All Good People Here(13)

“Hm…” He tapped the tip of his pen to the page, staring down at it as if trying to work out a particularly tough math problem. But when he spoke again, he’d moved on. “And what about January? What is she like? It probably doesn’t sound relevant, but I want to get a sense of the girl we’re looking for.”

“Right, no, I understand,” Krissy said reflexively. “January’s…”

But her voice caught in her throat before she could finish—saying her daughter’s name out loud had finally broken the emotional dam inside her. She’d somehow been functioning like a normal human for the past few hours, walking one foot in front of the other, sitting where she was told, speaking in whole, rational sentences. But she’d felt like a marionette on strings, operating at someone else’s command.

She inhaled a shaky breath. Her face felt wobbly with the sudden emotion as though her features were distorting and melting with it. Through her tear-blurred vision, Krissy saw Detective Townsend leaning toward her, a tissue in his hand. He always seemed to be doing that—appearing and producing things out of nowhere, like a two-bit magician. She wondered if it was something he’d mastered from years on the job, or if her brain was somehow blinking out, only registering time in scattered snapshots. She took the tissue and wiped her eyes.

“Sorry,” she said. “What was I saying?”

“You were going to tell me about January. What she’s like.”

“Right. Yes. January is…She’s got a big personality, loves to be the center of attention, in the spotlight. You saw all her dance stuff. She’s in classes every Tuesday and Thursday and she loves to show us all the moves she’s learned.” She shrugged. “She’s like I used to be. I was a dancer too.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could put them back in. It was an odd thing to say in an interview about your missing daughter. Detective Townsend seemed to think so too, because just before he corrected his face to neutral, he’d raised his eyebrows in what looked like both surprise and disdain.

Krissy continued quickly. “January is very close with Jace too.” Again, there was a hint of falseness in her voice she prayed Townsend couldn’t hear. “They’re twins.”

He studied her for a moment before saying, “Twins, huh? That seems like it’d be a special bond.”

Krissy shifted. He was looking at her so closely. “It is.”

“Well, Officer Jones will be with him today. If he says something, she’ll be sure to make a note of it. Sometimes siblings—even young ones—know more than parents do, and any lead we uncover at this point is a lead worth pursuing.”

Krissy felt a tightness around her rib cage. She hated the idea of bringing Jace into all of this, but she supposed it was unavoidable. “Of course.”

“Speaking of leads,” he said. “Is there anyone in your life you’d consider an enemy? Anyone who might have a grudge against your daughter or your family?”

Krissy almost scoffed. “An enemy? No. This is Wakarusa. Everyone here’s very…close.”

“So, no one you can think of who’d write those words on your wall?”

Those words, Krissy thought with a jolt. Somehow, throughout their conversation, she’d forgotten about them. The only logical assumption you could make about them was that they had indeed been written by some sort of “enemy.” Krissy took a bolstering breath—this was her opportunity to get the detective on the right track. Everything else was a distraction from those words.

“No one specific comes to mind,” she said. “But it was obviously some psycho who wrote it, right? Some sociopath? I mean, those words are not the type you hear every day in this town.” She racked her brain for every possible explanation. “What if it’s a jealousy thing? Billy’s family, well—you’re not from around here—but they’ve always sort of been like royalty. In high school, we used to call Billy the king of Wakarusa. What if someone’s jealous of that and wants to—I don’t know, make us pay? The Jacobs family has always been so…looked-up-to in town. Billy’s grandfather donated a ton of money to the town. The school gym’s named after him. And he bought up most of the surrounding land, passed it on to Billy’s dad when he died.”

“I see,” Townsend said. “And does Billy’s father still own it now?”

“Oh. No. Billy’s parents died in a car accident when he was seven. He lived with his grandmother until she died a few years back and he inherited everything.”

He nodded, jotted something down.

“And if that’s the case,” Krissy continued, starting to get on a roll, “they probably want some sort of ransom.”

The detective studied her face, then said, “We’ll certainly look into it. We have people by the phones, though no one’s attempted to make contact. And so far, we haven’t found anything to indicate that someone’s making demands. But like I said, we’ll keep an eye out. Do you have any other theories?”

Krissy looked down at her lap and noticed her hands were knotted tightly together. “I…Well, what about the dancing thing? I mean, we take January to competitions. I know she’s only six, but they’re the real deal. There’re judges, contestants from all over the state. There can be seventy-five, a hundred people in the audience. And January’s good. You saw it—all those medals.”