “We got a pretty good idea how the person got into the house,” David stated. “Now we need to know why and we need to know who.”
    Melanie shook her head. “Other than Larry Digger, I have no idea who would connect my family with Russell Lee Holmes after all these years. My parents don't discuss Texas much.”
    “Why not?”
    She gave him an exasperated look. “I imagine because it hurts like hell.”
    “Twenty years later?”
    “Hey, Mr. Reese, when your daughter is kidnapped and murdered, you can get over it in twenty years. My parents haven't.”
    David grunted, sufficiently chastised. “Fine. Let's start with the altar, then — it tells us a few things. For starters, this was an intimate act. Not just in your house, but in your bedroom. Not just in your bedroom, but at the foot of your bed. Then there are the items themselves. The pony and scrap of fabric that appear to be from Meagan Stokes, the first daughter. That seems to be a very deliberate slight against you, the second daughter. Then there is the use of scented candles. Do you know much about the olfactory senses, Melanie?”
    “You mean other than to smell?”
    “There's more to it than that. The sense of smell is directly wired to the limbic system, which is one of the oldest parts of the brain. An important part of the brain too. It's the part that helps you love and helps you hate. And” — he looked her in the eye — “it helps you
remember
. Exposing someone to a strong fragrance linked with a certain time or place is one of the most effective ways to evoke a memory.”
    He saw that Melanie grasped his meaning immediately, because she sat down hard on her brother's bed. “The gardenias, the flashbacks. It was planned, wasn't it? Shit. It was
exactly
what the person wanted.” She suddenly sounded furious. “I will not be manipulated in my own house. I will not!”
    David regarded her curiously. “Did you say flashbacks? As in more than one?”
    She looked cornered. “Fine, fine, I'd been starting to see little