Midnight Betrayal (Midnight #3)(35)

He inhaled sharply, as if the thought of his daughter’s unknown fate stole his breath.

Louisa scanned a printout of Zoe’s texts. All were from the night of her disappearance, and all flowed one way: from Heath’s number to Zoe’s.

U FUCKING BITCH

WHR R U?

DON’T U DARE SAY ANYTHING

U CAN’T HIDE FROM ME

I’LL FIND YOU

Louisa set the paper down. Heath’s texts painted a more damaging picture than he’d led her to believe. Why were the police so convinced of Conor’s guilt when they had threatening texts from Heath to Zoe?

“How can they ignore all this”—Mr. Finch waved his hand at the list of texts—“because his friends say he was with them? Of course they would lie for their buddy.”

Louisa read the texts again. Heath’s messages went beyond what she’d imagined. Had Zoe been afraid of Heath? Is that why she didn’t text him back? “Maybe she was afraid to go back to her apartment alone.” Louisa reached up to her necklace and rolled a pearl between her fingertips. “Did she talk to you about Heath?”

Mrs. Finch sniffed. “She mentioned him, but she never brought him home. We never met him.”

“Did she bring other kids home to meet you?” Louisa asked.

“No.” Mrs. Finch stared at her clasped hands. “She didn’t come home unless school was out. She helped out with chores when she lived here, but farming wasn’t for her. We were so hoping that she’d finally found a place where she fit in. Somewhere she would be happy.”

“Zoe was desperate to have a social life. She never had many friends.” Mr. Finch rubbed his wife’s hand, as if her fingers were cold and he was trying to warm them.

“It must have been hard on her, being so smart, so different from the other kids.” Louisa knew exactly how that felt.

Mr. Finch nodded. “We had her late in life. We never thought we’d have a child, let alone be gifted with one as special as Zoe. By the time she was three, she’d taught herself to read. We knew she was different from other kids. The school here couldn’t accommodate her, so we took out a second mortgage to send her to private school. But even there, she was in classes with kids so much older than her. Socially, she was always an outsider.”

Mrs. Finch dabbed her eye with the crumpled tissue. “She was excited when he asked her out. She hadn’t been out on many dates. I was worried, but I thought the university was so nice. All the kids seemed to have good manners. I worried about strangers hurting her. I never thought I’d have to worry about her friends.”

“Now we know better.” Mr. Finch’s lips compressed with despair. “We’ve researched all the statistics. Most girls are harmed by people they know, not strangers. Did her boyfriend hang around the museum?”

“No, I’d never seen him before,” Louisa answered. “Have you met any of Zoe’s other friends?”

Mr. Finch’s head bobbed in a tight, strained nod. “Her roommate, Isa. We’ve seen her a couple of times when we stopped by to visit Zoe. Frankly, we were going to ask you the same thing.”

Louisa sighed. “I’m afraid not. Has she mentioned anyone else to you lately? Any difficulties with her courses? Any problems with other students?”

“No,” Mr. Finch said quietly. “She seemed excited about her classes. She loves the museum and was very pleased to be working with you.”

Louisa swallowed a lump of sadness. “She’s a terrific student.” She didn’t want to believe that Zoe would never bounce into her office again.

“I thought she’d finally found somewhere she belonged, a place where she could find other people like her. She was supposed to make friends and have a normal life.” A sob slipped past Mrs. Finch’s tight lips. “She wasn’t supposed to—”

Her control broke. Her shoulders shook, and tears streamed down her face. Her husband turned her into his chest and rubbed her back. The look he cast over his wife’s shoulder was full of anger and sorrow. “Please let us know if you can think of anyone else that Zoe spent time with. The police act like there’s no point in even trying. They won’t say it, but I can tell they’re convinced she’s dead, but I can’t believe it. I keep thinking that I’d feel different if she was gone. That I’d know. That something inside of me would have died right along with her.”

“I’ll call you if I learn anything.” Louisa stood. She let herself out, leaving Zoe’s parents alone with their grief and fear. On the drive back to Philadelphia, she turned up the volume on the stereo and tried to drown out all her thoughts, but one question refused to be silenced. Was Zoe still alive?

Back at work, her butt didn’t spend two minutes in her desk chair before her phone rang with a summons to Cusack’s office. She reported with none of her usual nervousness. The discussion with Zoe’s parents had changed her perspective.

“Where have you been?” Cusack rose as she entered his office, his ingrained manners unaffected by his obvious irritation.

“Zoe’s parents called me.” She eased into the chair facing his desk.

Cusack smoothed his tie as he sank into his seat. “And?”

“And they asked me to come to their house.”

His entire face sagged with a frown. “So you just left?”