‘Oh, great, more cops.That’s exactly what I need this morning.’
Ella caught the hair color, the porcelain cheekbones, the button nose.‘You’re Amber Holloway’s mother,’ she said.
Then the tears came.Ella considered breaking out the Bureau-approved platitudes but the only thing more useless than a sympathy card was a stranger mouthing off feel-good nonsense about time and healing, which Ella knew from experience was no consolation.
So instead, she said, ‘We’re here because we’re trying to find out who did this.I have some questions, and I have something I’d like to show you.Can we come inside?’
Miss Holloway clasped her hands over her face and let out a series of violent sobs.Ella bridged the gap between her and the grieving mother, put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.Sometimes, the comfort of touch was enough to keep the pain at bay, at least for a short while.
‘I suppose I don’t have any choice, do I?But if you want answers, you’ll be the second set of cops today to leave disappointed.’
***
The inside of the shotgun house was exactly what the outside promised – small, lived-in, and full of someone.The rooms ran one behind the other in a straight line from front to back, the way all shotgun houses did, and every surface held evidence of two women sharing a space that was built for one.The framed photos of the dearly departed dotted throughout only turned up the sense of loneliness the house coughed out.
Ella and Ripley followed Miss Holloway’s shuffling form into a living room decked out with tan couches, puffed up cushions and a zebra skin rug that looked about as out of place as a snowball in summer.
Miss Holloway sagged onto a recliner and palmed her temples.She was haggard, pale, and her tears had turned her cheeks wrinkly.Ella could tell the mom genes still ran strong.She gestured to a loveseat big enough for one and a half asses, but Ella respectfully declined.She couldn’t sit in such a comfortable place given the circumstances.
‘We’ll stand, Miss Holloway.We don’t want to keep you too long.’
‘Good.I’m Carol.Now, what do you want to ask me?’
Ella asked, ‘What other police officers did you speak to today?’
‘Dunno their names.I called the cops after Amber didn’t come home last night.They said they’d look into it, and about an hour ago two of them showed up and told me…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ella said.‘Did they ask you about her?’
‘Everything.Where she’d been last night, who she was with, all that crap.’
‘Did you have any answers?’
‘None.The girl is twenty-two.I don’t keep tabs on her.’
‘Can you tell us about her?Where did she work?’
‘Dollar General on Franklin.Four days a week, sometimes five if they’d give her the hours.She hated it but she showed up.Amber wasn’t one of these kids who sat around waiting for something to happen.She worked.She always worked.’
Ripley chimed in, ‘How long has Amber lived here with you?’
‘One year.Lived here until she was eighteen, then got her own place, then came back.’
‘She moved out young,’ Ella said.‘What made her leave the nest so soon?’
‘What else?A boy.’Carol spat the word.‘Some smooth-talking Romeo she met at a club.He fed her a bunch of lies about forever and she fell for it.Next thing I know, she’s telling me they’re getting hitched and I’m standing there with my jaw on the floor because my baby girl is barely legal and she’s already making the biggest mistake of her life.’
Ella could tell that Amber’s mother had rehearsed this speech in her head a thousand times.‘A whirlwind romance,’ she said.
‘Romance, my ass.But there was no talking sense into her.She was so far gone.’Carol shook her head with a rueful twist of her lips.‘So I smiled and played nice, even though I knew it’d end in tears.And what do you know?A year later, there’s Amber on my doorstep with mascara running down her face and a suitcase in each hand.’
‘What happened?’Ella asked, even though she could guess.Same story, different players.
‘Amber caught the guy with another woman.’She wormed a tissue out of her bathrobe pocket and swiped at her nose.‘I tell you, I ain’t never seen heartbreak like that before.It was like the light just went out of her eyes.My firecracker of a girl, snuffed out by some loser who couldn’t keep it in his pants.’
Ella made a low, sympathetic noise in her throat.It never got easier, watching the people you loved get shattered by those too inconsiderate to handle their hearts with care.
‘She pick herself back up okay?’Ripley asked.
