Erin looks back at her in surprise. “A boyfriend? Hardly. She’s nine years old!” She asks, “Who told you that? Probably Jenna—Avery doesn’t really have any other friends.”
Gully says carefully, “We’re concerned that Avery may have been taken advantage of by someone older. Jenna said Avery told her they did ‘grown-up things.’ It could be that she was being molested. She was lonely, vulnerable.”
Erin looks back at her in revulsion. “My God,” she cries, “could it get any worse?” Her voice rises in despair. “What else was going on right under my nose?”
“I’m sorry,” Gully says.
“Oh God,” Erin says, “I can’t deal with this.”
“So you don’t have any idea who that might be, if it’s in fact true?”
Erin shakes her head and covers her face with her hands.
“Can I talk to Michael?” Gully asks.
Erin nods wearily. “He’s upstairs. I’ll get him.” She seems to steel herself, then rises slowly from the sofa and climbs the stairs as if she’s aged decades since her daughter went missing. She returns with Michael trailing behind her, a tall, gangly boy who looks like he’s about to face a firing squad. He seems even paler than before, with his wheat-colored hair and dark circles under his eyes.
Gully stands. “Michael, I was hoping I could talk to you about your sister, would that be okay? Your mom can stay with us.”
Michael nods and sits down on the sofa beside his mother, and Gully sits again in the armchair across from them. She leans in closer to Michael. “Did Avery ever say anything to you about having a boyfriend?”
Twenty
No,” Michael says automatically, before he even thinks about it.
“Take your time,” Detective Gully tells him, her voice soothing.
He’s glad it’s her and not the other detective. The other detective scares him. He feels hollowed out, after everything that’s happened. He can hardly think straight. He glances at his mother, who is watching him in dread, as if expecting to hear something terrible. He can’t do that to her. He must protect his mother—she might be all he has left. Besides, he doesn’t know anything. He blurts out, “She’s only nine.”
“I know,” Gully says. And waits.
“She never said anything to me about a boyfriend,” Michael says.
“I know this is hard, but it’s important,” Gully says to him gently. “We’ve discovered that Avery claimed she was seeing an older boy, that they did ‘grown-up things’ together.”
He feels his face flush with embarrassment.
“Did you ever see her with an older boy?” Gully asks.
He thinks hard. He can’t believe Avery was doing anything like that. She’s just a kid. But it makes him uncomfortable because he knows how guys talk about girls.
He shakes his head. Then he hesitates, suddenly remembering something. He says, “Just once.” And stops himself cold.
“Who did you see her with, Michael?” the detective presses.
He doesn’t want to say, because he doesn’t like where this is going. But Gully is waiting, and his little sister is missing. He swallows nervously. “It was at the tree house, in the woods.” Gully nods, encouraging him. “I was in the woods one day a few weeks ago, and I went to the tree house and Avery was there. At first I thought she was alone. But she wasn’t.”
“And . . .” Gully prompts him.
“They weren’t doing anything,” he insists.
“Who was with her, Michael?”
“Derek. Jenna’s brother.”
* * *
? ? ?
Midmorning, William finally locates a pay phone at the local community center. He keeps an eye out, paranoid that he’s being watched. He’d snuck out the back of the hotel to avoid the reporters. For once the police seem to be leaving him alone—no one has asked him down to the station for questioning yet today. He thinks about Erin and Michael, and worries about how they’re doing. He will call them soon, if they will even talk to him.
He doesn’t want the detectives to connect him to Nora. He must protect her, and she must believe he is innocent, even if no one else does.
He dials Nora’s secret phone, grateful that he remembers the number, and holds his breath. He hopes she has her phone on her; he knows she keeps it turned off and hidden when she’s not alone, but she keeps it with her when she’s home by herself. Or maybe she’s thrown it away.
Perhaps she won’t answer. And he won’t know whether it’s because someone else is there or because she thinks he’s a murderer and never wants to speak to him again. But she picks up.
He finds himself hesitating. There’s a long pause—long enough that he wonders who is on the other end of the line. Has her husband found her phone? Her son? Whoever it is doesn’t say anything. Maybe it’s Nora and she’s wondering who’s on the other end of the line. Would the police phone the number to see who answers? All this goes through his mind in a flash. “Nora?” he says at last, risking all.
“Yes.”
He takes a deep breath, which catches on a sob. “Nora,” he gasps.
“What’s happening?” she asks, and he can hear the wariness in her voice.
He knows they can’t talk long; he feels so conspicuous at this pay phone. “They found my other phone. I want you to know—I had to tell them I was having an affair, but I kept your name out of it. I will never tell them it was you I was seeing. I promise.”
“Thank you,” she says. She sounds deeply relieved.
He knows how worried she must have been; she would know they’d find his hidden phone. William says, “I could never do anything to hurt you, Nora.”
There’s a silence. He rushes to fill it. “I didn’t do anything to Avery. You can’t believe the news, the police,” he says urgently. “I didn’t hurt her, I swear. Someone has taken her.”
“I know,” she whispers.
His heart lifts, just a little. “The detectives—they always think it’s the parents. They’ve got us under a microscope,” he says bitterly.
“It’s not just you,” she says, her voice unnatural, strained. “They’re looking at my son.”
“What?” He doesn’t think he heard her correctly. “What did you say?”
“Someone called in an anonymous tip that they saw Avery getting into Ryan’s car that afternoon. But it’s not true. Who would do something like that?”
He feels a clutch at his heart. Is she accusing him? Of having someone call in a false tip, just to take the heat off him? He would never do that. But if he did, the last person he would point the finger at is Nora’s son. He could never hurt her.
“Who would make up a malicious lie like that?” she repeats.
“I don’t know,” he says. He tries to think. He doesn’t know anything about Nora’s son, except that he’s eighteen and didn’t go off to college this year like he was supposed to—something to do with community service he has to complete because of a drug charge. She’d let that slip one day.