Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(65)

I didn’t want to be at police headquarters anymore. I wanted to go home to the mountains. I wanted to walk into my aunt’s house, throw my arms around her, and cry like a child.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I loved them and I failed and I just can’t do it anymore. It is too hard to walk through this life alone.

There was a knock on the door. Detective Warren and I both looked up. A woman stood in the doorway, wearing a cinnamon red sweater that showed off wavy locks of stunning reddish brown hair and an even more stunningly curved figure. A TV show cop, I thought instantly. The kind that solved the case, won the male lead, and celebrated both events with a new pair of Jimmy Choos.

I looked down at my nearly flat chest, then fingered my plain brown hair yanked back into a plain brown ponytail, and immediately felt self-conscious.

“Show her?” asked the woman.

“Just started. Come in. Detective O, this is Charlene Grant. Charlene, Detective O. She set up the page, being our resident Facebook expert.”

Detective O and I shook hands. She appeared to be about my age, which surprised me. Then I peered into her brown eyes and met a gaze as flat and frank as D. D. Warren’s. Cop eyes. Must be one of the requirements to graduate from the academy.

“Nice dog,” she said. She peered under the desk, where Tulip was curled up asleep.

“Not my dog,” I said automatically.

The detective stared at me, then at D.D.

“Not my dog either,” D.D. said.

“Well, that explains it.” O propped one hip against the desk. The office wasn’t big; we were now all crowded in, me sandwiched between two hard-edged Boston cops with better wardrobes and bigger guns. Somehow, I didn’t think that was accidental.

“What do you think?” the new detective gestured to the computer screen, voice brusque.

“I’m sorry?”

Detective O glanced at D.D. again.

“Haven’t gotten there yet,” D.D. said by way of explanation. “It’s your baby, so why don’t you do the honors.”

“All right,” Detective O began. “So…Saturday, the twenty-first, will be the second anniversary of Randi Menke’s murder in Providence.”

I flinched, said nothing.

“And the first anniversary of Jackie Knowles’s murder in Atlanta. Given the pivotal date, we thought we’d set up a Facebook page in honor of both victims and see if we can provoke a response.”

“How?”

“Jackie and Randi must have had other friends and acquaintances before you moved into town,” D.D. spoke up. “Did your arrival upset any of these relationships? Maybe displace another girl, create competition, social rivalry?”

I regarded her blankly. “I don’t know. We were eight. I’m not sure I was aware of social rivalries when I was eight.”

“What about as you grew up? You girls became the three musketeers. How did other girls take it?”

I still didn’t understand. “We weren’t mean. At least, I didn’t think of us that way. We weren’t bullies or anything. We just…played together.”

“What if other girls wanted to play?” Detective O asked curtly. “Would you let them?” There was a tone to her voice, almost an accusation. I found myself leaning away. Maybe it was a tactic she often used with subjects, but clearly she’d already found me guilty.

“You mean like in grade school?” I ventured. “Because I have vague memories of jumping rope and playing freeze tag, but lots of kids were doing it, not just us three.”

Detective Warren spoke up. “Let’s try high school. By the time ‘Randi Jackie Charlie’ hit high school, what was the social landscape like? Were you always together, or did you have other friends, other hobbies, sports, after school activities?”

“We weren’t always together. We had different class schedules, of course. And different extracurricular activities. Jackie was active with the debate team, soccer team, and the alpine ski team. Randi was into figure skating and home arts. I did cross-country skiing in the winter, but spent most of my time helping my aunt with her B&B.”

“So you had other friends?” D.D. prodded.

“I guess. There were over a hundred and fifty kids in our class, so we definitely knew more than just each other.”

“Let’s start with Randi.” Detective O took over the conversation again, brown gaze probing. “When she wasn’t with you and Jackie, who were her friends?”

I had to think about it, delve back ten years, and the minute I tried, I could practically hear Jackie’s voice in my head, laughing at my terrible memory. Me, of all people, the cops needed me to remember. “There was this girl…Sandra, Cynthia, Sandy…Becca, her name was Becca. She ice skated, too, I think. And maybe a Felicity? Artsy, like Randi. I think.”

“Did you like them?”

I shrugged. “I think so?”

“They like you?”

I shrugged again, feeling even more self-conscious. “We would say hi to each other in the halls.” Probably. “Why? What are you looking for?”

“The fourth girl,” Detective Warren said. “The girl who wanted to be friends, too, but none of you let her in. We have reason to believe she’s still out there, and she’s really pissed off.”