Good Girl Bad (32)

She pokes the toe of one slipper repeatedly into the island bench. It makes a dull tapping sound.

“I know it’s hard for friends, I know you probably have secrets and things you don’t want to tell me. But this is very serious. We need to find Tabby. She might be in danger. So anything you know that might help us is really, really important. Like…” Nate hesitates. “We think she had an older boyfriend, but we don’t know who it was. Could you tell me, Freddy, please?”

Here Freddy looks up, a spark of anger in her eyes, and Nancy is shocked for the third time that morning. “What makes you think she’d tell me?” she spits. “She’s been moody and shitty with me for months.”

Nate looks taken aback too. “Really? You’re the only friend she seems to have kept in touch with. She always speaks so highly of you.”

For a second Freddy looks young and hopeful, like she’s straining toward something in Nate’s words, but her face closes off again immediately. “Well, pity she didn’t treat me like it. She’s been bloody horrible, if you must know. Inviting me over then kicking me out. You can ask Mrs. G,” she adds, as though Nate might doubt her. “I spoke to her about it one day after Tabby kicked me out and wouldn’t tell me why.” Freddy looks down again, and kicks the wall of the bench harder. “Anyway, I heard the door was open. No one broke in. You have a key, right, Nate? Maybe you were there that night. Maybe you or Leroy were the ones she was running away from.”

“Freddy!” Nancy is mortified. She has never heard Freddy speak to an adult like that in her life. “That is not okay! You can’t just throw around accusations like that!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Nate is looking at Freddy with a worried expression. He wants to know if Freddy knew that he was at the house on Sunday night, and if so, how, or if she was just throwing random thoughts out there, but asks, “So you think she ran away? And she might run from Leroy? Not with Leroy?” He desperately doesn’t want to sound like a paranoid dad, but anything Freddy can tell him about Tabby’s relationship with Leroy is more than anyone else can tell him.

Freddy looks at him pityingly. “I told you. I don’t know. She hasn’t confided anything in me. But earlier, like months ago, she complained about Leroy a lot. Coming in to her room. Being smarmy. She seemed really angry toward him. And she didn’t say anything, but I got the feeling she was seeing someone. But it could be anyone.” Freddy gets a faraway look in her eyes, then she looks back at Nate, meeting his eyes for the first time, eyes narrowing. “It’s not like she was stuck for choice. She could have bloody anyone she batted her eyelashes at.”

For the first time, Nancy wonders if Freddy was jealous of Tabby’s beauty. She’s never heard her complain or compare, but the way she says that, the bitter edge to her voice, makes her wonder.

Did Tabby get a boy that Freddy liked? Did Tabby betray her?

“What do you mean ‘maybe I was at the house that night’? What made you say that, Freddy?” Nate looks deeply uncomfortable, and Nancy wonders about Freddy’s accusations. Was he there that night? Why would Freddy say that? Why did Nate look so guilty about it? Nate spying on his ex-wife’s house should make him uncomfortable, she thinks. It was too much of a coincidence, on the night Tabby went missing. Her mind is spinning. Did Nate see Tabby and Leroy together, and kill Leroy in a fit of protective rage?

God knows, if some middle-aged man was fooling around with Freddy, she might want to kill them, too.

Freddy hasn’t answered Nate. She just keeps kicking the island bench, eyes narrowed.

“Are you angry with her, Freddy? I thought you guys were really close, but it seems like you’re angry with her about something.” Nate looks confused. This is not how he thought this conversation would go. He expected Freddy to be reluctant to talk to him, to have to work hard to draw secrets out of her. He didn’t expect he’d have to deflect her outright hostility.

Nancy is confused, too.

“What about enemies?” Nate goes on. “She got a nasty text message on her phone a few days ago. The police will probably be able to trace the number,” Nate lies, hoping to fast-track Freddy sharing who might have sent it. “You don’t know who might have been angry with her, do you?” Besides you, he thinks to himself, and glances at Nancy, wondering if she’s thinking the same thing.

Freddy looks uneasy. “She’s not really been talking to many people. Like I told you, she’s been moody. Doesn’t want to do anything. But… Trent took her dumping him pretty hard. It could be him. Especially if he found out she’d replaced him.”

“How would he find out?” Nate presses. “No one else seems to know. Not even Gen.”

“Maybe you should ask Rebecca,” Freddy shoots back, sarcastically.

“Freddy!” Nancy says again, exasperated. “What has gotten into you?”

“Well, she was always complaining about Rebecca, picking on her. She sounded like a wimp, to be honest. Like Rebecca would say something mean and she’d cry for days. It’s not like she’s the only person to fight with her parents.” Freddy shoots Nancy a look which neither Nate nor Nancy can interpret.

“We don’t really fight, do we, sweetheart? Like, have you ever been upset with me for days?”