All Good People Here(7)
Without Jace’s warm body against hers, Krissy felt cold and crossed her arms over her chest. In some small part of her mind, she realized it was summer in Indiana and the cold couldn’t possibly be real.
“Well,” Robby said. “It does look like someone could’ve gotten in this way.” He toed one of the pieces of glass and Krissy’s eyes widened in surprise. Even she, stay-at-home mom that she was, knew you weren’t supposed to touch pieces of a crime scene. She’d seen enough Law & Order episodes to know that.
“Mommy?”
The voice, so small and soft in the big space of the basement, made Krissy jump. She spun around, her heart in her throat, to find Jace, standing in the middle of the steps, staring down at her with wide eyes.
“Jesus!” Krissy clapped a hand over her chest. As ashamed as it made her to admit, her heart filled with resentment at Jace for not being his twin sister. “Jace, you scared me. What is it? I told you to stay where you were.”
Her son’s round eyes began to fill with tears and guilt billowed through her. “I’m scared,” he said, his voice like a tinkling bell. “I’m scared of the men upstairs.”
* * *
—
At the mention of a missing child, Robby’s supervisor, Sergeant Barker, had apparently called the state police, because by the time Billy, Robby, and Krissy—her hand clasped firmly around Jace’s—had made it back up into the kitchen, their house had transformed. Every room in Krissy’s periphery crawled with men in uniform, and through the kitchen window, she spotted one of them walking a wide perimeter of the house, a fat roll of yellow caution tape unfurling from his hands. Even the air had taken on a different quality, tense and crackling.
Suddenly, as if they’d simply materialized there, two people were standing directly in front of her. One was a man with hair like a private school boy’s, perfectly combed with a part so neat it looked as if it’d been done with a straightedge. His button-down strained against his muscled upper arms. His eyes were a shocking blue. The second was a woman with an average build and thin, soft-looking brown hair pulled into a ponytail. The man was probably in his late forties, the woman ten or fifteen years younger. They were the only two people not wearing uniforms and despite this, or perhaps because of it, Krissy got the impression they were the ones in charge. The man emanated an air of authority so strong it was as if he put it on with his morning cologne.
“I’m Detective Max Townsend,” he said, extending his hand to shake Krissy’s then Billy’s as they introduced themselves. “This is my partner, Detective Rhonda Lacks. We’ve heard your little girl, January, is missing. Is that right?”
Detective Townsend spoke at a fast, businesslike clip, and Krissy found herself gaping mutely at him. Beside her, Billy cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s right,” he said.
“We’re awfully sorry for what you folks are going through,” the detective continued. “We’re from the Indiana State Police and we’re gonna take things from here, all right? I wanna assure you that we’re going to do everything in our power to bring your daughter home safely. Detective Lacks and I have a pretty good track record for these things.” He paused, looking both her and Billy firmly in the eye. If his intent was to reassure them, it wasn’t working. “First things first. We’ll need a description of what January was wearing to bed last night. Then I’d like you two to take me to her room, so you can spot anything that’s missing or out of place. This will help our people know what they’re looking for. All right? And while we’re there, we’ll want to take something of hers with us—a worn article of clothing’s best—for our tracking dogs.”
He flashed a solemn, bolstering smile and Krissy touched a finger to her temple. She wanted to hold on to his words, to look each one over and understand what it meant, but they just fluttered around her in an incomprehensible blur. It felt as though everything was suddenly happening too quickly, as if she was in a movie that was being fast-forwarded.
“In the meantime,” Detective Townsend continued, “I think we ought to get Brother out of here. This is Officer Patricia Jones.” He gestured to a uniformed officer who had also magically appeared out of nowhere, a tall woman with big everything: big hands, big breasts, even her ears were big. “She’s gonna stay with Brother in one of our cars, all right? Get him out of all this.”
Krissy blinked. It took her a long moment to realize that when Detective Townsend said “Brother,” he was talking about Jace. “Oh,” she said. “I’d prefer it if he stayed with me. This is…confusing for him. I don’t want him to be any more scared than he already is.”
Detective Townsend’s understanding smile flashed on and off his face so quickly Krissy couldn’t be sure if she’d really seen it or not. “I understand. But we’re gonna need a lot from you and Dad right now, and I’m going to need you focused, all right? Officer Jones has three little ones of her own. Your son’s going to be in very good hands.”
The big woman stooped down to get her face closer to Jace’s. “Hi, Jace,” she said, and Krissy wondered how she knew Jace’s name. Had she told them? “My name’s Patricia. What do you say to some lemonade? And I think I might know where to get some cookies too.”