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  Laura straightened and pointed to a patch of earth near the mailbox. “Right there, next to the mailbox. I was leaving for work and I blew the horn as I drove past her and Seth. She was looking down at her phone.” Laura stopped to wipe a tear from her face. “She didn’t even look up to wave goodbye. I don’t know who she was texting, but she didn’t…she just ignored the horn.”

  Amy strode to the mailbox and squatted to get a closer look at the ground. There were no divots in the grass. No drops of blood. No signs of a struggle. Nothing that would indicate she had been carried away.

  “How were you getting along with her?” Amy asked when she straightened.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Laura pushed a tuft of brown hair streaked with blonde out of her eyes. “Are you saying this is my fault?”

  “No, ma’am.” Amy lifted a hand for emphasis. “Not at all. I’m simply trying to ascertain her state of mind at the time of her disappearance.”

  “Well, she was fine.” Laura sniffled. “We might have gotten into a little argument, but things were fine when she walked out of the house for school. She acted like she always did—she walked Seth to the road and stood there waiting for him to get on his bus. Once he boarded the bus, she stayed out there waiting for her bus to come along. They’re usually about thirty minutes apart.”

  “Did you see her bus drive by?”

  “No. It usually comes along several minutes after I leave for work, so I never see Rose get on it. I mean, she’s never missed school before. I didn’t think it would be a problem, you know?”

  Amy jotted down some notes and asked Laura who else lived in the house with them.

  “Other than Seth and Rose, it’s just my husband, Ronnie, and me. We’ve been living here since we were married and before we had kids. This is the only house the kids have ever known.”

  “How old is Seth?”

  “Eleven.”

  Amy glanced toward the house. “Are your husband and Seth home? Our chief of detectives will want to question them.”

  “Yeah, they’re inside.” Laura indicated with her head toward the house. “Ronnie is calling all of Rose’s friends and going through her room looking for her cell phone, but I’m sure she took it with her. I’m positive I saw her on it while she was waiting for the bus.”

  “What’s Seth doing?”

  Laura waved her hand. “He’s probably playing one of those damn video games.”

  “Does he know about Rose?”

  “He knows something’s up, because I asked him if he saw her when he got home from school and he began asking where she was. When I didn’t tell him, he started to get suspicious.”

  “What did he say when you asked if he’d seen her this afternoon?”

  “He said the last time he saw her was when he got on the bus this morning.” There was sadness in Laura’s eyes.

  “Did you try calling Rose’s phone?” Amy asked softly.

  “A dozen times. Ronnie told me to wait a while between calls so I don’t wear down the battery.”

  Amy was thoughtful as she drummed her pen against the top of her notepad. She was about to ask another question when she heard a vehicle approaching from the north. From the sound of the whistling of the wind against the vehicle’s antennas, she could tell it was approaching at a high rate of speed. She glanced in that direction and saw that it was a black Tahoe with dark tinted windows. It was Clint Wolf.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Lindsey, this is Clint,” I called out over my radio. “I’m arriving at the scene.”

  After parking my unmarked Tahoe on the shoulder of the road in front of 4923 Old Blackbird Highway, I stepped out and walked toward Amy Cooke and the missing child’s mother. According to our daytime dispatcher at the Mechant Loup Police Department, Lindsey Savoie, the mother’s name was Laura Murdock.

  The sun had dipped behind the distant trees and long shadows stretched across the front yard. I stuck out my hand when I reached Amy and Laura.

  “Mrs. Murdock? I’m Clint Wolf. I’m a detective with the Mechant Loup Police Department and we’re going to work hard to find your daughter.”

  Laura, who was a thin woman, placed a bony and cold hand in mine. “Please bring my baby back to me,” she said in a voice that cracked. “I don’t know what I’ll do if…”

  Laura’s voice trailed off and she sighed heavily.

  “We’ll do everything we can.” I glanced toward the house. “If you like, I can meet with you inside just as soon as I speak with Officer Cooke. I’ll have some questions for you and your family, and I’ll want a recent photograph of Rose so we can put it out to the surrounding agencies and to the media right away.”

  Laura’s eyes had clouded over, but she pursed her lips in an attempt to be strong. Nodding, she said, “I can get you a picture, but I don’t have one printed out. They’re on my phone.”

  “That’s fine.” I smiled to reassure her, and then turned to Amy when Laura walked off and disappeared through the front door of her house. “Lindsey said the girl’s been missing since early this morning.”

  “Yeah.” Amy shot a thumb toward a nearby mailbox. “She was standing there waiting for the bus when her mom left for work. It’s the last time she was seen—that we know of. She never made it to school, so she must’ve disappeared before the bus passed.”

  I rubbed my chin. It was stubbly and I made a mental note to shave my face before Susan began fussing about it. While she never turned down a kiss from me, she preferred it when my face was smooth, which was something I’d never known until recently. We’d been together for over two years—married for eight months of that time—and she’d only told me last week that she didn’t like the prickly stub.

  “Why haven’t you told me this before?” I had asked. “I’ve been rubbing my sandpaper on you for two years and you never once complained.”

  She had simply shrugged and rubbed her belly, which was starting to show nicely at twenty-two weeks pregnant. “I guess my face is more sensitive to it now.”

  I hated to shave but I loved her more, so I had immediately found a razor and had gone to work—

  “What are you thinking?” Amy asked, bringing me back to the present case. “Do you have any thoughts yet about what happened?”

  “What we know for sure is this: Rose was either taken from here, lured away, or she left of her own volition. We just have to figure out which one it was.” I waved my right hand in a semi-circle, encompassing the front yard. “Since she was last seen in this area, it’s a crime scene and we need to secure it and get a dog out here.”

  “You think foul play is involved?” Amy’s voice was hesitant, as though she didn’t want to know the answer. I didn’t want to say what I was thinking out loud—which was that foul play was most likely involved—so I just shrugged.

  “Do you mind stringing up some tape and calling Gretchen Verdin?” I asked. Gretchen was a K-9 sergeant with the Chateau Parish Sheriff’s Office. She was three-quarters Chitimacha Indian and possessed uncanny tracking abilities. Some would argue she was a better tracker than her canine partner, a large German shepherd named Geronimo, and I was one of those people. “I want to get inside and interview the family.”

  Amy nodded and pulled out her phone, but then froze. “Oh, Clint, I get the sense that Laura and Rose were fighting.”

  “Did Laura say something about it?”

  “She mentioned something about Rose not waving back at her when she left for work and when I asked her about it, she got defensive.”

  I nodded and strode up the sidewalk. When I reached the concrete porch, I knocked on the door and turned to watch Amy. She was pulling a roll of crime scene tape from her trunk while her cell phone was stuck to her ear. It suddenly struck me that she seemed different today. While she was being very professional and appeared compassionate, there was an underlying sense of joy emanating from her.

  Had her boyfriend proposed? I remembered Susan telling me about two years ago that Amy was runn
ing out of patience with her boyfriend, Trevor Blackley, because he hadn’t proposed after a couple of years of dating. At the time, I thought Susan was dropping hints for me, so I proposed to her six months later on the Fourth of July.

  When Laura came to the door, there was a tall, thin man with salt and pepper hair standing beside her. His hair was feathered back and there was a gentleness about him that made me frown. He didn’t seem strong or assertive.

  “Please come in,” the man said, extending his hand. “I’m Ronnie. Rose is my daughter.”

  I began by apologizing for having to meet them under the current circumstances, and then I began asking about Rose. I wanted to know what kind of sports she played, if she was in the school band, if she had any friends or enemies, if she had a job, her favorite places to hang out—everything I could find out about her.

  “She plays softball,” Ronnie offered, glancing at Laura for approval. She was clearly the one in charge here. “She was in the middle school band,” he continued, “but when she started high school they told her she couldn’t be in the band while also playing softball. The band director is the one who made her choose. She thought the director was trying to pressure her into staying in band, so she chose softball. She’s stubborn like that, but we love her and supported her decision.”

  “What about enemies?” I asked.

  “None,” Laura said. “She’s never met a stranger and she’s never said a mean word to anyone.”

  “And friends?”

  Laura turned to Ronnie and held out her hand. He gave her a piece of paper. “I think that’s all of them,” he said.

  Laura explained that it was a list of Rose’s friends, along with their contact numbers and addresses. She handed it to me and I held up the list, scanned the names. A few of the spaces for the addresses and contact numbers were blank.

  “How many of these have you already called?” I asked.

  “I’ve spoken to all of them except Faleena—the call goes straight to voicemail—and the three whose numbers I don’t have.” She shook her head. “But Rose doesn’t really hang out with them much. I have the contact info for all of her real friends, the ones with whom she spends most of her time, but she doesn’t really talk to the others outside of school.”

  “I even called her softball coach, some of her teammates, and her cousins.” Ronnie paused and lowered his sad eyes. “No one’s heard from her. I’m really starting to worry.”

  I glanced around the living room in which we stood. The carpet was yellow and shaggy and the walls in the room were lined with picture frames. There were a dozen family portraits—mostly from the holidays—but none of them were recent. As far as I could tell, everyone looked happy.

  “Does Rose have a boyfriend?” I asked, turning back to face Laura and Ronnie Murdock.

  “Oh, no,” they both said in unison. Laura shot a disapproving glance toward Ronnie, and he lowered his eyes. It was obvious Laura drove the Murdock train.

  “No,” she said again, “Rose doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Ever?” I pressed.

  “Never.”

  I stared into Laura’s eyes for a long moment, not saying a word. She started to fidget. Amy was right. Something was going on here. “How were you two getting along?”

  “Fine.” Laura averted her eyes, licked her lips. “I mean, no different than any other mother and teenage daughter. She has her moments, you know? I mean, I remember when I was a teenager. My mom and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but I grew to realize she was right about most of our disagreements.”

  “And this latest disagreement between you and Rose,” I began slowly, “what was that about?”

  The woman hesitated. It was obvious she was beating herself up over something. “I…um…I might’ve—”

  “You overreacted, honey,” Ronnie said, interrupting his wife. When she shot him a stern look, he clamped his mouth shut.

  “Come on,” I coaxed, “everything—no matter how trivial it seems—is important. What happened?”

  “Well, one of her friends, Faleena, is eighteen and has her driver’s license, and they wanted to drive down to Orange Beach this weekend for the Martin Luther King holiday. Faleena’s parents rented a room on the beach and they were willing to let Faleena go, but I told Rose no.”

  “Why would they go to the beach in winter?”

  “That’s what I said!”

  “The rooms are cheaper in the winter,” Ronnie explained from where he had taken a seat on the couch. “I didn’t see the harm in it. I’d rather her go in the winter when it’s quiet than during Spring Break.”

  “She’s only sixteen, Ronnie.” Laura spat the words. “There’s no way I’m letting my sixteen-year-old daughter go to some beach without me.”

  “She’ll be seventeen next week.”

  “I don’t give a shit! She’s not going to the damn beach!”

  Ronnie just sighed and leaned back in his seat. There were worry lines on his face, but I didn’t know if it was caused by his daughter being missing or knowing he would probably get chewed out worse by Laura once I was gone.

  “Is it possible Rose ran away because of the argument?”

  “No, she would never run away.” Laura crossed her arms in front of her chest. Her chin trembled slightly as she spoke. “I…I know my daughter, and I know she would never leave on her own. She loves us too much to do that.”

  I nodded and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “And that’s exactly how I’m going to treat this situation.”

  CHAPTER 5

  After questioning Laura for another fifteen minutes, I checked on Amy—she was still waiting for Deputy Verdin to arrive—and then returned to the house. I asked Laura about Seth. “Is he around? I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

  “He’s in his room,” Laura said. “I can get him if you like.”

  “Do you mind if I speak with him alone?” I wanted to know. “It’s standard procedure in these kinds of cases.”

  “What do you mean by these kinds of cases?” Laura asked. “What kind of case is this? Do you know something we don’t know?”

  “No, ma’am, it’s just that I usually interview child witnesses alone when it can involve secrets between siblings. I find they’re more willing to spill the beans on their siblings if the parents are not standing over their shoulders.” I pointed toward a computer in the corner of the room. “And while I’m talking to him, I’d like you to go online and access Rose’s cell phone records. I’ll need a printout of the numbers she’s called and texted. I can get them from the phone company with a warrant, but it’ll be a lot faster if you can access it through your account.”

  Laura hesitated and it was the first time I’d seen her look to Ronnie for support. “Should we allow it?”

  He only shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with it, Laura. He’s the law. He knows what’s best in situations like this. And I think he’s right—we need to go through her phone records.”

  The woman was thoughtful, and then finally nodded slowly. “Okay, detective, but I’d like you to tell us what he says.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Laura pointed me to a hallway that led toward the right. The floor was covered in the same type of carpet as the living room and there were more picture frames on the walls.

  “Seth’s room is the last one on the left,” Laura said.

  I waved to let her know I’d heard. As I approached Seth’s room, I could hear the steady drone of voices emitting from inside and I cocked my head to the side. I thought this kid was alone.

  I paused and listened for a second, hearing at least two voices engaging in conversation—one a boy and one a girl. I knocked on the door.

  “Come in!” called a young boy’s voice.

  I turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack. Upon peering inside, I saw a short, skinny kid with dark brown hair sitting on a thick beanbag on the floor. He was staring up at a television that was mounted on the wall and he
was holding a game controller in his hands and wearing a headset. His thumbs were working furiously, jumping from button to button, and he wiggled from side to side as he played the game and yelled into the microphone. A girl’s voice emanated from the television speaker, and she was cursing at Seth.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your game,” I said, “but—”

  “Oh, shit, I gotta go!” Seth shut the television off and dropped the controller. He spun around and his eyes grew wide when he saw me standing in his doorway. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a detective here in Mechant Loup,” I explained. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Is it about Rosie? Did she get caught?”

  “Why would she get caught?” I asked. “What has she done wrong?”

  Seth threw a hand over his mouth. “Oops! I think I’ve said too much.”

  “You haven’t said enough.” I moved closer to Seth, pulled up a desk chair. “Do you mind if I have a seat?”

  Seth shrugged.

  “Do you know where I can find Rosie?”

  “I…I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Well, let’s start with what you can say. What time did your bus pass this morning?”

  Seth was thoughtful as he picked up the controller and busied himself with the buttons. “I think it was about six-thirty. At least, that’s what time my bus usually passes.”

  “Was Rosie—do you always call her Rosie?”

  He nodded.

  “Was Rosie with you when your bus passed?”

  “Yes, sir. She was right next to me, but she was playing on her phone. I think she was texting her boyfriend.” No sooner had the words left Seth’s mouth when he sucked in his breath. “Oh, no, I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “It’s okay, buddy,” I said, giving Seth a knowing look. “I already know Rosie has a boyfriend—that cat’s out of the bag—so you can go ahead and tell me everything. You can start by telling me his name.”