Lovely Girls(64)

I called Joe immediately and explained what was happening, my voice choked with tears.

“I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look, but you said you’d try to find a referral for a criminal defense attorney. I called several over the past few days, just names I found online, but no one’s gotten back to me yet. Probably because it was the weekend and their offices were closed. But now I need to find one immediately.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he promised. “And I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The police were everywhere, searching through drawers, cabinets, closets. I didn’t know where to stand. I moved restlessly from the living room to the kitchen to the home office, and everywhere I went, there they were, invading my privacy and the privacy of my daughter. They bagged and took away seemingly random items. A bottle of strawberry-scented body lotion. A stack of notebooks taken from Alex’s desk. My laptop. Things that couldn’t possibly be related to whatever case they were making. And I couldn’t do anything to stop them.

They even took my phone.

“Why do you need my phone?” I asked, clutching it to my chest when the young sheriff’s officer asked for it. It was my lifeline to the outer world. I didn’t even know anyone’s phone number by heart anymore. They were all stored on my phone.

“All mobile phones belonging to members of the household are included in the warrant,” he said.

I reluctantly handed it to him. He dropped the phone into a plastic evidence bag.

Joe showed up forty-five minutes later. We sat side by side on the sofa.

“I called an attorney I know. Scott Jones. Our kids were on the same soccer team in middle school. I don’t know how good he is, but he said he’d come straight over and help out. He should be here shortly.”

“Thank you so much,” I said. “I’ve never even seen a search warrant before. I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

“This must all be overwhelming.” Joe took in the sight of the police officers tramping through my house, going through our things, invading our privacy, all in order to find evidence to prove my daughter committed a crime.

“That’s an understatement,” I said. I was determined not to cry in front of the police, but it wasn’t easy. Fear pulsed through me. My breath was shallow, and my pulse was skittering. I looked at Joe, grateful for his presence. “I’m not taking you away from urgent restaurant business, am I?”

“No. And even if you were, I’d still be here.” Joe squeezed my hand.

I smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

Twenty minutes later, a man in his forties with a square chin and graying hair that was overdue for a cut walked in through the open front door. He was wearing a sports jacket and button-down shirt that was open at the throat. He stood in the front hall and looked around, as if he’d somehow wandered into the wrong house.

“Scott, over here. Thanks for coming over.” Joe stood up to shake the man’s hand.

“Joe, hi. I would have knocked, but the door was wide open.”

“This is Kate Turner. Kate, Scott Jones is the attorney I told you about.”

“Kate, it’s nice to meet you.” Scott smiled. It struck me that this was just normal business to him and to the police, while my world felt like it had been tipped upside down and shaken like a snow globe.

“I wish I could say the same,” I said faintly.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get through it. But I have to say, they are putting on quite the show.” Scott whistled. “Especially considering, as I understand it, that they haven’t even established a crime has been committed.”

I hadn’t thought of that and felt the first glimmer of hope. If the police couldn’t prove Callie’s death had been a crime, it wouldn’t matter what they took from the house. They wouldn’t be able to charge Alex with anything.

I glanced around, wondering where my checkbook was. Had the police taken that off in a plastic bag too? Nothing would surprise me at this point.

“I have to pay you,” I said.

“Don’t worry, we can figure that out once things here settle down. Where’s the warrant?” Scott took it and scanned through it. “It looks legit, although it’s a little broad.”

“They took my phone,” I said. “Can they really do that?”

“Unfortunately, yes, they can. But they should be able to extract the data and get it back to you quickly. I’ll see if they can expedite that,” Scott said. “Where’s your daughter? It looks like they want her phone and computers too.”

“She’s at school,” I said.

“No, she’s not.” Gavin Reddick stood in the hallway, staring in at us. He seemed predatory, always looking for a vulnerability he could exploit. “We sent an officer over to the high school. Alex wasn’t there.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I dropped her off this morning.”

“Your daughter didn’t show up to school today. The attendance office has her marked as an unexcused absence. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” Scott said to me at the same time as I said, “I have no idea where she is.”

“We’d like to speak to her as soon as you find her,” Detective Reddick said.