All the Missing Girls(48)

I put a hand on Daniel’s arm and applied the faintest pressure before Detective Charles looked back up. “The thing is, we can’t find Annaleise’s cell—and it appears to be off. But we did get a look at her phone records. And the very last call she answered, the night before she was reported missing, was from Tyler Ellison. Around one A.M.”

“It’s my understanding that they were seeing each other,” I said.

He tapped his pen on the page. “No, see, that’s the other thing. Tyler said they broke up. And when I looked into why that might be—because that’s an awful big coincidence, break up with a girl and then she goes missing—talk around town is that it probably has something to do with you. And why do you think that might be?”

I felt my jaw tighten, my hands tighten. “Because historically, that’s what happened. And in this town, what happened in the past is all that will ever happen, Detective. If you were from here, you’d know that.”

“No need to get defensive. I’m just trying to understand.”

“Then ask Tyler.”

“I did,” he said. “Though he’s a hard man to track down.”

There was a time when all I had to do was conjure him to mind—just the wisp of a thought—and there he’d be in the flesh, as if I had summoned him. But now I had to agree. Tyler was starting to feel like a ghost, like if I blinked for too long, he might slip away for good.

Detective Charles tapped his pad. “He says he called Annaleise at one A.M. and that, let me see, he decided to break it off. Because, quote, ‘She wanted more than I was willing to give her.’ What do you suppose that means?”

“I’m assuming exactly what he said. He doesn’t like to be tied down.”

He smiled and it was unsettling—the shark ready to play his winning card. “That’s quite the opposite of what I’ve been hearing. Looks like he’s tied down really good here.”

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “Look, up until last week, I hadn’t talked to Tyler in over a year. I have no insight into the inner workings of their relationship.” The detective caught the inflection in my voice, I was sure, and I fought to keep it steady as Daniel put a hand on my back. Calm down.

“Ms. Farrell, I’m not trying to get him into trouble or anything. I just want to get a feel for Annaleise’s state of mind that night.”

Lie.

“When were you and Tyler Ellison last . . . together?” he asked, keeping his eyes on his notepad.

“If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, that’s kind of a personal question.”

“This is a missing persons investigation. Of course it’s personal. Think of the girl, Ms. Farrell.”

Think of the girl. “Last year,” I said.

“Not last week? Not when you returned home?”

“No,” I said.

“You return home, and Tyler allegedly breaks up with Annaleise the same night, and then she’s reported missing the following morning. You can see how this looks.”

I could see what stories they had concocted, and the one they wanted me to feed back to them. But I’d been through this before. We all had. This kid, he didn’t have a f*cking clue. “I understand that when the police have no leads, they become desperate, trying to find meaning where there’s nothing. Trying to connect unrelated dots into a picture they can understand. Whether it’s true or not.”

Daniel’s phone rang and he answered it right then without excusing himself. “Hello?” he said. “What?” He continued listening, and I kept my eyes on his face so I wouldn’t have to look at Detective Charles, whose gaze I could feel burning a hole into the side of my skull. “I’ll be right there,” he said. Then, to the detective, “Our dad isn’t well. We have to go. Good luck with the case.” He turned to face me. “They need us to come in. Right now.”

“Oh, God,” I said, running into the house, locking the doors, grabbing my shoes and purse. Daniel already had the car running by the time I was outside, on the phone with the insurance company he was working with as a field adjuster, explaining that he couldn’t make it to the site.

Daniel assessed damages for a living. Worked out of his home, going wherever one of several companies sent him in the region. Everything was a checklist—there was a formula to disaster, misfortune, and tragedy. Everything had a value and a cost. I suppose he got accustomed to digging through facts, assigning blame, detecting fraud. Or he found out he was good at it. After he’d lived through Corinne’s case, maybe it was a comfort to him—finding the logic in the chaos. Finding the truth.

“No,” he said, “I won’t make it out today at all. I’ll double up tomorrow. Yeah, call it a sick day.”

He was calling Laura as we drove down the road. The detective was sitting in his car, making notes to himself, pretending not to watch us as we drove away.



* * *



DAD WAS IN RESTRAINTS, flat on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The room was full of people, all of whom worked there in one capacity or another. When Daniel and I barged in, the doctor made a show of placing his fingers on the inside of Dad’s wrist, which was limp and restrained by a thick ivory strap.

“What the hell are you doing to him?” I asked, pushing past the doctor and working on a restraint that had been buckled around Dad’s other wrist.