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Outrage roared through Kerri. “Has she ever suggested such a thing to you or Sarah before?” Kerri thought of the two girls at Walker Academy, and more of that white-hot fury flamed inside her.
“A few times lately.” Tori shrugged. “I think she mostly does it to see how we’ll react. You know, the whole shock-value thing.”
“I’m certain you understand by now that Alice is not and never has been your or Sarah’s friend.”
“For sure.” Tori stared at her cuticles for a moment. “There’s something else I need to tell you. Something Alice found out and has been bugging me about.”
Kerri held her breath and waited for her daughter to go on.
“I think I might be gay. I mean, I’m not sure, but ... I think so.” Tori squeezed her eyes shut and seemed to hold her breath as well.
Surprised at not having recognized her daughter was wrestling with her sexuality, Kerri reached out and pulled her into a hug. “Sweetie, you don’t have to be afraid to talk about that or anything else with me. You’re my daughter. I love you no matter what. Do you understand that? I love whatever makes youyou.”
Tori held on to her mother for a long while; when she finally drew back, she said, “Can we not talk about this for a little bit? I’m not ready to tell other people right now. I have to get used to these feelingsbefore I feel comfortable sharing them. Maybe we can order pizza or something.”
“Absolutely.” Kerri leaned over and kissed her daughter on the head. “Relax. I’ll place an order now.”
After ensuring Tori had found something on television, Kerri went into the kitchen. She placed the order for pizza and put through a call to Sykes. She struggled to calm herself before he answered. She wasn’t entirely successful.
“Tell me you have something concrete in this investigation,” she demanded. Her daughter was suffering. Being a teenager was damned hard enough without all this insanity.
The rough exhale that sounded in her ear was not the answer she wanted to hear.
“The LT told you to back off, Devlin,” Sykes warned. “We cannot discuss this case with you.”
“I don’t want to hear the dirty details, Sykes. I want to know if you’re making any headway. A yes or no will be sufficient.”
His silence was answer enough.No.
“Let me tell you what I know.” Kerri told him about the masks and the bizarre drawings. “Did you miss all that when you visited the Cortez home?”
“We didn’t miss shit,” he snarled, defensive now.
“What about the two suicide attempts at Walker Academy and the missing girl? Alice was involved with those girls. You can’t see how what happened there might be relevant to this case? I know you’re a better detective than this, Sykes.”
One, two, three beats of silence.
“Yes, Devlin. We’ve been looking into what happened at Walker. Remember, the LT ordered us to. At least we were until we were told to back off.”
And here Kerri had thought nothing could shock her at this point. “What does that mean, Sykes? Did the LT tell you to back off?”
“No. What it means is little Miss Alice Cortez is in Mayor Warren’s mentoring program. She’s off limits. We got the order straight from the chief. We don’t get to question her or her family again. If we discover something that ties the girl to what happened, we take it straight to the chief. Otherwise, we keep our mouths shut about her. The kid’s untouchable.”
Kerri took a moment to ride out the shock and outrage and to digest this news. “I see.”
“Yeah. We’re doing all we can—including looking more closely at the Walker situation. We just have to walk that line I told you about. And FYI, we finally got to talk to the two girls at Walker Academy. They both said Alice tried to talk them out of what they did. I guess your dead friend failed to tell you that part.”
Rather than tell Sykes what she thought of his smart-ass remark, she said, “Thanks for giving me a heads-up.” She ended the call and fought the urge to call the LT and rant.
Ranting wouldn’t help. She was on thin ice with the LT already.
What she needed was evidence. The evidence Sue Grimes might have been able to give her if she hadn’t ended up dead and if that poor girl hadn’t gone missing.
Why the hell would the mayor put her program—no matter how prestigious—above a murder investigation? Why would she protect Alice Cortez? Was it because the girl was a minority like her? Did she believe that Tori and Sarah were being treated differently than Alice because they were white?
Maybe, but Kerri’s instincts were humming far too loud to ignore the other possibility. They needed to take a much closer look at the mayor, even if only to rule her out. She could only imagine the LT’s and the chief’s reactions to this conclusion.
The doorbell rang, dragging Kerri away from the troubling thoughts.
