From the back door, a Chihuahua whined and scratched.
“Shut up!” Zoey barked, sounding like she might be one gene off from the breed.
The front door suddenly flew open, ushering in, presumably, the mother. Her eyes widened as she saw Frank and Murray sitting on the sofa.
Frank stood, offering a hand. “Officer Merret. This is Detective Murray.”
She shook hands limply, then rushed to her daughter, patting the girl’s cheek as if she had a fever. “What’s wrong?”
“Get off me!” Zoey said, backing away and straightening her outfit. “I don’t know what’s going on. I just thought I should call you. This seems like the kind of thing a parent should be aware of.” Her sulky eyes seemed to drown in their own burden.
“Your name, ma’am?” Murray asked.
“Shannon Branson.”
“You’re Zoey’s mother?”
“Yes. Tell me what’s going on.”
“We’d like to ask Zoey some questions about what happened to Gabby Caldwell last night.”
“Why would she know anything about that?”
Frank heard someone else come through the front door. He assumed it was the father, but when he turned, he was taken by surprise. “Kay? What are you doing here?”
“I was with Shannon when Zoey called. She asked me to come over. Is everything okay?”
“No,” Shannon said. “No, everything is not okay. This is ridiculous. My daughter doesn’t know a thing about what happened to that girl.”
“Gabby Caldwell,” Frank said. Maybe repeating her name would help Zoey find her humanity. “That’s her name. Gabby.”
“I know who she is,” Shannon said, her eyes narrowing. “That’s not the point.”
Murray said, “Let’s all sit down and discuss this.”
Shannon and Zoey sat on the small sofa. “Why didn’t you tell them you don’t know what happened?” Shannon said.
Zoey stared at the carpet.
“Zoey?” her mother said. “Don’t be rude.”
“Look,” Murray said, “we’ll tell you what we do know, all right? Gabby thought she was being invited to a party. She snuck out of her house, joined up with a girl named Caydance Sanders. You know Caydance, correct?”
“Of course she knows Caydance. They’re best friends.”
“But Gabby wasn’t being invited to a party, was she, Zoey? Caydance took her out to the rest stop, tied her to a tree, and left her there.”
“We know Caydance Sanders! She would never do something like that!”
“Ma’am, she admitted that to us forty minutes ago. She told us the entire plan.”
“Plan?” Shannon’s gaze wandered from person to person in the room.
“Zoey, tell us how you were involved in all of this,” Murray said.
“She was not involved in this!” Shannon’s pitch was rivaling that of the frantic Chihuahua out back. “She was home all night! She was grounded, as a matter of fact, from leaving the house and from using the phone or computer.”
Frank looked at Murray, then closed his eyes and shook his head. “Wow.”
“What?” Shannon asked.
“That’s why you didn’t go untie her, right, Zoey?” Frank asked.
Even Shannon turned to her daughter, who sat on the couch, bound up with her own seeming indifference.
“Zoey?” Frank asked again.
Shannon leaned forward, touching her daughter’s knee and trying to get an angle to look at her whole face. “What happened? You were going to go save this girl? untie her?”
“Not quite,” Murray said. “The plan was to leave her out there for ten minutes, right, Zoey? Caydance took her out there, tied her up, and you were supposed to come untie her. What then? Were you going to leave her out there in her skivvies to hitchhike back home?”
“This is ridiculous! Ridiculous!” Shannon breathed.
Finally Zoey unwrapped her arms and stared at Frank. “It’s not my fault. I tried to explain to my parents I had somewhere important to be, and they didn’t care. They grounded me, and I couldn’t even call. It’s not my fault!” Her glare turned to her mother, then back down to the carpet.
Shannon sat still. The entire room quieted except for the barking and clawing at the back door. Frank glanced at Kay, trying to read her.
Shannon suddenly started babbling. “I . . . Yes, she tried to say something. . . . I didn’t understand. . . . I thought she, um . . . There was no way for us to know—”
Frank cut her off. “Did Zoey tell you that someone’s life was in danger or indicate in any way that she needed to go help Gabby?”
Shannon’s hands were moving everywhere as she attempted to sort out her words. “It’s just . . . There was a lot of yelling. She mentioned something, but I didn’t understand what she meant. I thought she was talking about hanging out with friends.”
“Did she ever mention Gabby specifically?”
Shannon shook her head slightly as if guessing what the right answer should be.
“And you knew your daughter was home all night?”
“Yes, of course. I checked on her at about eleven and she was asleep.” At the word
asleep
, Shannon stopped as if the entire thing had crashed down right in front of her.
Frank tried not to react, but they all knew how cold this was coming across.
“I think we need a lawyer,” Shannon said quietly, standing, fretting as she tried to find her cell phone in her purse.
Zoey watched her mom, then looked at Frank. “So Caydance told you all this, huh? The little rat.”
“Caydance admitted to it but didn’t come to us. Someone else gave us a tip that led us to save Gabby. If that wouldn’t have happened, Gabby would be dead right now.”
“Whatever.” Zoey sighed.
“Shut up!” Shannon screamed, leaning down to her daughter’s face. “Don’t say anything else!” She clutched the girl’s chin in her trembling hand.
Frank got up, not sure what was about to happen next. “Ma’am, please. Just calm down. Yelling is not going to solve anything.”
“Weird,” Zoey quipped. “That’s what she’s always saying.”
Shannon stood upright, put her hand over her mouth, shook her head. Then she said, “You’ve got it all wrong. This is just circumstantial evidence.”
“Not anymore, ma’am. Your daughter confessed.”
Frank turned to find Kay in this madness, but the front door was wide open and she was gone.
20
Kay swerved into her driveway, her tires peeling rubber against the concrete. She grabbed the keys out of the ignition and threw the door open. She didn’t bother closing it as she ran to the front door, the quickest way into the house. It was locked. Her hands shook as she tried to insert the key. Four attempts later, it slid in and she swung the door open. Punching in the alarm code, she hurried to the kitchen.
Kay dropped the keys on the counter, trying to catch her breath.
Jenna sat at the kitchen bar, slouched over a bowl of cereal. She glanced up as Kay practically dived through the room. “Mom? You look scared. I got your note. I knew where you were. It’s okay; calm down. Omelets just didn’t sound good.”
Kay shook her head, but no words would come out. She tried to compose herself, taking deep breaths.
Jenna watched her, a spoonful of cereal hovering over her bowl. “Mom?”
Kay took one final deep breath. Her hands were still shaking, but she couldn’t help that at the moment. She tried a calm, motherly smile as she slid onto the barstool next to her daughter. “Honey . . .” Her eyes stung with tears, and she knew Jenna hated seeing her cry.
“Gabby’s safe, remember? Everything’s okay.”
“No, everything is not okay. I need to tell you that . . . I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Jenna kept staring at her but shoved some cereal in her mouth.
“I understand now.”
“Understand?”
“Caydance, Zoey . . . they are horrible, horrible girls.”
What had earlier been an uninterested expression vanished. A bundle of new expressions flashed over Jenna’s face. Kay knew she’d struck a chord.
“I sat there and told you that you should try to be friends with these girls. You tried to tell me, and I didn’t listen to you. I didn’t. All I could see was what I wanted for you.” Kay wiped the tears that had dripped down her own cheeks. She looked directly into Jenna’s eyes and held her gaze. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Jenna stared for a moment, every feature on her face frozen. Kay started to say something else, but the next thing she knew, Jenna grabbed her around the neck and cried. Hard. Almost wailing.
Kay gripped her as tightly as she could, held her, wishing she could swaddle her and rock her and sing to her like she used to. Instead, she stroked the back of her head over and over, rocking her body back and forth just a little. Jenna laid her head on Kay’s shoulder and didn’t budge.
***
Frank spotted him immediately and trekked through the middle of the park until he reached the bench that his friend sat on. Damien didn’t even look over as Frank plopped himself down, his belt and all its contents rattling against the cold wood.
“Hey,” Damien said. He looked like he was staring at clouds.
“Hey.”
Damien sighed and finally glanced at him. “Busy morning?”
“We caught the suspects in the kidnapping.”
“I figured,” Damien said, holding his phone up and inspecting it. “Edgar has now texted me eight times and called five. Breaking news.”
“Ah. Probably got tipped off from the department. Nobody can keep their mouth shut around there.” Frank adjusted his belt to sit more comfortably around his waist. “Two high school girls did it.” He faced Damien, who continued to stare upward. “Did you hear me?”
Damien nodded as if it were too much effort to speak.
Frank studied his friend for a moment. Damien looked forlorn, withdrawn, way too interested in the clouds.
A moment of silence passed; then Damien said, “I think I’m having . . .” His voice trailed off as if he couldn’t find the right words.
“Leg cramps?”
“No.”
“A gallbladder attack?”
“Huh-uh.”
“A nervous breakdown?”
“That’s it.”
Frank grabbed Damien’s shoulder. “Did you buy some expensive item you can’t afford?”
“No.”
“Are you cheating on Kay?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you been thinking about how to fake your own death?”
“No,” Damien said.
Frank smiled. “Then you’re fine.”
“I’m not fine. I can’t get off this bench. I can’t get myself to go back to work.”
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t know. This town, what’s happening. I’m a second-generation Marlo citizen. I always relished the quietness of this town. But it wasn’t quiet, was it? It was just hidden.”
Frank sat. Listening. That’s all he could do.
Damien turned to him, his gaze hard and unmoving. “It’s not you, is it?”
“What?”
“You’re not the one listening to everyone’s conversations, are you?”
Did Frank hear that right? “Me? Why would you think it’s me?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Of course it’s not me!” Frank stood, backing away from the bench. “How could you even think that?”
Damien shook his head, motioned for Frank to sit back down, which he did. “Sorry. Of course it’s not you. See what’s happening to me?”
“We’re all stressed. It’s normal. And people handle stress differently.” Not usually by accusing their friends, but he should let this pass. Obviously Damien wasn’t in his right mind.
“You seem on edge lately. Just kind of acting weird.” Damien stared at the clouds again.
Frank swallowed back a few words that wanted to escape . . . a confession he had told only one other soul.
But then Damien said, “The thing is, everyone’s acting weird. You should see Edgar. With every bad piece of news, he’s popping champagne corks. Kay’s becoming ultraobsessed with every piece of clothing our daughter wears. My coworkers make paranoia look like a new trend. It’s getting ridiculous.”
“This kind of thing, what’s happening here, it’s what gets me up in the morning. It’s my job. I fight crime.”
“I’m in the news business. It should be what gets me up in the morning too.” Damien gazed at the open expanse of the park. “Marlo Park. Lame name. We should’ve come up with something different.” He faced Frank. “I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it.”
“What?”
“It’s not just about the incident last night. There are other things on my mind.” Damien pressed his lips together as if he were holding in a mouthful of words. “If Hunter comes and talks to you, that’s cool, okay? I think he’s into some things—some things he shouldn’t be into, some things he can’t talk to me about. You’re like an uncle to the kids, and that’s good. I wish Hunter could talk to me, but if he can’t, I want him to talk to you. I didn’t want you to feel weird about it.” His phone vibrated and lit up. He read the screen, then stood. “Got to go to work.”
“What’d the message say?”
Damien turned his phone for Frank to read.
Get here or you’re fired
. Then he walked to his car.
Frank sat there for a moment, contemplating, when he noticed a man standing by a distant tree, seemingly watching him. He thought the man would eventually look away. Instead, he began walking toward Frank.
When he was a few yards away, Frank recognized him as Gabriella’s father, Reverend Caldwell.
Frank rose as he approached. “What are you doing out here?”
“Praying.”
“You have a lot to be thankful for.”
“And a lot to be worried about. Bad things are happening in this town, Officer Merret. You see, don’t you?”
“Yes. Of course. And let me assure you that we’re doing everything—”
“Nothing can stop it.”
“Stop it?”
“In one breath it praises our Lord God Almighty. In another it curses the very thing made in His image.”
Frank nodded, feeling the reality of Caldwell’s heavy, somber words. The two men stood for a moment. Then Frank patted him on the back. There was nothing more to say. They understood each other and understood far more than that.
***
“Merret! Wake up!”