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Sabra was all anyone could talk about. And it wasn’t just to Emily. As she carried her tray through the cafeteria, snippets of conversation came to her.
“So she left with the guy who knocked her up? What’s the big deal?”
“She just wants attention.” That was a girl’s voice, and Emily knew her. She was being spiteful, because she liked being center stage. “Nobody was interested anymore. I mean, she was pregnant. We all knew that. So she had to do something.”
Emily was really tempted to trip and, oh oops, drop her tray on Belle Whitmore’s head. The Taco Surprise looked gross anyway. She could get something out of the machine instead.
But she never actually did the stuff she wanted to. Sabra could have done it and made everyone laugh. Emily knew she’d turn bright red, mumble apologies and slink away. She just wanted to blend in, to follow the rules.
So she kept going, finding a seat at a table of kids she knew from Drama Club. They were talking about Sabra, too, but they were almost done with their lunches, so after only a few minutes, she had the table to herself.
Mostly her food got cold in front of her while she tried to think.
She just didn’t understand. Sabra had her phone, so why wasn’t she answering it? Why did calls go straight to voice mail? They were friends. It hurt that she wouldn’t at least take Emily’s calls. Or even just text her. And explain.
Emily stared into space. Why hadn’t she tried harder to find out who the guy was? She so shouldn’t have covered for Sabra to meet some guy without knowing his name. But since Emily had helped her, why would Sabra have taken off like this without warning her?
And something she wondered but hadn’t heard anyone else say was, shouldn’t he be missing, too? If Sabra had taken off, her boyfriend must have, too. Right? If he went to school, or had a job, wouldn’t people notice he was gone? So why wasn’t someone saying?
She could pretend to have cramps today so she could get out of running, which she hated anyway. She’d done it before, and would be sent to the office to help make copies or collate handouts. If she had even a minute to herself, she bet she could find the attendance records in the computer. She’d look especially for a boy who’d been absent for three days now. And then she could maybe do some asking around.
Because, really, despite this voice in the back of her head she didn’t want to hear, some guy at the high school was likeliest, right? There had to be a good reason why Sabra wouldn’t name him. Last night, while Emily was trying to sleep, she’d suddenly thought, What if it was Dominic? Sabra knew Emily had a thing for him, so there was a good reason for her not to say, Um, see, it wasn’t you he was smiling at.
Except... Dominic was here today. She knew that for sure.
Anyway, attendance records gave her a place to start. Emily didn’t know how she’d find out anything about community college students, or any guys who’d already graduated and were working now.
And the other thought she’d had? It was so freaky, she just wanted to forget it.
Her gaze lifted to the big clock on the wall, and she gasped. The cafeteria was practically empty except for the lunch ladies with their hairnets. Metal banged in the kitchen. Emily jumped up and scraped her lunch into the garbage before bussing her tray and rushing to her locker.
* * *
“A FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD girl is smarter than you, huh?”
Mid-afternoon Tuesday, Jack lifted his gaze from his monitor to see that his friend and fellow detective John Troyer had paused by his desk. They were close to the same age and had joined the department within a year of each other. Troy had grown up in Frenchman Lake and decided, after a few years with Seattle PD, to come home. Jack’s choice of Frenchman Lake had been a little more random.
At the moment, Troy’s amusement was apparent. He’d been smart enough not to raise his hand to volunteer for this wild-goose chase.
Jack groaned and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head and stretching until he heard bones crack. “Looks that way.”
“Good going with the carjacker, by the way.”
He grimaced. “I can’t claim any brilliant detective work. The girlfriend handed the asshole to me as a gift.”
Troy shrugged. “You’d have gotten his fingerprints out of the car anyway. Not a real smart criminal.”
“He didn’t intend to touch anything. I watched the surveillance tape. He was damn careful to push the door open with his shoulder going in. Didn’t pick anything up. Pulled his gun right away. If all had gone as planned, he’d have grabbed up his bag of cash and exited the same way. Too bad for him he lost his cool when his girlfriend decided she didn’t want any part of a holdup.”
Troy’s expression hardened. “Guys like him have shit for impulse control. Or, at least, that’s one excuse for what he did to her.”
They saw a lot of domestic violence, however peaceful the town of Frenchman Lake appeared on the surface. They didn’t often see anything as sustained and cruel as what the scumbag had done to Robin Buckley. “Heard the victim woke up,” Troy mentioned.
“Thank God. The doctors were getting worried. Looks like she’ll be okay. She’s a department secretary at Wakefield, and her husband is a prof. The college president put me on speed dial. I’ll be glad to get him off my back.”
“I know him,” Troy said, a little drily, reminding Jack that Troy had solved a very cold case involving the college, probably earning that same president’s eternal gratitude. And that Troy’s wife, Madison, was the alumni relations director at the college.
Some yelling was taking place a few desks away. Both men glanced that way to be sure they weren’t needed, then tuned out the racket. Jack sighed.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about the missing girl.” He wished he had enough information to bounce ideas off Troy, but the truth was, so far he’d come up empty. “I’ve tried pinging her phone, and it’s dead.”
Troy’s eyebrows shot up. “A teenager?”
That said it all.
Troy stood looking down at him for another thirty seconds or so, then tapped his desk, said, “Let me know if I can do anything,” and walked out. He was probably heading off to interview adults instead of sixteen-year-olds with their own language and a built-in suspicion of authority.
How well Jack remembered. Would he have been straight with some cop who’d come to his high school to ask questions? He honestly didn’t know.
Right now, he went back to his search for the absent Mr. Lee. His identity and location were probably irrelevant—but any competent investigator would want to eliminate him as a player in the girl’s disappearance.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FIRST WORDS out of Emily’s mouth when she burst in the door were, “Did you hear anything?”
Meg quit turning the handle of her Fraser cutter, clamped to the edge of the table. She’d tried to concentrate on some patterns she was working out but found it impossible. At least cutting the wool garments she’d recently bought at garage sales and thrift stores into usable strips was something. It had to be done, and the task was so routine for her, she had been able to work on autopilot. Which left her plenty of time to worry and brood. Sabra’s pregnancy had stirred up too many memories for Meg, and she was finding she’d blanked out a lot of her own pregnancy and the first few years of Emily’s life. Watching the beginnings of a replay was...not pleasant. She supposed she’d been trying to change Sabra’s path, be the person she wished had been in her own life when she’d needed someone.
It would appear her attempt had been a complete failure. “Nothing,” she said now to Emily’s question, all the tension she felt in her voice. “Not a word from Sabra’s mom or the police or anyone.”
Eyes big and anxious, Emily kept hovering in the doorway, bag still slung over her shoulder. “Didn’t that CPS worker show up?”
“Yes, but it turned out she didn’t even know the police were involved yet.”
“She didn’t think you’d done anything wrong, did she?” In a typical swing of the teenage pendulum, Emily sounded mad that anyone would accuse her mother of wrongdoing.
Meg managed a smile of sorts. “No, I don’t think she did. We had a pleasant conversation, and I agreed to consult her when Sabra’s home again.”
“Oh.” Emily chewed on her lower lip. “I keep trying her phone, but it isn’t even on. Her phone is always on!”
“Did you check Facebook?”
“Of course.”
“Email?”
Her daughter gave her the look. “Who uses email?”
Meg had only a business Facebook page. What did she know? “Can she send something completely private just to you on any social media site?”
“Well, yeah, but...” Emily whirled and raced for the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll check again now.”
The doorbell rang.
Meg’s heart took an unpleasant lurch. The doorbell had come to mean bad news. Friends called—they didn’t just show up. Even Emily’s friends called first.
A thunder of footsteps heralded Emily’s return from the kitchen, but Meg beat her to the door. Seeing the unmarked police SUV in her driveway out the window, she knew. It had to be him.
Scared to death, she flung open the door.
Detective Moore looked surprised at what he saw on her face, and he couldn’t have missed seeing Emily, too, hovering behind Meg.
“I don’t know anything new,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
She let out her breath with a wheeze—or was it a whimper?—and grabbed the door frame for support. “Oh, God. I thought—”
“I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it. “Uh...may I come in?”
“Oh. Yes, of course.” Meg retreated, Emily doing the same but sticking close. If she’d still been a toddler, she would have grabbed hold of her mommy’s leg and been sneaking peeks at this stranger.
“Emily.” He nodded at her daughter and followed them into the living room. There, he gave off the vibe that he was a little uncomfortable. Was it because he had hoped to tell her something he didn’t want Emily to hear?
This time, when Meg offered him a cup of coffee, he accepted.
“Sugar? Cream?”
“Just black.”
“Emily, would you mind pouring a couple of cups?” she asked. “There’s a pot on. You know how I like mine.”
A flash of rebellion showed, but the teenager shrugged and left the living room.
“Please, sit,” Meg said.
“Ah...” He glanced warily at the sofa and moved toward an armchair. She chose her usual rocker.
“Did you hear from CPS?” he asked in a low voice.
That was what he didn’t want Emily to hear?
“Yes, and a social worker came by this morning.”
“It go okay?”
Was he really interested or just trying to maneuver onto her good side now?
Deciding to take his question at face value, she said, “Yes, the woman seemed nice and, unless I misinterpreted her, didn’t believe I’d done anything wrong taking Sabra in. We did agree to talk once Sabra is home.”
“Good.” His broad shoulders relaxed. “The principal came on a little strong, I thought.”
Was he supposed to tell her things like that? Or, once again, was he trying to—
Meg made herself stop. Spinning in circles, trying to decide what everyone’s true agenda was, could make her crazy. And it wasn’t like her.
“I guess you could tell I was mad,” she admitted.
A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You’re right. I could.”
Emily appeared, a suspicious gaze aimed at the detective. “Um...here,” she said, less than graciously, plunking down a mug on the side table next to him. She brought Meg hers, then stood there looking stubborn.
“I’d like you to hear this, too, Emily,” he said.
She reached out and grabbed Meg’s hand. They held on tight. He’d lied when he said he didn’t have anything new. His expression right now had her pulse picking up again.
He looked at Emily. “Please be honest with me. Have you heard anything at all from Sabra since Friday morning? Phone message, text, a secondhand message?”
She shook her head vehemently. “I’ve been calling and calling, but her phone’s off.”
“It’s not just off, Emily.” His deep voice was gentle. “I’m guessing it’s been destroyed.”
“You mean, like, she dropped it or something?” Emily didn’t sound as if even she believed it had been a simple accident.
“It’s possible.” There was the unexpected kindness again. His chocolate-brown eyes met Meg’s briefly. “If she dropped it on the street, a car could have run over it. If it went in the lake, that wouldn’t be good for anything electronic. Who knows? I’m finding it worrisome, though. I’d think she would want to stay connected.”
“Emily was just telling me that Sabra never turned her phone off,” Meg heard herself say.
“Most kids don’t.”
“Aren’t you looking for her?” Emily burst out.
“I am, in a roundabout way. I can’t search physically until I have some idea where to look.” He sounded as if he had all the time in the world to answer her questions. “I’ve been talking to students, teachers, Sabra’s mom. I even talked to her little sister today.”
“Sabra really missed Bryony,” Emily said.
Meg hadn’t known that.
“I was hoping Sabra had told her things she hadn’t told anyone else, but it seems not,” he said. “This is a puzzle to me, because I’m getting the feeling Sabra was usually...” He seemed to be searching for the right word. “Outgoing. Open with her emotions.” More slowly, his gaze keen on Emily’s face, he said, “Maybe even had trouble hiding what she was thinking or feeling.”
For a moment, Emily stood silent, her forehead crinkling as if she didn’t get what he was saying. Then she dropped her mother’s hand, a glare that could have started a grass fire aimed at him. “You think I know who he is, don’t you? That Sabra couldn’t keep it to herself. Well, you’re wrong. Okay? She didn’t tell me!”
Tears already brimming in her eyes, she raced from the living room and tore up the stairs as impetuously as Sabra had the last time Meg tried to get her to see sense.
After a discernible pause, the detective said, “Well, that went well.”
Meg’s laugh broke. “But oh, so familiar.”
“She does that when you talk to her, too, huh?”
“We’ve always been so close. Then, this last year, she jumps on anything I say.” She backtracked. “No, that isn’t true. I get glimpses of the Emily I know, but the next second she’ll be yelling at me because I treat her like a little kid. I never wanted to be the kind of parent who—” She made a face. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear this. You’re here about Sabra, not—”
“I don’t mind.” His expression was kind...no, more. It was...she couldn’t quite decide, but it sent her pulse thrumming for a different reason. “I’m pretty good at listening.”
Because it was his job, she reminded herself, trying to resist the tug of this unfamiliar attraction. She bet he was really good at getting people to spill their worries and, yes, secrets.
Even so, she started talking, because he was here and offering. “She’s always accusing me of lying to her. Just lately, she’s become convinced I wished she’d never been born.” Oh, boy. She shouldn’t have told him that. But he looked sympathetic, so her stupid mouth kept flapping. “The irony is she’s gotten pretty good at lying to me.” And she shouldn’t have said that, either, not after she’d assured him the other day that she could tell when Emily was lying.
His eyebrows rose. “About?”
“Oh, you know about the party last week. Right to my face, she told me they were making a video for Spanish class with another girl. Maria Espinosa. Did you talk to her?”
“I did.”
“I gave permission for them to spend the night at Maria’s. I could call her mom if I wanted, Emily said, as casual as could be. No, I trust you, I said. Of course, she and Sabra had intended all along to go to that party instead. Maria may have known about it—I don’t know—but she stayed home. I talked to Mrs. Espinosa. There’d never been any plan for them to spend the night.”
“You think it might have been Sabra’s idea.”
“Sabra claimed Emily had wanted to go because some boy she likes was there.” Feeling helpless, she shook her head. “I actually think I believe her. I just never expected—”
Jack Moore smiled at her. “Your kid to turn into a teenager? Come on—didn’t you go wild when you were her age?”
Meg shook her head. “In a way, but I never defied my parents right to their faces. I wouldn’t have dared. I suppose that’s why—”
“You wanted a different kind of relationship with your own daughter.”
She stared at him. He understood, at least on the surface.
His phone must be on vibrate, because he took it from a pocket and looked to see who was calling. An intense expression came and went on his face so fast, she couldn’t pin it down. Then he put the phone away and looked at her again, eyes flat.
“If your daughter lied successfully to your face, why are you so sure she isn’t lying about Sabra?”
Didn’t it figure he’d pounced right on the contradiction she’d admitted to him. Something cool in the way he was looking at her suggested all that friendly understanding had been thrown in to soften her up. So much for letting down her guard. They were not friends.
But this was important, and he had to ask. She took a minute to examine her feelings.
“When I thought back,” she said slowly, “after the lie about where they were going that evening, I realize how elaborately casual she was. Plus, saying I could call Maria’s mother if I wanted should have been a flashing red light. Usually she’s really touchy about me checking up on her. Now that I think back, there have been a few other times, too. It was so obvious.” She was embarrassed to have been so gullible. “As far as the stuff with Sabra goes, Emily isn’t an actor. She likes behind-the-scenes with the drama club, but has never tried out for a part. I don’t believe she could fake all the anxiety and fear she seems to be feeling.”
He watched her, evaluating every word that came out of her mouth and undoubtedly coming to his own conclusions. He finally gave an abrupt nod. “I see what you mean.” Lines formed between his eyebrows. “Occurs to me, though, that it doesn’t take any acting to not tell you something.”
No. Some things she refused to believe. Emily might be emotionally volatile, but she was responsible.
“I trust her.” Meg couldn’t allow any other possibility. “She is scared for Sabra. Why wouldn’t she tell us if she knew anything?”
He nodded, his gaze never leaving her face. He made her self-conscious in a way she didn’t remember ever feeling. Because he represented authority? No authority had ever done her any good. She’d had to save herself. What’s more, self-employment meant she rarely had to answer to anyone. But...she didn’t think who or what he represented had much to do with her feeling off balance. He shook her up on a much more personal level, because of the way he watched her, the gleam she sometimes saw in his eyes.
Men had looked at her that way before, but she’d never felt any reciprocal interest. Zip. This...tingle of excitement was unsettling in and of itself. Never mind the way he blew hot and cold.
“Do you mind my asking what you do for a living?” he said abruptly, yanking her from her uneasy reverie.
“I consider myself an artisan,” she said a little stiffly. “I hook rugs.”
Was she imagining that his lip curled? She couldn’t tell, because his gaze flicked to the pillows scattered on the sofa before resting on the sheepdog near his feet. “Like that one.”
“Yes.”
“Hook?”
She gave a very short explanation of the technique.
“You can make enough to live on doing that?” He sounded incredulous.
“If you work hard enough and market your product effectively.” With her crispness, she hoped she conveyed that, yes, it was work.
“Like arts and crafts fairs?” Disbelief and the faintest hint of scorn sounded in his voice.
Stung, she wouldn’t have explained at all if she wasn’t painfully aware he was investigating her right along with the girl who’d gone missing under her care.
So she said calmly, “I still do a few of those, but being on the road like that isn’t very practical when you’re raising a child.” Once upon a time, Emily had loved helping her at summer festivals. “I sell through a number of galleries and gift shops. Increasingly, most of my sales come from my shop on Etsy and my own website. Additionally, I design my own patterns—everything I do is original—and sell kits made from them. I’ve also licensed a couple of patterns, which means women in China or Bangladesh hook hundreds or thousands of the exact same rug that is then sold through a catalog or in stores. Those are very profitable.” She wasn’t about to tell him about the offers she’d declined, when she doubted the quality of the company’s products. He could think what he wanted about her. “I’m putting together a proposal for a book right now.”
His expression had become unreadable, another good reason not to trust him too much. His current stare annoyed her. She stared right back, afraid her chin had lifted in a subtle challenge.
If so, he didn’t react to that, either. His jaw did tighten. When he finally broke the silence, he managed to take her by surprise.
“Tell me what you know about Sabra’s father.”
* * *
JACK WAS IN a foul mood by the time he left Meg Harper’s house. Déjà vu. Mostly he was angry at himself. He’d stayed too long, let the conversation veer into irrelevancies. For minutes at a time, he’d let himself forget why he was there, and he couldn’t afford that.
He stalked across her unkempt lawn and swung himself into his department-issue SUV.
The woman was still a cross between a suspect, an informant and a witness. He couldn’t yet rule out the possibility that she had a role in Sabra’s disappearance. He sure as hell hadn’t been able to prove she’d driven the girl to school the way she claimed.
From her glorious hair to eyes that betrayed her every thought to her ripe curves and quick movements, she did it for him physically, big-time; he couldn’t deny that. So what? He’d already made his decision. Beyond the purely physical, she was the absolute last kind of woman he’d want to get involved with.
With a snort, he fired up the engine. An artisan! And she’d said it with a straight face. What she did was a craft. One with a folk art charm, sure—but to call it work? Glorifying the pretty rugs she made gave her an excuse to play instead of keeping other commitments.
Something like anger roared through him. With a real job, she might be able to buy a decent car or get some work done on her house. Was “hooking” rugs going to pay for her kid’s college education? Or was she capable of thinking that far ahead?
She was pretty damned emotional, too, her eyes getting moist because her daughter was acting like every other fifteen-year-old in existence did. Who was she kidding?
Backing out of the driveway, he continued to brood over the woman he’d just left.
Yeah, she’d done a generous thing, taking in a troubled kid just because she was a friend of her daughter. The impulse was good, even if the execution had been as slapdash as he suspected everything else she did. She’d gotten nothing in writing. Letting the authorities know she had the girl? Why would she want to do that?
What annoyed Jack most was how she aroused his protective instincts. He’d had her on his mind all day, worrying about how hard the Child Protective Services worker would come down on her. He had flinched to see the pain in her eyes as her daughter flung angry words.
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He would have to step carefully with her. Avoiding her would be best, but that probably wouldn’t be possible, if only because he couldn’t lean too heavily on Emily without her mother’s presence or permission.
And lean he would. Emily was key. If she didn’t know what was going on with Sabra, she suspected. Despite her mother’s denials, he’d put money on it. And, for no good reason, his gut was telling him that the pregnant girl was in trouble, if not already dead.