Franny blinked. “May I have a drink of water? I hate to ask, but I have a tickle in my throat. Just a sip or two would help.”
“Certainly. Just a moment. I’ll be right back.” Suzette got up from her seat and walked out of the room. How tedious that she was now waiting on this woman, especially considering that she worked for the county, which meant that technically her taxes paid the woman’s salary. Franny was essentially Suzette’s employee. Oh, why did I even allow her in the house? Live and learn. Never again. Suzette walked around Mia’s abandoned bucket and got a juice glass out of the cabinet, then went to fill it from the water dispenser on the door of the fridge. Two sips and she was showing this woman the door. When she turned around, she was startled to see Franny standing in the entryway to the kitchen. The nerve.
“What a lovely kitchen,” she said with an air of nonchalance. “I’m guessing you updated it? The counters and cabinets all look brand new.” She walked toward Suzette, running her hand along the countertop.
Suzette was done talking. “Here’s your water.”
Franny took the glass. “Thanks.”
She didn’t immediately take a drink, though. Suzette wanted to put the glass up to her lips and force her to drink. Instead, the woman just rambled on and on.
“I would love a kitchen like this.” Her chin dropped down, and she took in the bucket on the floor. “Oh, I see I interrupted your housework. Is that why it took so long for you to come to the door?”
“Yes, I was right in the middle of scrubbing the floor,” Suzette said.
“You don’t have a cleaning lady?”
Suzette sighed. “I don’t have any help at all. I do all of it, and that’s the way I prefer it. When I do things, I know they’re done right. Other people so often take shortcuts.”
“I usually wear jeans when I do housework.” Franny gave a half laugh. “I’m so clumsy, if I wore anything nice like you have on, I would probably ruin it.”
“Yes, I’m very careful.”
“You must be.”
This exchange was making Suzette exhausted. “I don’t want to be rude, but you really need to get going. I have an appointment, and I don’t want to be late.”
“Of course.” Franny downed the water in one gulp. “Thank you for your time.”
Suzette ushered her to the front hall, where she unceremoniously handed over the woman’s coat. “Thanks for stopping in. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.” Franny stuck out her hand, and Suzette reluctantly gave it a shake. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
Suzette pulled the door open. “Oh, it feels like the temperature has dropped. You’ll want to move quickly, I think.” She pressed a hand against Franny’s back and firmly guided her through the doorway. “Take care,” she said, once the woman cleared the doorframe.
And good riddance.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ever since Jacob had mailed in Mia’s saliva sample, he’d logged onto the site nearly every day to check for the results. Getting the saliva sample without his parents finding out had been easy, and he knew Mia wouldn’t say anything. Registering online had been simple as well. He’d needed a fake email address, which hadn’t been hard to set up. He cracked himself up by putting in her name as Mia Mystique, and he gave her a fake birth date so she’d appear to be eighteen. He made sure it was on the privacy setting so that he could see other people’s connections to Mia but they couldn’t see details about her. All of this was done on the sly—easy enough, because once he was in his room his parents seemed to forget about him.
Luckily, he’d purchased the kit at a store, so the lab fees were covered by the cost of the box, and he didn’t have to use a credit card. Otherwise, it never would have worked.
He was pretty proud of himself for having thought of this as a way to get more information about Mia. Jacob wanted to know about her background—partly for Mia, but also to contradict his mother, whose stance had always been that no one wanted her, that all she had was them. It seemed like a stupid assertion to Jacob. Just because Mia wasn’t on the missing children website didn’t mean she wasn’t wanted by someone.
Jacob knew his mother would have a meltdown if she knew what he’d done, but he didn’t care. One good thing was that he’d felt a shifting of power lately. Maybe because he was now physically bigger than her, or maybe because he just didn’t care anymore and she sensed that her grip on him was getting more tenuous. She was spending more time holed up in her room, while his father spent nights on the couch in his home office. His dad had even moved a lot of his clothes in there. Their little dysfunctional family unit was falling apart, which was both scary and exhilarating at the same time.
When his phone pinged to notify him that he’d received the email with the DNA results, he was in his room, having just finished getting dressed for school. A quick look at the time told him he had twenty minutes before the bus picked him up. If he had to skip breakfast, he would; he had a box of Pop-Tarts in his locker at school for just such an emergency.
Logging onto the site, he glanced over the home page, finally clicking on the Ancestry link. On that page, he was able to scroll down to something that said DNA Relatives List. Almost instantly, he saw a list topped by Grandmother, Grandfather, Uncle. The names next to them were Wendy Duran, Edwin Duran, and Dylan Duran. The words were a mental smackdown and made him gasp. Holy crap, Mia has grandparents and an uncle? He did some random clicking and came up with the percentages of shared DNA for each person. Jacob wasn’t really sure how it worked, so he didn’t know if 24.7 percent was the usual amount a person shared with their grandfather. He would have to do some googling later. Another page broke down her background, mostly European with 24 percent Puerto Rican.
The euphoric feeling of knowing he’d done it, that he’d single-handedly figured out a way to find out more about Mia, turned into a sick feeling when he thought about what it meant. Now that he had this information, what would he do with it? He knew there was a way to reach out and message people on the site, but what would he say to them? And what if these were really bad people, like the guy who had shot at them? If that were the case, Mia would be better off staying with his family.
Another problem? The idea of his dad—who’d been against Mia staying with them from the start—having to go to prison sickened him. He had a feeling, though, that it might work out that way. His mother lied as easily as she breathed and was the more convincing of the two. What if Mia went off to these new people and his dad went to prison and Jacob was left alone with his mom? A horrifying thought. Still, he wanted to know more.
On a hunch, he logged into Facebook and did a search for the name Wendy Duran. A few came up, but the most likely candidate was an older woman who happened to live in Wisconsin. She hadn’t posted much, but she also hadn’t utilized the privacy setting, so Jacob could see everything. Old people were so dumb about social media, but this time it was to his advantage.
He clicked around until he noticed a family photo, the parents with a son and a daughter. Judging by their clothes, it wasn’t recent. Wendy had written, “Family vacation. Dylan was fourteen, Morgan twelve.”
Wendy Duran, who lived in Wisconsin, and had a son named Dylan.
This had to be the right family. He peered at the photo, trying to see if the daughter, Morgan, looked like Mia. She did, a little bit, but the likeness wasn’t spot-on.
Now what? He wasn’t going to do anything just yet. He needed time to think about this and decide the best way to go from here. But first he had to catch the school bus and get through his day.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sharon had parked down the block, waiting and watching as Franny Benson left the Flemings’ house. She’d liked the social worker well enough when they’d met earlier at her house, but she wanted to be absolutely positive that she’d follow through. Franny had an air of caring, so that was in her favor, but she didn’t say much, so it was hard to get a read on her. Sh
e seemed most interested in the blurry photo, the one taken from over the fence. She’d stared at it for a long time and then asked Sharon to text it to her afterward. When Sharon had pleaded ignorance of how to do that, she’d graciously taken hold of the phone and sent it to herself. Afterward she’d wanted to go upstairs so she could see the vantage point from Niki’s window, where she’d stood, first looking, then jotting down notes.
During Franny’s entire visit, Sharon found herself babbling, trying to impress upon her that even though the evidence wasn’t there, her instincts on this were strong. “I know I saw a little girl peeking out the garage door. I’d bet my life on it,” she said.
Franny just nodded and kept writing. She appeared to believe Sharon, but her lack of response didn’t give her much to go on.
“Will you go into their house and search?” Sharon asked.
“We’ll do everything we can within the confines of the law. We have to work within the legal limits.”
“I understand.” Sharon didn’t like it, but she understood. “Will you get back to me and tell me what you find out?”
“I’ll be checking back with you, and you’ll be getting a letter from my office letting you know your concern was screened in, which means the appropriate actions were taken. It’s basically a confirmation that we followed up on your complaint.”
“You do believe me, don’t you?” Sharon had finally asked, wanting reassurance. Franny was kindly, but Sharon wanted more. A little outrage would go a long way.
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?” Franny said, putting her notebook back in her bag. She followed Sharon downstairs and gathered up her coat and gloves, then shook Sharon’s hand and said she’d be in touch.
It was only after she’d left that Sharon realized the woman hadn’t actually given a straight answer to any of her questions. Franny had her reasons, Sharon was sure of this, but it still left her with an uneasy feeling.
Franny hadn’t said for certain that she was going straight to the Flemings’ house, but it was, Sharon thought, a safe bet. After she’d said goodbye to Franny, Sharon went to the front window to watch as the social worker’s car moved down the street, and then she waited a few minutes before getting into her own vehicle. She wasn’t following the social worker exactly, since Sharon drove around the opposite end of the block. Her rationale was simple: She lived in this neighborhood and often went down this street anyway. Who was to say that wasn’t the case this time? And if she pulled over to the side of the road to look at her phone, well, that wasn’t a crime, was it? It happened. Sometimes you needed to check your phone.
It was always a good idea to have a ready excuse. She’d been caught off guard a few times in her life and was now all the wiser.
When she drove past the Flemings’ house, she spotted the social worker standing outside the front door, her back to the street. Sharon circled around one more time, then pulled over at the end of the block and shut off her engine. Franny had no idea what kind of car Sharon drove, so it was unlikely that she’d make the connection even if she spotted her. Franny’s car, she noted, was parked curbside in front of the house. Minutes went by and nothing changed, and then suddenly, Franny stepped forward and was gone—inside the house, presumably, although at this angle Sharon couldn’t actually see what had happened.
Fifteen minutes went by, and then, just when Sharon thought she couldn’t stand the suspense, Franny came out of the house, made her way down the driveway, and got into her car. A minute later, Sharon saw the red flash of brake lights, and then the car was in motion, taking off down the street. Sharon felt disappointed. That was it? It was foolish, she knew, but some part of her had hoped to see Franny exit the house holding the hand of the little girl. Barring that, she’d have settled for a battalion of police cars converging on the house, officers swarming the place, search warrant in hand. The officers would search every nook and cranny until they found the child and saved her from whatever it was that was going on in there. This last idea was completely far-fetched, but Sharon liked it a lot, especially since she would come off as the hero in the story.
The observant neighbor who trusted her instincts and didn’t give up—that was what the news media would call her.
It bothered her that the social worker’s visit was so short and there was no discernible outcome. Watching the woman get into her car and drive away gave her a hopeless, let-down feeling. Could it be that the social worker had simply questioned Mr. or Mrs. Fleming, they’d denied having a little girl living with them, and now the case was closed?
That was the very question she asked Amy later that night during a phone chat. She and Niki had exchanged stories about their day after Niki had come home from work. Niki told her that Jacob had shopped at the Village Mart, buying what she believed to be cupcakes for the little girl, and Sharon had told Niki about the visit from the social worker. Now both of them sat at the kitchen table staring at the phone in front of them as if it were a Ouija board, capable of giving them answers.
Amy reiterated the question. “Are you asking if they’ll just take the Flemings at their word?”
“Yes,” Sharon said. “That’s exactly what I want to know. Do you think the case is closed now?” She glanced up at Niki, who was leaning in to hear.
“Doubtful. I think when she told you they were going to do everything they could within the legal limits of the law, she was telling you that her hands are somewhat tied. Actually, I’m pretty impressed that she got into the house. She must be exceptional at her job.”
Sharon knew Amy was right, but the whole process still made her impatient. She asked, “So if Franny did ask questions about a little child living at their house and Mrs. Fleming denied it, what then?”
“Well, she couldn’t exactly accuse her of lying.” Amy was on their side, but she still spoke from her place as an attorney, something Sharon found a little bit irritating.
“What’s the whole point of her going to talk to them, then?”
“I’m guessing that the social worker took a non-adversarial approach in order to get invited into the house. People seldom let you in if they think they’re in trouble, so she probably worded it as if it were a routine neighborhood call. Then once she was inside, she would be trying to get a sense of what the household was like, and she’d be looking for any signs of a child living there. She might have asked in an offhand way if they had a small child stay with them recently. As a social worker, she may be skilled in telling if people are lying. Once she’s made the visit, decisions will be made as to how to proceed from that point. Just because you don’t see anything happening doesn’t mean nothing is happening. The local police might be informed, and they’ll be keeping an eye on the house, watching to see when people come and go and if they have a child with them in the car. Your social worker may go and interview other neighbors and ask if they’ve seen anything suspicious. These are all things they can do within the limits of the law.”
Within the limits of the law—there was that phrase again. “She did tell me to let her know if I saw anything else,” Sharon admitted.
“Sometimes these things take time,” Amy said. “The Flemings have rights too. And there is a possibility that you’re wrong, you know.”
“She’s not wrong,” Niki said, jumping in, and she proceeded to tell Amy about her encounter with Jacob. “I’m almost positive the cupcakes were for the little girl.”
Amy chuckled. “I believe you, Nikita, but the cupcake argument won’t hold up in court. Unless there’s more to go on, CPS will have to proceed with caution.”
“What if,” Niki asked, sliding the phone closer to her side of the table, “we call the fire department one day when the whole family is gone and tell them we see smoke coming out of the house? Wouldn’t they have to break in and search?”
Sharon was ready to applaud her out-of-the-box thinking, but Amy wasn’t as enthused. “Falsely reporting a fire is against the law,” she said firmly. “And they’ll come down hard on the ca
ller, especially if they can prove it was done willfully and maliciously.”
“But how would they know?” Sharon asked. “We’ll say we thought we saw smoke. People make mistakes.” The cat rubbed against her ankles, and she reached down to pet him.
“Yes, people make mistakes, but what are the chances you saw smoke coming out of their house right after you reported the family to CPS?” Sharon could imagine Amy ruefully shaking her head.
“They’d make that connection?”
“Of course,” Amy said. “And what if a real fire is called in while they’re busy investigating a false report? Would you want to be responsible for someone else’s death?”
Sharon sighed. “Of course not.”
“Trust me, guys, I know your hearts are in the right place, but please don’t do anything on impulse. I don’t have time to fly to Wisconsin to bail you two out of jail.”
Sharon said, “We’re not going to jail.” The idea was absurd.
“Promise me you won’t do anything rash. You reported what you saw. Now sit back and let the experts do their jobs.”
They ended the call with a promise to Amy that they wouldn’t do anything rash. Afterward Sharon turned to Niki and said, “So I guess that’s that. By the way, I thought your idea to call the fire department was brilliant.”
Niki nodded thoughtfully. “I still think it’s a good idea. I mean, I understand her point about taking firefighters away from a real fire, but what are the chances there would be a big fire right at that time?” They sat silently, considering the odds.
“We could still do it, but anonymously,” Sharon suggested. Sarge mewed plaintively, and she patted her lap for him to come up. Once he’d jumped up and settled in, she rubbed behind his ears.
“Using what phone? Everything can be traced.”
Sharon thought. “Is there a pay phone at the gas station?”
The Moonlight Child Page 17
