Pawsitively Secretive

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  “But, like you said, the search only turned up a cell phone purely by happenstance,” he said.

  “What if that was the point? What if whoever the kidnapper is wanted the town and the whole police department looking one way—looking for nothing—so the kidnapper could get Chloe out of Edgehill, or at least to a hideout, without being seen?” It was a theory she’d first heard while in Alan’s head, and wondered what the chief thought of it.

  “A distraction,” the chief said. It was a statement, not a question. “If that’s the case, Frank might have facilitated his daughter being smuggled out of town—just a matter of whether he did so knowingly or not.”

  “This person, whoever it is, knows enough about Edgehill to know that an emergency town hall would mean we’d all show up, and the majority of us would ask ‘How high?’ when the mayor told us to jump,” Amber said. “Does that mean the person who took her is a local? Is there a way to find out who didn’t go to the search on Saturday and question them?”

  “That’s too many people,” he said. “We don’t have the manpower for that.”

  Amber sighed.

  “As fun as all this speculating is,” the chief said after a long pause, “what does any of this have to do with Chloe’s birthday? Isn’t that where this conversation started?”

  “I think in order to figure out who took her, we have to figure out what it means for the kidnapper now that Chloe is eighteen,” Amber said.

  “Wait a minute,” the chief said, and Amber heard papers being flipped. “In that packet of papers from Chloe’s room, one of them said her birth certificate was unavailable because it had been sealed, right?”

  “Right …”

  Now she heard his fingers flying across his keyboard, and the occasional click of his mouse. “Okay … so assuming Chloe was born in Montana—where both Lilith and Karen were raised, and where Frank supposedly moved here from … in order to get access to a child’s original sealed birth certificate, the child has to be eighteen before it can be requested. Only the child or the biological parents can request an original birth certificate.”

  “What the heck could be on that thing to cause this much trouble?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but I’m going to do my best to find out. How does Cassie Westbottom feel about paying Frank Deidrick a visit? Can you be here in an hour?”

  Amber grinned. “We totally need a buddy cop show.”

  He hung up.

  The real reason Amber had gone to Mews and Brews at noon hadn’t been to chat with the chief of police in their parking lot, but to meet with the owner’s son who did all the artwork that hung on the walls. Mews and Brews had a movie theme incorporated into every aspect of the place, but, since this was Edgehill, there was also a feline spin. The owner’s son was one of the artists competing for the Best of Edgehill logo design. Whoever won would design the decals that would be displayed in the windows of the winning businesses in each category. They would also be the designer of the commemorative pin that each Here and Meow visitor was eligible to earn if they completed a scavenger hunt over the course of the weekend.

  The winner of last year’s pin design had ended up getting a gig as an animator on a popular kid’s show after one of the show runners happened to be at the Here and Meow with his family, fell in love with the designs the young woman had created, and had tracked her down to get her information. After sending him her portfolio, and he’d extensively pored over her impressive body of work she posted daily on her social media, she’d been hired almost immediately.

  Ben Lydon was a twenty-two-year-old with a gangly frame and a mop of wavy red hair. As planned, he was sitting at the first table on the right side of the room. He was bent over his sketchbook, pencil moving quickly across the page.

  Amber slid into the booth across from him and he jumped. “Sorry,” she said, wincing. It looked like he was working on a portrait of a girl. “What are you working on?”

  “Nothing much. It’s not done yet,” he said, and quickly flipped the book closed. The hint of a beard lined his jaw; he was a very attractive kid, just exceedingly awkward.

  They chatted about his design and Amber reminded him what would be expected of him were he to win and gave him a rough outline of what his deadlines would be. It was all things he’d heard before, but Melanie had said she’d worked with enough artists over the years to know that you needed to check in with them often to make sure they stayed on task. She claimed that self-doubt took down more of them than anything else.

  While he’d walked her through his plans for the designs, he had opened his sketchbook again. The book faced her right side up, and he flipped the pages occasionally. Amber had only seen the mock-ups from one other artist so far, but she already thought Ben’s were far superior. On his application for the competition, he’d said that his dream was to work on graphic novels. She hoped the “Best of” competition helped get him there.

  “Oh, and I was thinking for the pin it might be cool …” he said, flipping a few pages, looking for something specific to show her. “It would be cool if instead of—”

  He’d flipped a few pages too far and the book fell open to a sketch of Chloe Deidrick’s smiling face that was so detailed, for a moment, Amber thought she was looking at a black-and-white photograph. Ben froze.

  Slowly, Amber pulled the book a little closer. She flipped the page. And the next. And the next. They were all of Chloe. Page after page. Chloe sitting on a low brick wall eating a sandwich. Chloe laughing with a hand over her mouth and her eyes squeezed shut. Chloe sitting at a bench, reading a book.

  When she looked up, Ben was slumped a little against the booth’s back, his face almost as red as his hair. “How well do you know Chloe?” she finally asked.

  He chewed on is bottom lip, his gaze focused on his hands loosely folded on the tabletop. “Not super well. She was a freshman when I was a senior at Edgehill High. She’s friends with my little sister though so she would come by the house a lot. Or I’d pick them up from school or the mall in Belhaven or whatever.”

  “Admiring her from afar?” Amber asked, trying to keep her voice light and not accusatory. It wasn’t a crime to have a crush on someone, after all.

  “Yeah, I guess.” His gaze flicked up to Amber’s and then away just as quickly. “She didn’t know I existed though. She was obsessed with that college kid.”

  “The guy from Scuttle?” Amber asked.

  When his gaze met hers this time, it held. “You know about Scuttle?”

  Amber shrugged. “Kind of. How does it work? Why would you want to chat anonymously with strangers?”

  “Well, everyone has usernames, so some of them are obvious on purpose. Like a buddy of mine is named Oliver Pepper and we all call him Ollie Pepperoni—it’s dumb, but we’ve called him that since we were ten. He’s Ollie Pepperoni on Scuttle.” When Amber chuckled at that, Ben looked to his right, as if checking to see if anyone was listening in on their conversation, and then leaned forward, the lip of the table pressing against his chest. “And it’s technically anonymous, but some jerk from Edgehill High hacked the app a few months ago and stole a bunch of info off it—email addresses and stuff. Then he started matching up email addresses with usernames so pretty much everyone knew who was who.”

  Amber perked up at that. “What was Chloe’s name on there?”

  “MellowMeowt.” Ben flushed a bit deeper, clearly embarrassed that he could recall it so quickly.

  “Do you have any idea who this Johnny guy was? What his username was?”

  Ben shook his head. “He wasn’t from Edgehill, so he wasn’t on the list. A couple people on the forum where the list was posted … we have some guesses on which username was his just based on interactions we’ve had on there. A few of us are trying to do the armchair detective thing to try to figure out what happened to Chloe, I guess. She was always such a chill girl, you know? Just doesn’t seem like her to run off with some guy she’d never met in person before.”


  Amber agreed. “Any way you could give me some of your guesses on those usernames? I’m actually meeting with the chief later and can pass them on.”

  “You think it could help find her?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter.

  “It might; you never know,” Amber said.

  Ben tore a sheet out of the back of his sketchbook, then wrote down four usernames. He slid it across the table to her.

  005BelHavenGuy

  MeowAndLater

  HandleThis

  JonathanR055.

  Ben said, “I almost asked her out a month or so ago. I signed up to volunteer at the Here and Meow just so I’d have an excuse to talk to her. Then I chickened out. I’m kicking myself now. It’s not like I’m such a great catch or anything, but maybe she would have been less into this guy if someone here was trying to sweep her off her feet.” His face burned a deep red again. “Sorry. I’m really embarrassed that you saw all my drawings and now I can’t shut up. I’m going to go home after this and hide in my room until I’m ninety.”

  Amber laughed.

  He managed a half smile, gathered up his things, and climbed out of the booth. Amber followed suit. “Let me know if anything comes of those usernames, yeah? My armchair detectives and I will keep at it, just in case.”

  Amber watched him go, hoping one of the names she had stuffed in her pocket would lead them to Chloe.

  Amber had a half hour before she had to meet the chief as Cassie Westbottom. She spent ten minutes driving around town, trying to find the best place to hide while she worked through her glamour spells. She had already experienced what happened when she went into a public restroom as one person and left as another—in Mews and Brews, no less. Public places were out. Her own shop was out with the Bowen sisters there.

  Finally, she found a lot at the back of a boarded-up Italian restaurant that had actually been excellent, but had shuttered its doors unexpectedly a few months ago when it was discovered that they’d been operating without a license. With the building to her right and an empty lot encircled by a chain-link fence to her left—tall weeds sprouting through cracks in the asphalt—Amber worked through her spells. First was the A-line blonde bob, then the wider nose, then green eyes. She eyed her handiwork in the mirror, gave her new face a nod, and then backed out of the lot again.

  She had just pulled up to the stop sign at the mouth of the restaurant’s driveway—a force of habit more than a necessity, since the area was deserted—when a car at the stop sign to her right turned into the restaurant’s lot. Brow furrowed, she watched as the person behind the wheel eyed her as he inched past her car.

  Some part of her expected it to be Alan Peterson. Maybe even the chief somehow.

  Who she had not expected to see was Connor Declan. He stopped abruptly, so their driver side windows were lined up—his car facing into the lot and hers out. He rolled down his window. Swallowing, she did the same. This car was a rental. Cassie Westbottom was from out of town, so it both made sense that she might be lost and that she’d be in a rented car.

  “Hey,” Connor said slowly. “You’re Cassie, right?”

  Amber nodded. “That’s me,” she said, hoping this was the same high and light tone she’d given this persona before. She didn’t trust her magic with something as complicated as a voice alteration spell. Knowing her luck, she’d sound like a deep-voiced man. Or a goose.

  “I thought you caught a flight out of here a few days ago,” he said, gaze painstakingly roving over her features.

  “I did,” Amber said. “But Chief Brown asked me to come back.”

  “Oh?” he asked. “You’re a bit far from the station, aren’t you?”

  “I got a bit turned around,” she said with a laugh.

  “I see,” he said. “Hey, weird question: did you happen to see Amber Blackwood out here just a few minutes ago? She and I were going to meet up for a late lunch and I thought I saw her turn down here—I figured maybe she forgot the restaurant here was closed.”

  “I’m not sure I know who that is,” Amber said. “I was only in town a day last time, and I only got back last night.”

  “Right,” he said. “Right. Of course. Sorry to bother you. I hope that you coming back to Edgehill is a good sign for this case?”

  “Sorry, but I can’t discuss details with you,” Amber said. “I should be going. Have a good day.”

  His expression was blank as he said, “You too, Cassie.”

  As Amber drove toward the station, her stomach in knots, only one thought cycled through her head: He knows, he knows, he knows.

  Chapter 17

  The chief was standing on the curb outside the station when Amber pulled up. His nose wrinkled a fraction when he spotted her. Not because he was unhappy to see her, she figured, but because the idea of magic still made him twitchy.

  “Afternoon, Cassie,” he said.

  Amber lightened her voice. “Hello, Chief Brown.”

  He angled his head toward his cruiser and they wordlessly climbed in. After a few blocks, he finally spoke. “What do you think about telling Frank that you’re a psychic?”

  Amber swiveled toward him. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope,” he said, gaze focused ahead. “I want this to be a casual visit. I don’t want Frank to feel like we’re ambushing him or make him feel like he needs to lawyer up. I figure I can present you as a psychic consultant, but that we want to keep what you do a secret for now, so as to not make the public think we’re resorting to drastic measures. You knowing Chloe’s true birthday can be thanks to your abilities. If he does know her true birthday, your knowledge of it should be a shock to him. As well as Shannon Pritchard’s legal name.”

  Amber nodded. “Okay, I can do that. If he doesn’t react well to any of this, I could always erase his memory of the conversation.”

  He cut a quick, sharp look at her. “It’s a little unnerving how causally you suggested that.”

  “It’s not like I go around erasing people’s memories all the time,” she said. “I’m just saying it’s an option.”

  He huffed a breath out of his nose like a disgruntled cow but said nothing further.

  Once the chief had pulled up to the curb in front of the sunshine yellow mayoral home, Amber flipped down the passenger-side visor to check her reflection. Hints of brown roots were starting to show, and her nose wasn’t nearly as wide as it should have been. With two quick spells, Cassie Westbottom was firmly back into place.

  “Lord help me,” the chief muttered as he climbed out of the car. Just before they reached the door, he whispered, “Try to be ethereal and a little off-putting. You know, like usual.” He knocked.

  She was ready to offer him a lighthearted insult of her own, but then the front door opened. Frank Deidrick peered out at them. It was a Sunday afternoon, so casual attire wasn’t odd, per se, but Amber had never seen the man look anything less than well-groomed. He hadn’t shaved, the hems of his sweatpants were dirty, and there was a hole in one of his socks—his big toe nearly poking through. He reminded Amber of Edgar before she’d barged into his life and forced him to leave the house once in a while.

  “I’m not in the best state for company,” Frank said. “Can we do this tomorrow?” Then his gaze slid to Amber. “Who are you, again?”

  Amber thrust out a hand. “Cassandra Westbottom, but please call me Cassie. I was brought on to be a consultant on the case due to my … unique skill set.”

  Frank didn’t shake Amber’s offered hand, but he didn’t slam the door in their faces either. His usual charm—the politician X factor—was gone. “What are you? A psychologist? A social worker? Are you here to psychoanalyze me? Get in my head? If you’re here to use her to accuse me again, chief, for harming my own daughter, I’ll have to ask you to leave. You’re no closer now to finding Chloe than you were a week ago. She’s not here. I don’t know where she is. But wasting your time badgering me won’t get you any closer to finding her.”

  When he moved t
o close the door, Amber blurted out, “Her mother’s name was Lilith, wasn’t it?”

  Frank gaped at her, then quickly snapped his mouth shut, trying to regain some of his composure. “No. Her mother’s name was Shannon.”

  “I meant her given name,” Amber said. “She was born Lilith Reed and died in a town in Montana that bore the same name as the lake her car sank in.”

  All the color drained from Frank’s face. “What … how could …” His wide-eyed gaze darted between Amber and the chief.

  “Can we come in?” the chief asked.

  Without a word, Frank stepped aside. He closed the door behind them, then moved down the short entryway, motioning to the right. “You can have a seat in here. Would you like anything to drink? Ingrid has the day off, but I could probably manage to prepare ice water without screwing it up.”

  The small sitting room had a dark brown leather loveseat against the back wall under a pair of windows. The loveseat was flanked by black bookshelves packed with hardback books. A glass coffee table stood on curved black metal legs over a sea-green throw rug; its hue matched the curtains drawn open on the windows. Against the wall nearest them was a dark brown leather recliner that matched the loveseat.

  The chief perched on the edge of the recliner’s cushion and said, “Nothing for me, thanks,” then gestured to the loveseat.

  Reluctantly, Frank made his way across the room, sidestepped the coffee table, and sat with his clasped hands pressed between his knees, his head lowered. Amber sat beside him, watching as he absently wiggled his toes, the big one on his right foot poking in and out of the hole in his sock like a rodent’s head searching for danger above ground.