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“Mrs. Vasquez, my name is—”
“I know who you are.”
Somewhere in the distance, a lawnmower rumbled to life.
“We’d like to talk to you,” Theo said. “About your son.”
“I see. And what’s going to happen if I call Principal Wieberdink and ask why one of her teachers is on my doorstep with his…partner?”
She didn’t turn the word into a sneer, not exactly, but the pause wasn’t a hesitation—it was more like a slap. A warning, Auggie thought, before she brought out the claws. Yes, he thought, as those amber eyes fixed Theo again. Someone else is back behind that mask.
“I don’t know,” Theo said. “I took a personal day. I suppose Principal Wieberdink can say whatever she wants. In the meantime, I’d like to talk to you about the relationship between your son and Leon Purdue.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What relationship? They were friends.”
“It’s more believable,” Auggie told her, “if you breathe a little between sentences.”
Dusky color bloomed in her cheeks as she turned toward him and opened her mouth.
But Theo spoke first. “Mrs. Vasquez, this isn’t a joke. We need to have this conversation, and we need to have it right now. Either we can have it out here on your front step, where the neighbors can hear, or we can have it inside.” He wiped his forehead and added, like a peace offering, “Where it’s cool.”
Maybe it was Botox. Maybe it was fillers. Maybe it was cheap plastic surgery. Whatever it was, it seemed to have left the muscles of her face fixed; nothing showed there except whatever was moving at the back of her eyes.
“All right,” she said and moved aside.
They stepped into the entry hall, where air conditioning licked Auggie’s nape, and she shut the door behind them. Inside, the house matched the exterior: cold and pristine, with maple floorboards, an accent table in French country blue, white walls that hinted at another shade of blue. A sideboard in the next room had brass fleur-de-lis accents. The mirror over the mantel had a gilt frame. An Art Deco lamp added lines, a spot of masculine energy to keep everything else from becoming too much. The family portrait, though, was the best part—oil, Auggie decided, not a photo, and done by someone with a reasonable amount of talent. Baylee stood on one side of Keelan. His father—Ray, Auggie wanted to say—stood on the other. They each had a hand on one of Keelan’s shoulders. It was a nice touch, Auggie thought, how the artist had really captured the family dynamic. You could tell just from looking at the painting that between the two of them, they were about to rip the boy in half.
Baylee led them to the sofa and took an accent chair. She was wearing yoga pants and a white top, and she straightened the top now, adjusting it across her shoulders. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t offer you anything to drink.”
“That’s all right,” Theo said in the teacher voice Auggie had come to know. “We won’t take much of your time. When did you learn that your son was sexually involved with Leon?”
“I don’t—”
It was the teacher voice again: kind but firm. “Answer the question.”
It worked on Auggie. It worked on more people than Auggie would have thought, actually, and it worked on Baylee. “And I suppose if I don’t, you’re going to tell everyone about this.” Before they could respond, she continued, “A few months ago. I came home early—” She stopped herself. “I told Keelan I didn’t want him having friends over when I wasn’t home. That was the end of it.”
Theo nodded. He didn’t say what he must have been thinking: that Keelan would have kept doing whatever he wanted, because there was no one to stop him, no one to care enough to make sure. “You didn’t discuss it with Keelan?”
The look she turned on Theo was pure horror.
“Did he know?” Auggie asked. “Even if you didn’t talk to him about it, do you think he figured it out?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know why it matters. It was a—a phase, and that boy was a terrible influence on Keelan. And it’s none of your business. I’d like to know why a couple of grown men have so much interest in a teenage boy. Maybe this is something I should be discussing with the police.”
“You may need to discuss it with the police, Mrs. Vasquez,” Theo said. “It might come to that. Do you hate gay people?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Come on,” Auggie said. “You can barely look at us, and you can’t even talk about Keelan and Leon being involved.”
“I’d like you to leave now. And I think I will be calling the police. I’d like to know why you were with my son at the ice rink. If this is some sort of—of grooming—”
“That’s enough,” Theo said in that teacher voice again.
Baylee’s whole body went still, but she stopped talking.
“A girl named Shaniyah Johnson was looking into Leon’s disappearance. Did she talk to you?”
