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Marlena slid a hungry glance at the box of candy, but made the effort to walk them to the door, her walker thumping along.
They stepped outside and immediately heard the familiar click of the dead bolt sliding into place.
They didn’t speak as they headed back to the car, but as soon as the door was shut, Ravinia threw him a proud glance. “I did good,” she said as he slid the Nissan into gear and drove to the edge of the lot.
“You did.” He nodded as he melded into traffic.
“The candy was a good idea.”
“Brilliant,” he agreed, which put a smile on her face as she leaned back in the seat.
“So now you’re going to find this Lendel Gaines?”
“Yep. I’m going to search on my laptop rather than my phone. And my iPad’s dead.” He hooked a thumb toward the back where the little-used device was tucked in the pocket behind the seat. He still preferred his laptop keyboard. “Charger’s at the house.”
“But that’s where your laptop is, too.”
“Well, that’s why we gotta go back.”
“What about Van Buren High?”
He checked the time. “A little early yet. You want to catch that teacher at lunch or after classes.”
“It’s almost lunch. Let’s go to Van Buren, then back to your house.”
“I thought you wanted to attack this with all speed,” he reminded her.
Ravinia frowned, thinking hard, and he saw that she thought he might forgo stopping at the high school. “I want to meet this Mrs. Kampfe and find out what she knows about Elizabeth.”
“All right, then.”
Ravinia relaxed a little and looked out the window. “That Mrs. Holcomb at the grade school kind of reminded me of Aunt Catherine, only older. She wore her hair in the same kind of bun.”
“Hmmm,” Rex said, and they lapsed into silence.
He wondered briefly about the mystical mother figure of Ravinia’s aunt. He still hadn’t figured out just how much of Ravinia’s story was true. He’d done a little research on her when her back was turned, mainly through the Internet, then from a call he’d placed to a friend who lived in Quarry, an Oregon town about halfway to the coast from Portland. His friend often went fishing near Deception Bay and had heard not only of Siren Song but of the women who lived there in isolation. And yes, the friend had thought they’d worn century-old–styled dresses.
“Kinda like the Amish out here in Oregon, except there’s a little woo-woo that goes on with those gals,” he’d said, at least sort of confirming Ravinia’s bizarre tale. “And they’re all female, leastwise that’s what I’ve heard.”
At the next light, Rex saw that his passenger was staring at him and he realized he’d missed a question. “What?”
“You told me earlier to act like a normal American kid when I meet up with Bernice Kampfe.”
“So?”
A teenager plugged into his iPhone while riding a skateboard flew by in a blur of tattoos, piercings, and baggy shorts, and Ravinia’s eyes followed him. “Does that qualify?” she asked as the light changed.
“It’s definitely in the spectrum,” Rex said.
“What does that mean?”
“Yes. He’s normal, and you look the part, too.”
“Even if I’m not,” she said with a slight smile.
“Even if you’re not.”
“I’m sure I saw a listing for a house that might be just perfect,” Marg Sorenson was saying.
