Damien considered the slow-drifting wispy clouds. That was the Marlo he knew and loved, pure and innocent, floating high above messy humanity. But when he closed his eyes, all he saw was a terrified young girl, shivering in the cold, calling out for help. Swirling from the harsh north wind were the angry words of this town, words jumbled with other words, whispers, indecencies. Behind the walls of every home and around every dark corner, gossip waited for its cue; its mad dogs were on the hunt for prey.
He had to stop this craziness. But how? Who was behind all this? And did it have anything to do with Gabby? Had the person hiding in the darkness of cyberspace come out in the blackness of night to strike in a new and evil way?
His phone vibrated in his pocket, indicating he had a text message. It was from Edgar: Get back now. Breaking news.
Frank and Murray sat on an enormous leather couch that dominated an already-impressive living room. Zoey Branson stood nearby, her arms crossed, doing something with her bright pink phone. Her hair was swept high in a ponytail, and her makeup sparkled like she was headed to a disco.
Frank found himself staring at the sixty-two-inch TV. He felt like throwing himself sideways on the couch, grabbing the remote, and counting their cable channels. Instead, he looked at the nine-foot Christmas tree weighed down by festive bling.
Marlo had always had a decent number of upper middle-class citizens. If they weren’t really rich, nobody knew. There was a certain kind of house you wanted to keep, a certain kind of lifestyle you had to live. It never seemed dangerous or excessive. It wasn’t by any means Frank’s cup of tea. He lived in a small, two-bedroom wood frame house that was built in 1942. But he never minded the people with more wealth. He was not bothered by having less. He had responsibilities, and those were his priorities that he would never, ever give up.
Yet now, sitting in this room, he couldn’t help but feel engulfed by status. Genuine oil paintings hung on three out of the four walls. Besides the enormous television set that could rival the local movie theater, there were the leather furniture, the Persian rug, the enormous chandelier. For a house this size, it seemed cram-packed with overstated luxury.
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.”