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“Did she love Tim?”
Alana nodded, her earrings bouncing in sync with her hair. “She did. She told me many times. Tim is a nice guy.”
“How about this older guy? Did Jenna love him?”
Alana frowned. “More like she was obsessed with him.” She threw her mother a quick glance, then added, a little louder than a whisper, “I don’t think Tim and Jenna had sex. It was the older guy who did it with her.”
“Alana!” her mother called out in an outraged voice. “You have to pardon her manners, Detectives,” Alexandria said, looking at Kay then, more lingering, at Elliot. “It’s not like I don’t try to teach her to behave better. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Kay watched the two, wondering what they were hiding. Had Alana been at odds with Jenna in some way? No one she’d spoken with seemed to think that, and she wasn’t getting that vibe.
“One more thing,” Kay said, “what happened to Jenna on that day trip in April?”
A fleeting microexpression of panic washed over Alana’s face. “Um, she overheard the guys calling her a whore. Renaldo was bragging about doing it with her. Everyone was laughing, some guys were drawing straws as to who was going to, um, do her next.”
“Do her next?” Alexandria said, visibly appalled. “How can you talk about your best friend like that?”
“I’m not talking about her, Mom. I’m telling the cops about those assholes in their own words,” Alana replied, her voice subdued, saddened.
The two women had stopped talking. Alana watched the time with increasing anxiety; the twenty minutes she’d told her boyfriend about had since passed.
Kay handed them each her card and said, “If either of you remembers anything at all, please call me, day or night. My cell is on the back.”
“Is that it? We’re done?” Alana asked, visibly relieved.
“Yes, unless you’re hiding something, in which case you and I willneverbe done,” Kay said, lowering her voice just enough to make it sound threatening. “Don’t let me slap an obstruction charge on you.”
Instead of intimidating her, Kay’s words had the opposite effect on Alana. Her eyes turned to steel. “Go right ahead. I don’t know anything more than I’ve already said. You’d make a fool of yourself.”
Alexandria gasped. Leaving the mother and daughter to sort things out between themselves, Kay climbed into the SUV, reflecting on how the two looked almost identical. Mrs. Keaney must’ve had Alana at a very young age.
Elliot was about to peel off when a red Beemer pulled up in the driveway, driven fast by a young man with dark hair and stunning good looks. Alana squealed and climbed into the Beemer, then spent a long moment in the young man’s embrace. Alexandria watched them from the doorway, pale and immobile with her arms crossed at her chest and an indecipherable expression on her face. Her hair, slightly longer than Alana’s, blew in the wind, occasionally whipping across her face while she watched her daughter melting in her boyfriend’s arms.
Mother and daughter looked like sisters.
THIRTY-TWO
LATE
After Alana and the cops were finally gone, her knees had felt so weak, she had to lay down on the sofa for a while. Eyes wide open, she stared at the ceiling, listening to the strong thump of her panicked heart against her ribs.
Why were the cops circling her daughter like vultures? And what was she thinking, allowing her to be interviewed without an attorney present? She must’ve been out of her mind… cops were sneaky like that. They’d said something about that missing girl, Kendra, and she’d instantly felt like a harpy for wasting even one minute of that girl’s life on her own daughter’s legal rights.
She was insane.
Since Alana had left, it felt as if she’d held her breath the entire time, her chest tired of seizing air inside her lungs. Slowly, she exhaled, feeling part of her angst drain away with the air leaving her weary body.
Some of her anxiety still clung to her, becoming a part of her, painful and inextricable. Should she call a lawyer? It was Friday night, almost ten at night. She’d blinked, and an entire hour had coursed by since Alana had left with Nick.
Squeezing her eyelids shut, she willed her mind clear of any obsessive thoughts about her daughter and her boyfriend. Alana had a right to live her life to the fullest, to fall in love, and she could’ve done far worse than Nick.
And yet, for hours, while darkness had crept into the living room where she lay still on the sofa staring into emptiness, she could think of nothing else.
Her daughter’s curfew was midnight, and at two in the morning, still alone and restless, Alexandria stood on shaky legs, looking for a bottle of wine to uncork for comfort. She’d tried to call her, but Alana’s phone went straight to voicemail.
Maybe Alana had fallen asleep in Nick’s arms and that’s why she was late, or she was up for seconds. Perhaps she was losing her mind, one minute of obsession at a time, while her daughter did little else but lived her life like any other teenager out there.
Once Alexandria had started looking at the green digits on the clock’s display, minutes started to drag, slower and slower as her anxiety rose.
