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Elias told her that he was going to be really busy with work for the next two days, and wouldn’t be able to see her. Bianca spent that time focused on her online classes.
She didn’t think that working in the shelter was the sum total of what she wanted to do with her life, but she had a sense that she was finally going in the right direction. She loved animals and she wanted to do something with her time that made a difference in other people’s lives. And she was finding that she was good at it. While Bianca hadn’t been the best student, it wasn’t because she wasn’t smart. It was because she’d always felt lukewarm about the subject matter. She’d always had a good memory for facts and she was good at testing. Now that she was mentally engaged, she found that she was blowing through her required workload quickly, and all the new knowledge she was absorbing was sticking with her.
She was just finishing up with a class about safe animal handling, when she got a text from Maxwell, asking if she’d seen Eden yet. She felt a thrill of fear at the question. It just wasn’t normal for Eden to go this long without returning Maxwell’s calls, especially if he said he was worried. Even though she knew Elias had asked her to stay out of it, she couldn’t get it out of her head that something was wrong. Bianca had a spare key to Eden’s apartment, and she knew the security code to get in.
Tuning out the voice in her head that kept telling her to stay out of it, Bianca told herself that nothing strange was happening, and there was nothing to worry about. Eden’s father had checked her out of the hospital and most likely brought her to rehab. Eden going to rehab was something the Ronson family—Rick Ronson in particular—would find embarrassing, and that’s why he wasn’t telling anyone, but this wasn’t an emergency, she assured herself. She was just doing this to ease that last bit of doubt in her head. Bianca got into the SUV that was parked outside her house, sent a text to Maxwell telling him where she was going, and told the driver to take her to Eden’s.
She let herself into Eden’s giant loft and immediately knew something was off because she didn’t have to disarm the alarm system. Eden might be careless with other aspects of her life, but Bianca knew she was a stickler about security. Her place had been broken into before, and it had shaken Eden up badly. She never forgot to lock up and set the alarm before she left.
Bianca moved slowly and quietly through the devastation. The living room was in disarray, the kitchen had been overturned, and when she entered the bedroom, she let out a gasp. The room looked like a tornado had blown through it. The bed was moved, the throw rugs flipped, every drawer had been dumped out, and every picture on the wall was either askew or left broken on the floor. Bianca moved through the room in utter shock.
She heard someone calling out from the living room and recognized Maxwell’s voice. She called for him to join her in the bedroom.
“Oh my god,” he whispered as he entered the devastated room.
“I think you should call the police,” Bianca said, backing out. “I can’t be here when they come.”
“Why not?” Maxwell asked, following her.
“I just can’t, House,” she said. “Don’t tell them I was here.”
“Shit, Bianca,” he said, looking around the room like he didn’t know where to start. “What the hell am I supposed to say to them?”
“Tell them the truth. That you haven’t seen her. You were worried and came here to check on her,” she said, knowing that this was going to cast suspicion on his father, the last person to see Eden, but at this point, Bianca was starting to think the policeshouldbe looking into Rick Ronson. Bianca took Eden’s spare key off her key ring. “You can tell them that you borrowed that from me, but don’t say that I was here,” she said, handing him the key.
He nodded. “I didn’t mean to get you involved,” he said. “I won’t mention the key unless they ask me.”
“Thank you,” Bianca said. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “It could just be another break-in like she had last year. She could be fine,” Bianca said, trying to stay optimistic.
He gave her a weak smile. “What the hell is she involved in?” he asked.
Bianca shook her head in answer. She gave Maxwell a hug. “Call me if you get any news.”
He hugged her back. “I will.”
They both heard a sound. “Does that sound like a radio to you?” Maxwell asked.
“Yeah,” Bianca replied, and they both wandered out of the bedroom and into the living room together.
A uniformed police officer pulled a gun on them. “Stop and put your hands where I can see them!” she said.
Bianca sat in the Boston Police Station, waiting to be processed, trying not to fidget with the handcuffs.
She already had a raw, red ring all the way around both her wrists, and trying to spin them into a less irritating position didn’t work. All it did was make the chafing worse. Still, she couldn’t help it.
While they were still at Eden’s apartment Maxwell had finished answering the police officer’s questions. He was told he could go, but Bianca’s recent encounter with the police in Weston meant that as soon as her name went into the system, she was flagged as a person of interest in an ongoing investigation, and they had arrested her on-site even though Maxwell had pleaded with them, swearing up and down that she was a friend.
“Is that really necessary?” he’d said when they put the cuffs on her. She’d tried not to flinch, but they were extremely tight.
“Will you call Cassiel?” Bianca asked when they’d put her in the back of the police car.
“I’ll have him meet us there,” Maxwell said.
“No, just call my brother. Go home, House. Really. There’s nothing you can do.”
Bianca now realized she should have said something about the cuffs right then, but she was trying not to sound whiney. Now she regretted it. She sat in the station on a bench, next to a rough-looking guy who was eyeing everything from her hair to her jewelry to her boots to her body, and every second that passed she got more upset. She wondered who she was dreading seeing more—Cassiel or Elias.
She was only on the bench for about ten minutes when the officer who had arrested her came to collect her. She then hurried Bianca through the station to a dark, dingy room in the back. There was a table and a few chairs, no windows, and a one-way mirror on the wall.
