Ouch! He’d basically ghosted Jenna. That must have hurt something fierce.
“I was glad to see she moved on and had another baby,” he went on. “I just want her to be happy… even though I’m not.”
“Do you ever think… about Haley?” I was being quite cryptic, but I had the sense that he would follow. “When was she born?”
He looked up at me. “She was born eight months after I left… and she looks nothing like either of them.”
This man pulled no punches. He knew she was probably his. He must have been hurting as much as Jenna was. He wanted to find Haley as desperately as we all did.
We were only wasting time.
Leo had a brief chat with him as well. We were both pretty quick. It doesn’t take long to determine when someone is innocent. Innocence is easy to pin down. Guilt is more complicated.
Followingour visit with Mr. McMillan, we had another dinner meeting at a fancy steak house. I opted for the skewered shrimps served on a rice pilaf. Ace had a very rare, bloody steak, and for a second, I wondered if he was secretly a vampire. But I’d seen him in the daylight and he’d not burned or sparkled, so as strange as he was, I concluded that he wasn’t a bloodsucker.
“There was no indication of Haley’s presence,” Kendra was saying. “She’s never been in that house.”
We all agreed.
“He was a nice man,” Brianna chimed in. “And handsome.” Leave it to Brianna to drool over a suspect.
“Ewww… he’s twice your age,” Kendra pointed out.
“What?! I’m just saying I understand what Jenna saw in him.” Brianna’s dreams the previous night had revealed a crying Haley, a woman, and a cliff in the woods. There was not much we could do with that information. She needed to give us more.
“I can’t believe she would cheat on her husband,” Kendra added. “She seems so straight-laced.”
Ace turned his gaze to mine. “Sometimes it’s the good girls who are bad.” Then he actually winked.
I shook my head and looked away, adjusted the hem of my skirt. Well, FYI, this good girl isn’t bad, Mr. Rogers.
And I don’t care if you’re a freaky brainwasher. You can’t turn me bad, either.
I cleared my throat. “I have reason to believe that Haley might actually be Roy’s biological child.”
Simone’s eyes grew wide. “Really?!”
“Well, just look at the photos. She’s the spitting image of Roy and looks nothing like her parents. They were still involved when she was conceived. Even Roy thinks so--”
“Well, in that case… it could possibly be motive for Roy to want to take her,” Simone suggested.
I winced at the thought. “I don’t think so… we all agree. None of us felt Haley’s presence at his house,” I pointed out, “and we got nothing but good vibes from him.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“And he’s been trying to find her,” Brianna added.
“But that could be deceptive behavior,” Ace added. “The bloke might be putting up a front. He might be stashing her somewhere else.”
“Yeah… but you’d think the guy would want to stay away if he was guilty, if he had her tucked away in a dark basement somewhere,” Leo pointed out.
“Good point,” Simone agreed. Clearly, Leo was her favorite. Not-so-secret: he was my favorite, too, so I couldn’t blame her.
After dinner,we made our way to Mischa’s place. The day was only half over, and I was already tired. Mind reading and searching for answers is exhausting! I wondered if detective Miller worked long hours every day. Did she have a family? Did she have a little girl or a little boy at home? And if so, who was looking after her kids? A babysitter? A husband? I would have asked but detective Miller wasn’t exactly the kind of person you chit-chat with. I thought about Kylie again and wondered what she was doing at that exact moment. I looked down at my watch – seven o’clock, six o’clock her time. She was probably having dinner. Then she’d have her nighttime bath. I could almost hear her singing in the bathtub, her favorite Taylor Swift song,Shake it Off.
Mischa’s house was just as grand and stunning as the Hendersons’ home. The whole neighborhood was posh; mature trees, manicured lawns,Architectural Digestworthy homes.
We met her parents briefly, and they were very obliging. Her mother kept going on and on about what a tragedy it was, and how she couldn’t imagine, about how she wouldn’t be able to go on if Mischa were missing. Clearly, she loved her daughter very much.
