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“I don’t know,” Albert and Norman said almost at the same time.
“If she is, why do this? Why torture us this way? How does she know Mom’s in the hospital? Is Brie watching us? Is she keeping tabs on us?”
“Izzy, Izzy, calm down,” Albert said. “We need to … we need to …”
“Need to what?”
“I don’t—maybe we should call her.”
“Call her? Call Brie? How the hell are we supposed to do that?”
“No, not Brie. The detective. What was her—’’
“Hardy. Marissa Hardy. Yes, yes. Call her. Call her now.”
Albert got out his phone. “I don’t know if I still have her in my contacts …” Before he’d found a number, he stopped himself. “She’ll think we’re crazy. She’ll think we’re seeing things. And you … you were always on her case.”
Isabel looked defensive. “I was not.”
“You were, demanding that she arrest Andrew.”
“I had reason, and you know it. She never went after him hard enough. She should have charged him! That man should have been put on trial and—”
She stopped herself.
“Unless,” Albert said.
Isabel needed a moment to put it together. “If it is Brie, then …”
“Maybe we should be calling him.”
Isabel considered that for a second. “No, no, not him. We don’t know that was Brie. He’s not getting off the hook for this yet. Call that detective.”
Albert went back to scrolling through contacts on his phone. “Hang on, I think I still have … Here she is.”
Norman watched as Albert took the lead, tapping the screen and putting the phone to his ear, listening for the rings.
“It can’t be,” Norman whispered to Isabel. “There’s just no way.”
Isabel, ignoring him, said to Albert, “Is she answering?”
“Jesus, just hang on. Not yet— Hello? Is this Detective Hardy?”
Isabel sidled up close to him so she could hear both sides of the conversation.
“Yes, this is Hardy,” the detective said.
“You might not remember me, Detective, but my name is Albert McBain. Six years ago, my sister—”
“Our sister!” Isabel shouted loud enough to be heard at the other end of the call.
“Our sister, Brie, disappeared and you were the lead detective, and—”
“I remember. What can I do for you, Mr. McBain?”
“We weren’t even sure whether we should call you. Our mother, she’s in the hospital. We’ve been visiting. And we were looking out the window, and in the parking lot—I know this is going to sound pretty out there, but we think we might have seen Brie.”
Detective Hardy was silent.
