Another difference. Where Trudy challenged each blow, Charlotte bowed beneath it.
But they still both ended up bruised in the end.
Trudy flicked her gaze toward Charlotte and then just as quickly looked away. Dismissive. “Math.”
“I’d like to meet him,” Hollis said, but it wasn’t a request, and they all knew it. If she hadn’t been watching her carefully, Charlotte would have missed the way Trudy’s shoulders went taut, the way her fork paused for a second on the way to her mouth. “He’s been taking up so much of your time, it’s only right for us to know who you’re spending it with.”
And that made more sense. It wasn’t tutoring, it was an excuse. A place to hold hours that would otherwise be unaccounted.
“He’s busy,” Trudy said.
“On all the days?” Charlotte couldn’t resist. Old habits died hard.
Trudy tipped her chin up as if ready for a fight.
“Some people don’t have the luxury to lounge around all day doing absolutely nothing with their lives,” Trudy countered.
“Because you wouldn’t know anything about that?” Charlotte murmured.
“Charlotte, you are an adult. Act like it,” Hollis said, each word a slap. “Trudy, watch your mouth when you talk to your aunt.”
After that, the conversation portion of the evening was over. The rest of the dinner passed with a quiet soundtrack of silverware on fine china and the clink of wineglasses being refilled.
It was only when dessert was served that her reprieve was interrupted.
“I talked to Dr. Sterett today,” Hollis said, bringing a spoonful of mousse up to her mouth. “He’s going to see you next Tuesday, Charlotte.”
“What?” Charlotte was caught off guard. It wasn’t a feeling she particularly liked when it came to Hollis. “For what?”
“Your erratic behavior as of late,” Hollis said, like it was obvious. Like she wasn’t just planting the seeds to convince Charlotte and Trudy and Mellie that Charlotte was indeed having issues.
“Oh, what have you been up to, then, Charlie?” Mellie asked, almost gleeful. Charlotte hated her in that moment. More than she hated Hollis.
For the most part, Charlotte had always thought of her sister as harmless. Almost helpless. She treated her with the same kid gloves everyone did.
But it was so unbelievably unfair. Somehow Mellie had skated through a life that had been so absurdly hard for Charlotte, and the inequity of it all bubbled into an anger so fierce her blood was lit with it.
“Go drink another bottle of wine, Melissa, and leave the grown-ups to their conversation,” Charlotte snapped. Mellie paled and shifted back in her seat like she’d been struck.
“Oh shit,” Trudy said, settling into her seat as if she were watching a boxing match.
“That’s enough.” Charlotte pointed at her. The rage that had been so pure and strong when it came to Mellie tempered and bent when it came to Trudy. “That brat attitude that you think is derision isn’t cute. It wasn’t cute when you were nine, and it certainly isn’t now. You’re not even clever.”
“Charlotte,” Hollis said, not even raising her voice. It was more effective that way.
But she couldn’t stop. Those emotions she no longer seemed to be able to control with the easy grace of a skilled conductor were scattering and popping and fizzing in the space behind her eyes. Her body all but vibrated with it, and she knew if she didn’t walk away, the implosion would come.
Her entire life narrowed down to that moment. A life of cowering beneath blows and making herself small so as not to attract attention, because she’d learned early on that attention was the worst possible thing. From Sterling, it meant nightmares and hot breath against her neck, and from Hollis, it meant bruises, both emotional and physical.
But right now it was her mother who looked small. Small and mean and vicious, her body rotting away beneath designer clothing and too-red lipstick.
“And you,” Charlotte said, her voice soft and unrecognizable to her own ears. “You’re a failure of a human being and a mother. If you think I would ever let you raise my daughter . . .”
She didn’t finish the thought, didn’t need to. Hollis’s eyes were locked on hers. Looking away, Charlotte stood and left the room.
Charlotte stopped walking only when she made it outside.
The humidity hadn’t burned off from the day yet, and her lungs struggled to scrape oxygen from the water-laden air. She leaned against the porch railing, and a splinter pierced into the soft flesh of her palms. It helped, focusing on that small pain.
“Why are you freaking out?” Trudy’s voice was soft but still carried an edge to it. Charlotte didn’t look up. “It’s all going to change after tomorrow anyway.”
If everything went as planned. If they didn’t screw it all up. Maybe. Maybe things would be different. With the morning creeping ever closer, it all of a sudden felt so foolish, though. Like when grown-ups were caught playing a child’s game. Or when kids dressed in their mothers’ clothes.
What were they thinking?
“You know, you’re doing a really good impression of someone who’s on the verge of a breakdown.”
Charlotte barked out a laugh at that, the sound so unlike her they both froze, statues separated by only a few feet that somehow felt like an ocean. “Yeah. Doing an impression.”
She felt more than heard Trudy step closer, start to say something, and then stop herself. Turning, she found her niece watching her with wide eyes, her face stripped of the carefully constructed expression she usually wore.
What was left was a vulnerability that couldn’t be countered by the bravado in her voice. What was left was the girl Charlotte had helped raise, the one who asked for rainbow sprinkles on her ice cream and cuddled against Charlotte during thunderstorms.
Without overthinking it, or dwelling on the reasons why Trudy was no longer that little girl, Charlotte reached out, circling her wrist to pull her into a hug that was so reminiscent of the one she’d given Ruby only an hour ago that it brought fresh moisture to her eyes.
Trudy didn’t smell like strawberries, though. She smelled of cigarettes and a perfume that was just on the wrong side of sweet. Her body wasn’t soft baby fat, either, but long and willowy, sharp hip bones and exposed ribs. It was all Trudy.
“Take care of my baby,” Charlotte murmured into her hair.
And neither of them said anything about the fact that Trudy was just a baby herself.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ALICE
August 3, 2018
Five days after the kidnapping
By the time Alice and Nakamura got back to the station from the fast-food joint, Zeke Durand had been brought into the station and was waiting for them in the interrogation room.
“Want to take the lead?” Nakamura asked as they walked back down the hallway from where they had just come.
She nodded. It was unspoken between them, but she was running the investigation at this point. It was the first time she’d assumed the role since she’d been in St. Petersburg, but she slipped into it like a well-worn leather jacket.
The stark room was intimidating even before they started in on questioning. It was designed to put its occupants on edge, to make them question their own reality, with its single metal table and the mirror that was so obviously not a mirror.
That silvery glass was a threat—people were watching. Even if they weren’t. Suspects couldn’t help but look at it, their eyes drawn to the idea of someone they didn’t know scrutinizing their every movement, twitch, sigh.
Zeke Durand was no different.
The kid’s shoulders were turned in, protective and defensive. His head was bowed, his hands gripping each other as if that grasp was the only thing keeping him from falling apart. But his eyes. His eyes kept shifting to that mirror.
“Hello, Mr. Durand.” Alice slid into the chair across from him, putting them on an equal level. Nakamura arranged himself into one of the corner
s, leaning against the wall with his feet crossed at the ankles. “I’m Detective Alice Garner, and this is my partner, Detective Joe Nakamura.”
He looked up at her introduction, his eyes a startling blue, but just as quickly he went back to staring at the table. “Call me Zeke.”
“All right, Zeke,” she said, easy and friendly. It was important to build a rapport in these situations, to coax him out of his shell. It would be a waste of time if they couldn’t provoke any true reactions from him, if the only thing they could read were nerves and not answers. “Do you want some water? Coffee?”
“I’m set,” he said, though his mouth remained a grim line.
“Great. Well, we just have a few questions we thought you could help us out with,” she said, letting her shoulders open up and her legs relax.
“I want to help.”
“Well, that’s wonderful to hear,” Alice said. “Is there anything in particular you’d like to tell us?”
Zeke licked his bottom lip, but then after a minute shook his head.
“That’s okay,” Alice said. “Do you know what this is all about?”
He glanced up, and once again she was taken aback by his eyes. It wasn’t just the unexpected color. Pinned under his gaze, she struggled to keep her arms resting on the table, not to bring them up across her chest to protect all her secrets.
“It’s about Trudy,” he finally said.
There was relief in not having to sidestep into it. “Could you tell us a little bit about your relationship with her?”
He shook his head. “There was no relationship.”
Nakamura shifted behind her, but she didn’t take her attention off Zeke. “Friendship, then?”
“Maybe,” Zeke breathed out. “I don’t know anymore, to be honest.”
“That’s okay,” Alice reassured once again, taking some of the pressure off the question.
He lasted with the silence for all of one minute. “She, uh, she wanted my car,” Zeke said.
“To buy it?”
“No.” Zeke shook his head, and one of his broken nails picked at the dry skin of his knuckles. “She wanted me to drive her. Places.”
“Would you pick her up from her house?” she asked.
He ran a hand over his head. “No. Never,” he said. “Her grandmother is psycho. Apparently, she would freak if she saw us together.”
“She told you that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It was part of the deal.”
Her eyes slid over his face. “And where’d you take her?”
Zeke shrugged. “Tampa, mostly.”
“Where did you take her in Tampa?”
“She’d always have me drop her at a street corner,” he mumbled. “Wouldn’t tell me what she was doing.”
Alice tilted her head. “And you didn’t press her on it?”
Zeke looked up again. “She’s allowed her secrets.”
She hummed a bit. “Any guesses, then?”
There was a minute where it seemed like he was warring with himself. And then he took a little breath. “She’d sometimes have thick makeup on. Glitter. Smell like heavy perfume.”
Which could add up to sex work of some kind. Stripper, hooker? A quick cash grab.
“And . . . um . . .” Zeke trailed off, shook his head. Then nodded once. “One time we went to a club.”
That wasn’t the grand announcement she’d been expecting. “Okay. Was there anything particular about this club?”
“No, but . . .”
Alice could all but see his mind working—how much could he tell without screwing Trudy over? “We danced a little bit. But then we went into this back room. It was straight out of a movie.”
“Did she pick something up then?” Alice asked.
“Yeah. Fake passports.” He grimaced when he said it.
Trudy had been planning an escape.
“How many?” Were they all planning on leaving? Or just Trudy?
Zeke took a beat. “Two, I think. But I didn’t get a good look.”
She nodded. “All right. Did you take her anywhere else?”
“She asked . . .” With a sudden burst of movement, Zeke unlocked his hands, dropping them to the tops of his jean-clad thighs. He raked his fingers up and down the rough fabric, looking between her and Nakamura. “That day.”
Her pulse fluttered, but she worked to keep her face relaxed. “The day Ruby was kidnapped? That day?”
He flinched at Ruby’s name but didn’t react much beyond that. “She borrowed my car.”
And, shit. “Zeke . . .”
“I know.” Zeke’s eyes were wet with unshed tears when he looked up at her. “I don’t think she hurt Ruby.”
“That’s not for you to guess,” Alice said, not feeling very sympathetic. “Why didn’t you come forward with this?”
“She brought it back. Like an hour later,” Zeke said as if it were justification, but it dug the hole only deeper. Someone could do a lot in an hour. It was plenty of time to hide a body.
“Was this in the morning?” Alice asked.
Zeke licked his lips. “Early afternoon.”
Ruby had been kidnapped at 1:00 p.m. “Zeke.”
He shook his head. “Trudy wouldn’t hurt her,” he said again. “She would never hurt Ruby. And nothing was messed up with the car. I checked it later. Once I’d heard . . .”
“Used your homemade forensic kit and everything?” It was a pointless jab, and it made Nakamura shift against the wall in subtle warning. She rubbed a thumb along her eyebrow, trying to regain control of the conversation. Zeke was just blinking at her, sad and slow, like a kicked puppy.
“So she just returned your car, no explanation? Did you hear from her after that?”
He paused. “No.”
“Don’t lie to me, Zeke,” she warned, putting some authority in her voice.
“I haven’t.”
“Then, what are you thinking?” Alice asked. He was easy to read, and there was clearly something. She’d already picked up on a baseline for his cadence, for the way he hesitated because of his accent and the way he hesitated when there was something he didn’t want to say.
“I didn’t hear from her,” he said, like he was trying to say something more than that.
So she guessed. “That was unusual?”
“Yes.”
“How often did you hear from her before that day?” she asked.
“Every day,” he said. “I drove her into Tampa about twice a week, sometimes three days. But she liked to text.” It was said as if he was betraying a confidence.
“And the two of you weren’t . . .”
“Dating?” he finished for her.
She nodded. Two attractive teenagers talking every day? It was unlikely that something hadn’t happened.
“I’m gay, Detective,” he said. “It was never like that. We were just. Yeah, I guess we were friends.”
She hummed. “Did she know? That you’re gay?”
His lips tipped up again. “Eventually.”
“Was she upset to find out?”
“No, not at all.” Zeke smiled this time. It was still restrained, but it was a real smile. “Trudy isn’t—I mean. You could look at her family and assume things.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “You know. She likes to come off as tough,” he said. “And maybe she was kind of a bitch in the way that girls call each other that. Like she’s not going to say nice things just to say nice things, you know?”
Alice nodded.
“But when push came to shove? She was . . . God, she would kill me for saying this.” He seemed to realize this as he said it. He gave a rueful shrug. “Well. She’s kind.”
They were quiet.
“Look, I know this doesn’t look good.” Zeke pressed his hands flat on the table and really looked at her, his body tense and urgent. “Everything I’ve said . . . I know this doesn’t look good for her . . . but . . . she wouldn’t do anything to hurt Ruby. She loved th
at kid.”
She felt for him, she did. Sighing, she shook her head. “That doesn’t guarantee anything, Zeke.”
There was something incredibly sad in the way he deflated into himself once more, his chest collapsing, his shoulders hunching. “I know.” It was so soft, that admission, but it must have been hard to make.
“Did you ever meet Ruby, Zeke?”
The tension was back in his body. “No.”
She nodded and then let the silence take over. If there were secrets to spill into the space, it was easier to do without someone else’s chatter taking up the slack.
He remained quiet, though, head still bowed.
There was an itch between her shoulder blades as she watched him, one that had been there since they’d talked to Trudy at the house.
“What was your deal?”
He lifted his head, but his face was blank, his blinking slow and confused.
She continued, “With Trudy. What did she give you in exchange for driving her around?”
He paused. It was one of those hesitations that was weighty. One where he was choosing the words with care, with a thought toward the ramifications each would have. “A favor.”
“You know I’m going to need more than that, Zeke,” she said.
Shaking his head, he kept his eyes on the table. “An unspecified favor. When a Burke offers you that, you don’t say no.”
St. Petersburg royalty. “Even though she’s just a teenager?” she asked.
One finger tapped a staccato beat against the metal top of the table. “Didn’t matter.”
“Why are you so sure?”
He looked up at that, his hands stilled once more. His gaze snapped over to Nakamura and then back to her face, pulling his bottom lip into his teeth. “The rumors.”
She leaned forward. “Come on, Zeke. Don’t make me work so hard here. What rumors?”
“Everyone talks about the Burkes, yeah?” Zeke said instead of answering her. Then he took a breath. “People say messed-up things.”
“What rumors, Zeke?”
He exhaled, and it was loud in the room, which had gone quiet. “They say she has influence over her grandfather. Trudy,” Zeke finally said.
“Like he dotes on her?” Nakamura asked.
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