“Why ‘especially not Emily?’”
“Everyone loves Emily. And she’s only fourteen. She needs her mother.”
“And you don’t?” She leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and fixed Jared with a hard stare.
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be in this mess,” he answered honestly. “I just—I didn’t know how seriously the police would look for Mom, and so I wanted to look for her myself.”
“And what did you find?”
He blinked. “Nothing! I didn’t have time. I’d only just turned on Mom’s computer when the police came busting in.”
“Speaking of busting in—”
“Jared, don’t say any more,” his father cut in. “Detective Anderson, my son only came to check on his mother. There’s no crime here. Unless she’s sworn out a complaint, in which case all of these questions about her disappearance are moot.”
Jared’s heart jumped and he watched Detective Anderson very closely. Was Dad right? Could Mom be around somewhere?
“Your son was caught breaking and entering. We don’t need a complainant to charge him.”
Which meant no. The hope died, sinking like a battleship.
“But what was broken? What harm was done?” his father asked.
Detective Anderson ignored the questions and turned back to Jared. “You tell me. We have only your word that you didn’t have time to do anything. Our techs are at the apartment now. You’d do well to tell me what you did before they find it for themselves. Maybe we could even make a deal.…”
“What kind of deal?” his father asked at the same time Jared moaned, “But I didn’t do anything.”
“Convince me,” Detective Anderson said simply.
Jared looked at his Dad. He had no idea what to do. It sounded like the police were determined to charge him. His only hope was convincing Detective Anderson he was innocent.
Or was that what she wanted him to believe?
The police could lie. He knew that. They could say anything they wanted to get you to confess. Tell you they knew things they didn’t or whatever.
“Do we need a lawyer?” his father asked.
“That’s up to you.”
“I loved my mother,” Jared jumped in before his father could call a lawyer and he lost the chance to head everything off. Even as it came out of his mouth, he realized a guilty person would say the same thing. He rushed on. “If I didn’t, why would I have left her so many messages and texts? You’ve got to be checking her phone records, right?”
“Messages would only prove you’re smart enough to leave a false trail.”
“But—” But what? He had nothing.
“If something happened, if there was an accident, you need to tell us now,” Detective Anderson said, staring at him hard enough that he wanted to squirm. “Trying to hide things will only make it worse, add obstruction, tampering with evidence. Make your girlfriend an accessory after the fact. Maybe you and your mom got into it over something—maybe your girlfriend, maybe your grades—and you pushed her. She hit her head or something and you were afraid you’d get into trouble. It happens. More than you think. Just an accident.”
“All right, that’s it,” Dad said as Jared blurted, “I didn’t do anything. I was asleep at the time.”
There was absolute silence for the missed beat of his heart. His father and Detective Anderson both stared at him in shock.
“At what time?” she asked, very softly.
His father stood. “No more questions. This interview is over. If you’re going to charge him, charge him, but we’re getting a lawyer. I’m invoking for him.”
Jared was shaking. He hadn’t meant to say that. Did Dad—
Detective Anderson turned her sights on him. “Mr. Graham, your wife is missing. I’d think you’d want to do everything in your power to find her. I’d think you’d want the answer to these questions as badly as we do.”
“Invoking,” he said. “Lawyer.”
He stared Detective Anderson down. Truly down, since she’d stayed seated and he now loomed.
“Fine,” she said, staring back at him. Her face was stone. Her tone as chill as a mountain breeze. She slid her chair away from the table and rose as well. “I’ll be back.”
She left the room.
Which left Jared alone with his father.
He watched his dad, who stared daggers at the detective’s back until the door closed behind her. It was a horrible eternity waiting for his father to get to him.
When Dad swiveled back his way, Jared still saw daggers in his eyes, only they’d shifted targets. “You don’t say another word.”
He looked around the room as Jared had earlier, only he wasn’t counting ceiling tiles or cracks in the wall. He seemed to be searching for something. It occurred to Jared belatedly that, duh, the room probably had a camera, or a microphone at least. Of course, the police would record everything. On the cop shows, the detectives made a show of getting permission to record, but he knew that wasn’t always necessary. He’d seen enough true crime stuff where people were tripped up by being left in an interrogation room alone or talking on the phone with someone while in jail. He didn’t know what New York law said, but he was afraid to find out the hard way.
“I’m going to step out and make a call,” Dad said. “Don’t talk to anyone. Not even to yourself.”
And he was gone, the door shutting behind him with a horrible finality.
“Don’t say another word,” he’d told Jared.
Good advice. But was he truly afraid Jared would incriminate himself or afraid he’d talk about what he might have heard Friday night? Did Dad realize what his outburst had meant? And what did that mean for him?
After what happened to Mom—what he feared had happened to Mom—was he safer in police custody?
Fourteen
Jared
Detective Anderson returned twenty minutes later, just after his father had slipped back into the room, and announced that they wouldn’t be pursuing charges at this time. He was going home.
Jared’s breath came gushing out, and for the first time in hours, he felt he could take a full breath to replace it. Apparently, it didn’t matter where he was safer. Home won over prison hands down.
“However,” she said, looking hard first at Jared and then his father, “we may re-approach depending on what turns up. Neither of you are to leave the area. We’ll certainly have more questions.”
“Neither of us?” his father asked.
“Sir, your wife is missing. As the estranged husband, it can’t come as a surprise that you’re a person of interest. If you have any information or have had any contact with your wife that can help us clear things up, please don’t hold back.”
“I’ve told the police everything I know,” he said.
“Well then, here we are.”
“Aaliyah?” Jared asked.
“Already released.”
“My phone?”
“Evidence.” She pulled a slightly crinkled business card from her pants pocket and slid it across the table toward Jared. “If you think of anything you want to get off your chest …”
His father intercepted the card, stopping it with a finger to the far end. “Thank you. We’ll call if we think of anything.”
Jared didn’t think Detective Anderson would hold her breath waiting for that call.
His father plucked the card off the table and put it into his own pocket, then told Jared, “Let’s go.”
There was nothing else to do. At least Aaliyah was free. Not that her father or his would probably ever let him see her again. With luck, she was already back home.
Home. It was about to become his prison, he was pretty sure. And that would be the best-case scenario given the pent-up rage he could feel steaming off of his father.
He didn’t want to get into the car with him.
He didn’t have a choice.
What did he really think his father was going to do? He couldn�
�t answer that. He wanted to think he wouldn’t dare do anything. Not with the police already watching him. The way he didn’t do anything to your mother? part of him asked. He tried to squash it like a bug.
His father stood to the side of the doorway, waiting for the detective and for Jared to precede him out. With Dad behind him, he couldn’t watch for clues about what he was thinking or feeling, how he was going to react.
They had some paperwork to fill out and then he was stuck in the car with his father, slipping glances at his profile for some indication of the trouble he was in, but afraid to look at him full on and kick it off. He didn’t believe in auras or force fields or any of that, of course, but there did seem to be some kind of storm cloud seething around his father, charged air ready to strike down any attempt he might make to talk himself out of things.
They were a third of the way home before his father spoke. His voice eerily calm, like he was the eye of the raging storm. “You’re grounded. That goes without saying. No more dates, no more runs in the park. For now, you do all your running at track. If I hear you skip even a single practice, you’re off that as well. It will be just school and home. Emily needs you anyway. She had a scare tonight, and you left her alone. I couldn’t even go to her because I had to come and get you. In jail.”
Jared didn’t point out that he hadn’t actually been in jail, because it had been a close thing, and anyway, it didn’t matter. Splitting hairs with his father would not go well.
“Okay,” was all he said. And then the part about Emily registered. “Is Emily okay?”
Dad spared Jared a quick, unreadable look before turning his attention back to the road. “She is. Some strange man showed up at the house. Someone from your mother’s past.”
Jared’s blood ran cold. “A strange guy? He didn’t … do anything, right? Why didn’t you tell the police about him?”
“If he’d done anything, I would have. But it was outside their jurisdiction and there was nothing to tell. He tried to talk to Emily. She ran to the Meyers’. Carla called me. End of story.”
If that was all there was to it, Emily wouldn’t have been spooked. But he could ask her later. He wasn’t going to push his father; he was already in enough trouble.
Things were quiet for a moment before his father asked, “What did you mean ‘you were asleep when it happened?’”
Jared’s blood ran so cold it formed ice shards that wanted to stop up the flow all together. He’d known this was coming; he should have been thinking about how to answer. He still didn’t know exactly what he’d heard. Probably nothing. Almost certainly nothing. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell his father … just in case. He had to deflect, but he was no actor. He gave it his best shot.
“I figure whatever happened to Mom had to have happened Friday night or Saturday morning, because otherwise she would have come for us. Emily, at least,” he said, giving Dad the side-eye, not wanting to seem as though he was studying his father for his reaction. “I know you said she’d changed her mind, but she would have changed it back. I know it. So, whatever happened, it must have been that night after she left, when we were all sleeping.”
There, that sounded likely. He might even be able to convince himself.
Dad side-eyed him as well, only not as furtively. “Jared, you’re thinking emotionally. But you’re almost a man now. You have to start thinking with your head. Nothing happened to your mother. She sent you a message on Saturday. Sometimes people are selfish. They let us down. Your mother … I want to tell you otherwise, but your mother has left. That’s it. No big secret. No mystery. Your aunt is a drama queen. I expected better of you.”
His dad was more convincing than he was. Maybe because he was right? Could this all be in Jared’s head? He really didn’t know what he’d heard. It could have been totally innocent, and he could be biased against his father because of the past. The law considered people innocent until proven guilty. It seemed wrong that Jared couldn’t apply that to his own father, who was currently the only parent he had.
Dad sighed heavily, and Jared felt miserable. He didn’t know what to believe. He didn’t know what to trust—his father or his instincts. Those same instincts had pushed him to drag Aaliyah into breaking and entering and had probably cost him his girlfriend. They didn’t seem so hot right now.
“We’re stopping for food,” Dad announced abruptly. “I’m not rewarding you for what you’ve done, but there’s nothing at home, and we need to bring dinner back for your sister.”
Jared got why his father mentioned not rewarding him when he saw they were pulling into a KFC drive-through. Kentucky Fried Chicken was his favorite. Well, maybe second to Popeye’s, but they didn’t have one of those close to home.
When they got the food, his father reached around to place it on the floor behind his seat and gave Jared the drink carrier to balance on his knees. They rode the rest of the way home in silent salivation. His stomach was apparently untouched by his turmoil.
Fifteen
Monday Night
Emily
Emily sat cross-legged at the foot of Jared’s bed, staring at him. “What were you thinking?” she asked.
She’d tried asking him at dinner, but Dad had stopped that cold, saying they were going to have a nice family dinner. Despite telling her not to, Mrs. Meyers had called Dad and told him about the guy she’d seen. She tried to defend not telling him and to pass it off as nothing, but Dad didn’t want to talk about that either. He didn’t want her to dwell on it, he said. If the guy was looking for Mom, he’d surely leave them alone now that he knew she wasn’t here.
Instead Dad asked Emily about her English assignment and her homework. She flashed a glance at Jared, but he didn’t seem inclined to talk about any of the important stuff either. He was deep in his own head. In the sulks, Mom called it, but she’d be sulking too if she’d just gotten arrested, so she couldn’t really blame him. She did her best to chat cheerfully about stupid, regular stuff, pretending everything was fine.
Jared thought she was untouched by everything, that she didn’t care. He didn’t appreciate how hard she worked to distract them from all the bad stuff and to keep the peace. He didn’t have any idea how difficult it was or that sometimes she just wanted to scream. Or worse. And if she told him, really told him so he’d understand, she didn’t know what he’d do. She’d suddenly be the center of attention, and she didn’t know what that would mean. Would he watch her like a hawk? Tell Dad? Try to get her help? What would that look like? She was terrified of being committed. Of being locked up and having something like her mental history follow her around forever. She had it together. She was handling things. Really.
But discovery would brand her.
Jared ignored the question of what he’d been thinking, busy wrapping up his game controllers to turn over to their father. At least he hadn’t kicked her out. Yet.
“Jared,” she said, sharply enough to get his attention. “I can’t lose you too, okay? You can’t get arrested. You can’t … do anything stupid.”
She waited for him to blow up. For a moment, he tensed, and she was sure it was going to happen, but then his shoulders slumped and he finally looked at her.
“I know,” he said.
He put down the controller he was holding and held out his arms. She didn’t let shock stop her from un-pretzeling herself and jumping off the bed for a hug before he changed his mind.
Jared wasn’t the huggy type, but this time he held onto her and let his head fall to hers. “I screwed up, Em,” he said into her hair. “I got Aaliyah into trouble. Probably lost her. The police let us go, but they didn’t say they were dropping all charges forever. Dad—”
He stopped there, but he didn’t really have to go on. Dad was pissed. But he was being awfully quiet about it. No screaming. No shouting this time. Just straight to punishment. Maybe he knew Jared felt badly enough already. Maybe he was trying to make up for Mom’s absence.
“You’re not going to
lose Aaliyah,” Emily said. “You two are …” she scrunched her nose, but realized he couldn’t see it. “You’re too cute. Too into each other. She’s not going to desert you.”
“I don’t think she’ll have a choice. There’s no way her parents will let her see me again.”
Emily didn’t know what to say to that, so she just hugged him. But he was done now. He eased up and she had to let go or risk being clingy.
He picked up the controller again, and she went back to his bed.
“That guy today was seriously weird,” she said. “He scared me.”
Maybe she should have told Jared while he was still hugging her so he’d keep it up. She could really use that hug right now. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself.
“What happened?” he asked. “Dad mostly gave me the silent treatment on the way home.”
She told him, and he froze, a second controller mid-wrap in his hand. “What did the guy say his name was?”
“Jake … Cassuary. Something like that.”
“He said he knew Mom from high school?”
“And that they reconnected online.”
“Facebook,” Jared said. “I’m pretty sure I saw a name like that come up in her messages.”
“You read Mom’s messages?”
“A little,” he said.
“Jared.”
“Don’t Jared me. Mom’s missing. I want to find her.”
“But those are private.”
He clammed up, like there was more he wanted to say and wouldn’t. Had she shut him down or was he protecting her? Dammit, they were only fourteen months apart. She wasn’t a child. With Mom gone and Dad dealing with the problem by pretending it didn’t exist, they only had each other. Jared was not allowed to shut her out.
“What else did you see?” she asked.
He didn’t say anything for a second. He just placed the second controller in the cardboard box with the first, and his gaming headset and …
Disappeared Page 12