Alice Seton answers the door and seems surprised when she sees Gully. “May I come in?” Gully asks.
“Of course,” she says, letting her into the vestibule. She lowers her voice and says conspiratorially, “Was it Ryan Blanchard?”
It seems everyone is glued to the news. “You know I can’t discuss the case with you,” Gully says.
Alice nods, shrugs. She says, “It’s just—Jenna’s so traumatized by Avery’s disappearance. All her classmates are frightened, understandably so. We all just want whoever took Avery caught as soon as possible.” She pauses and asks, “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to talk to your son, Derek,” Gully says.
Alice seems taken aback. “Well, okay, but I don’t think he knows any more than his sister. And he’s not friends with Ryan at all.”
Gully follows her into the living room. It sounds like the family is having dinner in the kitchen. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your meal,” she says.
“It’s okay, we’ve just finished,” Alice says.
Gully says, “Either you or your husband must be present, as he’s a minor. But maybe one of you could take your daughter upstairs?”
Alice regards her for a moment and then says, “Yes, of course. I’ll get Pete to take her. Give me a minute.” She returns to the kitchen, and Gully hears quiet voices, then a boy’s voice rising in protest. Then they all come out. Mr. Seton nods at her as he and Jenna go upstairs. Jenna looks back over her shoulder at the detective, eyes wide.
Derek is a nondescript-looking boy—average height, messy brown hair, a few pimples across his forehead. Gully smiles at him as he sits down beside his mother on the sofa. Gully pulls a chair up closer and begins. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she says. “But you know how important it is that we find Avery.”
The boy nods back at her, looking nervous. Alice is watching her, clearly wondering what Gully is up to.
“Do you know Avery?” Gully asks.
Derek looks at his mother as if to say, Why is she asking me this? Then he turns back to Gully and says, “Yes, of course. She’s a friend of Jenna’s, sort of.”
Gully notes again how they always seem to make it clear that Jenna doesn’t really like Avery. It makes Gully feel a sudden surge of sympathy for Avery.
“Did you ever hang out with her, with her and your sister?”
He shakes his head, glances again at his mother, rigid beside him. “No. They’re, like, nine.”
“Do you think she might have had a crush on you?” Gully ventures.
The boy flushes to the roots of his hair. “No.”
“What’s this about, Detective?” Alice Seton interrupts.
“I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this story that Avery told your daughter, about having an older boyfriend. Perhaps it was a figment of her imagination,” Gully suggests. “Perhaps she merely had a crush on an older boy, and Derek is an older boy that she might have come into contact with.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Alice says. “Derek had nothing to do with Avery.”
“But that’s not exactly true, is it?” Gully says, looking directly at Derek.
Derek stares back at her and swallows. He doesn’t look at his mother now. A silence stretches out uncomfortably.
“What are you talking about?” Alice asks, her voice tense.
Gully’s genuine sympathy for Alice in this situation is tempered somewhat by the other woman’s earlier eagerness to point the finger at Adam Winter simply because he’s different. She knows that it’s not necessarily the ones who seem different that you need to be afraid of—it’s the ones who can carry off normal without anyone suspecting a thing. Gully ignores her. “Derek, were you ever in the tree house in the woods with Avery?”
The boy swallows again. “I don’t remember.”
“Of course you remember,” Gully says gently. “Avery’s brother, Michael, found you there with her a few weeks ago.” She adds, “You were alone with Avery in the tree house, with the ladder pulled up. What were you doing in the tree house with Avery, Derek?”
He looks petrified now. “Nothing.”
Alice looks as if she might faint.
“What were you doing there with her?” Gully asks again.
Derek begins to tremble. “She was just there. I went to the tree house one day when I had nothing to do. I thought no one was there. I climbed up, but when I opened the door she was inside. I didn’t expect to see anyone. We just talked for a bit. It was awkward. I was going to leave and then Michael came. She saw him out the window and called down to him.”
“And then you put the ladder down for him.”
“I guess, I don’t remember,” Derek says.
“I’m just wondering why the ladder was pulled up at all,” Gully says.
Twenty-eight
Alice observes her son, her heart in her throat. This has all gone very weird, very fast. She thought Gully was here to ask her son some routine questions, but that’s not the case at all. Gully seems to be accusing Derek of molesting a nine-year-old girl. Alice struggles to hide her dismay as she observes him. Her son is shaking; he looks frightened, and suddenly she feels sick to her stomach. She wants her husband here with her; she doesn’t know how to handle this. She wants to go get him, but she doesn’t dare leave. She’s so stunned that she doesn’t even call out his name to have him come join them.
“Why was the ladder pulled up, Derek?” Gully presses.
“It wasn’t,” he says.
“Michael says it was. He says Avery put it down for him.”
“She must have pulled it up then,” Derek says. “It wasn’t me.” His skin is flushed a dark red.
“I know why teenagers go to that tree house, Derek,” the detective says, as Alice watches in disbelief. Derek remains miserably silent.
Alice swallows, her throat dry. She thought the tree house was for younger kids. She doesn’t want to know about this.
“Derek?” Gully prods.
Alice is suddenly terrified that Derek will say something he shouldn’t. Something that she can’t bear to hear. She must stop this. “Peter!” she calls out loudly, turning toward the stairs. “Can you come down here, please?”
Gully sits back in her chair, as if annoyed at the interruption.
There’s a poisonous silence as they wait for Peter to appear. Her husband hastens down the stairs and arrives in the living room, taking in the atmosphere. He looks questioningly at her; he knows he’s walked into something.
“Detective Gully seems to be accusing Derek of something,” Alice says, her voice low. She sees the sudden alarm on her husband’s face.
“Sit down, please,” Gully tells him. “And I’m not accusing anyone of anything.”
He sits down on the sofa, on the other side of their son, glancing briefly at her over Derek’s head. She watches his face as the detective explains the situation. The same incredulity, the same fear. Then they all turn their attention back to Derek.
Derek says, “I don’t know what the other kids do. I never touched her. I just went to the tree house one day and she was there, playing by herself. I felt sorry for her, so I talked to her a bit and then I was going to leave, and Michael showed up. She must have pulled the ladder up, I didn’t. I never touched her! Why do you believe Michael over me?” he cries.