by Lis Wiehl
Cassidy and Nicole were already at a booth in the back, but they hadn’t yet noticed her. Cassidy was clearly telling a story, all gestures and animation. No doubt describing some amusing scrape she had recently gotten herself into. She had shrugged off the cardigan of her violet cashmere sweater set, revealing—perhaps not inadvertently—her toned and tanned upper arms. Her short blonde bob was perfect in the front and tousled in the back, which meant she had been ruminating. Whenever Cassidy was stymied, she twisted strands of hair at the back of her head—a spot the camera never saw.
As she listened to Cassidy, Nicole rested her glass of wine against her cheek, half hiding her mouth. Fifteen years earlier, when the three of them had attended Catlin Gabel, Nicole had stood out by virtue of being one of a handful of African-Americans at the private school. Given her prominent overbite, some of the crueler kids had dubbed her Mrs. Ed. When she spoke, she had cupped one hand in front of her mouth, muffling her speech.
Somewhere in the years since high school, Nicole had had her teeth straightened. With her dark, smooth skin and slightly slanted eyes, she had always been pretty. Now she was beautiful. Still, old habits died hard.
Nicole caught sight of Allison and waved. “Hey, girl!”
Still thirty feet away, Allison lip-read the words as much as heard them. As she unbuttoned her coat, she announced, “The Triple Threat Club is now in session.”
The three women hadn’t been close in high school. After graduation, they didn’t see each other again until their tenth reunion, where their common interest in crime—Cassidy’s in covering it, Nicole’s in fighting it, and Allison’s in prosecuting it—had drawn them together. A month later, Allison had suggested they meet for dinner. A friendship had begun over a shared dessert called Triple Threat Chocolate Cake, which featured devil’s food cake filled with rich chocolate mousse and topped with shaved chocolate.
As Allison pulled out a chair, Cassidy said, “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming. And you were the one who picked this place.”
“Sorry. I was in a meeting that ran long.”
“We saved you some onion rings.” Cassidy pushed a plate toward Allison. Her lips were shiny with grease.
Suddenly feeling a little queasy, Allison shook her head. “That’s okay.”
“We’ve already ordered,” Nicole said, “but I kept a menu if you need one.”
“I already know what I want.”
The menu never changed. Jake’s served comfort food, all of it tasting of her childhood, back when her dad was still alive and her mom still cooked and Lindsay could still be counted on to come home at night. Pot roast, sirloin steak, prime rib, meat loaf with potatoes and gravy.
When the waiter came, Allison ordered the pork chop.
“You’ve got to try some of this Cab. It’s just”—Nicole let out a long sigh—“relaxing.” She filled Allison’s glass. “Let me tell you about this case someone else in cyber crimes is handling. He’s working with Jack in your office on it, Allison. What happens is: Husband and wife get a divorce. He moves out of state. Then he goes online and puts an ad on an adult sex site. And in the ad, he claims to be the ex-wife. He says, ‘This is my name, this is my phone number, this is my address, this is where I work, this is the kind of car I drive and the license number, and here’s my picture.’ But all the info he gives is hers. And then he says, ‘Oh, and my fantasy is to be stalked and raped.’”
Allison shook her head. How could someone who had promised to love and honor another human replace that with a rage so intense it caught things on fire?
Nicole continued, “So another guy answers the post. Of course, he thinks he’s talking to the ex-wife. And the ex-husband pretends to be her and says, ‘Yeah, this is my biggest fantasy, ha-ha. If you do it, I’ll pretend to resist because it just enhances the excitement.’”
Cassidy squirmed in her seat like a little kid. “Then what happened?”
“So this guy breaks in while the ex-wife is asleep one night. And he’s got a dozen roses and a box of See’s candy and a gag and a pair of handcuffs. And the whole time she’s fighting him off, he’s getting more excited, because it’s just like she said it would be. He gets one handcuff on her, but before he can cuff her to the bed, she beans him with the bedside lamp. When he wakes up, he’s under arrest and he’s the one wearing the cuffs.” Nicole looked at Allison. “The dilemma for your office is, what do we charge him with? Attempted rape? Or what?”
“I want in on this one,” Cassidy said.
Nicole wagged a finger at her. “I don’t want you to give anyone ideas. All I need is a bunch of bitter ex-husbands setting it up so that some stranger kills their ex.”
Cassidy looked self-righteous. “The public has a right to know.”
Nicole snorted. “Don’t give me that. It’s just pure titillation. There’s nothing a potential victim could do to stop this. All you’re doing is giving bad guys ideas.”
Taking on the familiar role of peacemaker, Allison changed the subject. “I saw you on TV last night, Cassidy.” She picked up her wine glass, remembered the baby, put it down. “On that segment about the missing girl.”
“Blink, and you would have missed it.” Cassidy set down her own glass, already empty.
“I must have missed it.” Nicole tipped some more wine into her own glass and then Cassidy’s. “So—a little kid? I didn’t hear anything about that.”
Cassidy shook her head. “No, a high school junior—seventeen years old. She went out to walk the dog and never came home. When we filmed the story, she’d only been gone a little over twenty-four hours. Now it’s been more than forty-eight, and there’s still no sign of her. When the parents contacted me, the locals weren’t taking them too seriously. But something about it didn’t feel right to me. This girl, Katie Converse, is home on break from being a Senate page in DC. Her parents told me there’s only about a hundred kids who get to do it from around the whole country. Someone like that would be responsible.”
“Maybe she’s just holed up with some boy, and now she’ll never live it down,” Nicole said.
Cassidy reached for a piece of bread. “Oh, like kids now care about that. Nobody even bothers to get married before they have a baby any-more, or haven’t you noticed?”
Allison watched as Cassidy winced, belatedly remembering Makayla, Nicole’s nine-year-old. No father was ever mentioned.
Cassidy said rapidly, “Although in Katie’s case, maybe they would. Her family seems pretty rigid. Going on and on about how she was such a good girl and would never get in trouble.”
Allison said, “If she’s been missing for more than forty-eight hours, then maybe the reason she hasn’t come home is because she can’t.”
Nicole nodded. “With stranger abductions, they are usually dead within three or four hours. It’s very rare to find them alive and okay.”
Cassidy fingered a red string she wore around her wrist. “Don’t say that. Don’t put that kind of energy out there into the universe.”
Nicole pointed at Cassidy’s wrist. “What’s with the string?”
“Kabbalah.”
“Isn’t that for Jews?”
“You don’t have to be Jewish,” Cassidy said. “You can be anything. It’s not about being a member of a formal religion. It’s about getting in touch with spiritual forces that are active in our lives whether we acknowledge them or not.”
“What do you do exactly?” Allison asked, trying to be open to Cassidy’s latest transitory spiritual enthusiasm.
“You meditate on the cosmic energy of the Hebrew alphabet.”
Nicole’s expression was dubious. “And where does the red string come in?”
“It helps protect you.”
Nicole shook her head. “Might as well drape chicken guts around your neck.”
Cassidy slipped her cardigan back on, hiding her slender wrist. “Allison goes to church, and you don’t tease her.”
“At least she’s consistent.” Nicole gestu
red with her wine glass. “You have a new thing you’re into every month. It’s feng shui or a palm reader or some new ritual you read about in a magazine.”
Nicole was smiling, but there was an edge to it that made Allison anxious. She liked them both so much, but sometimes it felt like they needed her as a buffer. The three of them had much in common—women trying to make their way in a man’s world of crime and punishment—but there were times their differences were all too apparent.
“Well, I think it’s good to be open to new ideas,” Cassidy said. “I don’t think there’s only one answer, like Allison. And I don’t think there are no answers, like you do, Nic. You won’t admit that there are things we can’t see or touch, but that still exist. You don’t leave any room for magic or serendipity.”
Sometimes Allison thought they were still locked in the same roles they had held in high school. Cassidy was still the cheerleader. Her enthusiasm was intense—and short-lived. Nicole was still a realist. As a black woman living in an overwhelmingly white city, she strove to be better than the best. And Allison herself ? She guessed she was still the good girl, smoothing things over, cleaning up other people’s messes. The one who put herself last. She reached out and put her hand on Cassidy’s wrist, asking her without words to pull back a little.
“I do believe in something,” Nicole declared. “I believe if you think the universe is looking out for you or that God is watching over you or what-ever, then life’s going to come around and bite you in the butt. That red string doesn’t protect you any more than Allison’s going to church on Sunday protects her.”
Nicole took another sip of wine, but as she tipped her head back, Allison thought her eyes looked lost and sad.
“I think you’re wrong, Nic.” Cassidy shook her head. “Maybe it’s not the church, and maybe it’s not the string. But sometimes if you believe there’s a force at work for good, it can change your perspective.”
Their food arrived, and for a minute they were all quiet as they ate.
Eventually Nicole picked up the wine bottle and gestured toward Cassidy. “More wine?” It was a peace offering.
“I’ll have a splash. What about you, Allison? You haven’t even touched your glass.”
Allison opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She hadn’t prepared any statements yet. She wasn’t ready.
Cassidy narrowed her eyes. “You’re not!”
Her friend leaped to the truth so fast it made Allison feel even more off balance.
“Sh! I don’t want to jinx it. It doesn’t feel real yet.” She was surprised to feel the prick of tears.
“So you’re sure?”
“I know how to pee on a stick. I’ve had lots of practice.”
“Marshall must be over the moon,” Nicole said with a grin. But when Allison didn’t say anything, she tilted her head. “Don’t tell me you haven’t told him.”
“I was going to, but when I went out to talk to him, he was on the phone with a client who wanted to change an ad at the last minute, and I could tell he was going to be in a bad mood when he got off. And then I was going to tell him this morning, but he had an early meeting and was rushing around.” Allison realized she was spinning her plain gold wedding ring around her finger. “I’ll tell him tonight.”
“This calls for a celebration.” Cassidy waved the waiter over. “Do you have any sparkling cider?”
He shook his head. “The closest I’ve got is Italian soda.”
Cassidy looked at Nicole. “Maybe we should order another bottle.”
Nicole shook her head. “I’m already past my limit. You know how rigid the Bureau is.”
FBI agents were required to be “fit for duty” at all times—which meant that having more than one or two drinks, even on weekends, was out.
“All right then,” Cassidy said. “Italian sodas all the way around. Oh, and one Chocolate Bag—and three spoons.”
It was Jake’s signature dessert: dark chocolate molded to look like a small paper bag and filled with white chocolate mousse and fresh berries.
When their Italian sodas came, the three women clinked their glasses together.
As her friends smiled at her and dipped their spoons into the dessert, Allison’s mind raced. Was she really ready? What if something went wrong? And should she be bringing a child into a world where bright, beautiful girls went missing?
CONVERSE RESIDENCE
December 16
Do you have any news?” shouted a woman standing in the Converses’ driveway. She wore a bright blue Columbia parka embroidered with the logo for Channel Two. Pushing the microphone into Nic’s face, she said, “It’s been three days since Katie disappeared.” Just as she ignored the few snowflakes lazily drifting from the sky, Nic paid no attention to the reporter or the cameraman filming them.
In her work with Innocent Images, Nic had gotten a reputation for working well with parents of missing or exploited children.
“These Converse people are high maintenance,” her supervisor had told her. “You’re good at that.”
An hour earlier, Nic had called Katie’s parents and asked to meet. Now she walked up the front stairs of the Converses’ white Victorian home. The oversized front door was nearly covered by a giant poster reading: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? It showed Katie dressed in her navy blue page uniform, with a smaller inset of a grinning black dog. Except for its size, the poster was a twin to the posters now stapled to hundreds of telephone poles all over town.
A tall woman in her early thirties answered Nic’s knock. Her dark hair was cut in a chin-length bob, and her eyes looked like bruises. Pinned to her sweater was an oversized button with a color photograph of Katie, with the word Missing stamped in white on the bottom.
“Nicole Hedges, FBI.” Nic held out her badge.
“Come in.” The woman closed the door behind them. “I’m Valerie Converse.” A tall, thin man with short gray-blonde hair hurried into the entryway. “This is my husband, Wayne.”
Wayne looked about fifty, his face weather-beaten. Behind gold wire-framed glasses, his blue eyes swam, wet and reddened. He too was wearing a button. “Have you heard anything?” he asked urgently. “Anything at all?”
Nic had to shake her head. “We don’t have any news, but this morning we formed a task force with city, county, and state police, as well as the FBI.”
A task force when there was no evidence of foul play was unusual, but Wayne and Valerie had the power to pull some strings, and the fact that Katie was sponsored by Senator Fairview had been underlined. And the more the locals had looked, the less they thought Katie was a runaway.
“We’re examining footage from all the ATM, traffic signal, and parking lot cameras within a three-mile radius. We’ve got teams showing Katie’s picture at every restaurant, store, and bar in Northwest Portland. We’ve set up a hotline and are asking the media to publicize it. And we’re talking to every sexual predator within a five-mile radius.”
“Dear God,” Wayne said, “do you think Katie’s dead?” He grabbed Nic’s arm, squeezing until his fingers pinched her bones. “Is that what you think? That some monster took our little girl and now she’s dead?”
“We have no evidence of that,” Nic said, and Wayne released her.
The truth was, they had no evidence of anything. It was as if Katie had walked out of her parents’ house three days ago and vanished.
“Where were you people when Katie first went missing?” Valerie demanded. “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Last night, Wayne never even went to bed. He was searching all the Dumpsters in the neighborhood, wondering if he’d find her body. Her body!” She pressed closer, her breath sour.
Nic took a half step back until her shoulders brushed the door.
“A beautiful young girl goes missing, and you wouldn’t help us! Didn’t you people learn anything from Candy Lane?”
Candy Lane was an unfortunately named fifteen-year-old who had been branded a chronic runaway. When she didn’t come home from sch
ool, Portland police hadn’t taken it seriously. Then Candy was found in a child molester’s basement, half dead, on a live Web cam. Several cops—including the chief of police—had turned in their badges over the case.
Now the locals might have screwed up again. But if Katie’s disappearance turned into another debacle, in this case there would be plenty of people to share the blame. And Nic could be first in line if she didn’t handle these people with kid gloves.
With her back pressed against the door, she was beginning to feel claustrophobic. “Perhaps we could sit down?”
Wayne blinked rapidly. “I’m forgetting my manners.”
The living room had cream-colored walls, a twelve-foot ceiling, and bay windows that bracketed a fireplace built of river rock. The furniture was either very good reproduction mission or the real thing. Nic took a seat on a chocolate brown leather armchair. As the Converses sat down on the opposite ends of a leather couch, she made a mental note of the distance between them. Some couples pulled together during a crisis, while others drew apart.
Nic pulled out her notebook and said, “You two have done a great job getting those signs up all over Portland.”
“It’s the kids from Lincoln,” Wayne said. “When they heard that Katie was missing, kids and their parents volunteered to put up signs as far south as Eugene and all the way up I-5 to Seattle. Tomorrow they’re holding a vigil at the high school.”
“What time will that be?” Nic would go, of course. It wasn’t unknown for the killer to join in the search. And later, to show up at the funeral.
“At 7:00 p.m.” Wayne’s voice broke. “People have been so generous. They’re donating food for the volunteers, putting up posters, passing out buttons, and contributing to the reward fund.”
From her briefcase, Nic took out a notebook and pen. Then she handed a sheaf of papers to Wayne. “This is a warrant for you to sign so we can get a trap and trace on Katie’s phone. Then the phone company can research which numbers have called her phone and any numbers she’s been calling.”
