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Seventh Avenue
Birmingham
“Mom, I don’t want you to walk me in.”
Judging by Tori’s mortified expression, one would think Kerri had suggested Tori strip off her clothes and run naked through the school.
“No hugging either.”
“Fine.” Kerri held up her hands. “I don’t want to embarrass you.” The teenage years, especially in the beginning, swung from one extreme to the other. The girl who wanted ice cream and cuddling last night wanted nothing to do with her mother this morning. One of her friends might see the potentially humiliating event.
But her daughter had come downstairs this morning, head held high, determined to go to school.
“See you later,” Tori mumbled.
“Love you,” Kerri said before her daughter could escape the Wagoneer.
“Love you,” Tori muttered before closing the door and rushing to join the other kids pouring into the front entrance of the school.
Kerri watched until Tori was inside. Her gut clenched. Tori seemed better this morning. More optimistic, particularly about her upcoming visit to New York. Kerri exhaled a breath chock full of anxiety. Was she doing enough to protect Tori? To solve this terrible case?
She stared at her cell phone lying on the seat next to her. Still no callback from Sue. She’d hoped to hear something by now, anyway. The idea that the anonymous girl didn’t want to talk was becoming more and more likely. Kerri felt sick. She needed the whole story on this Alice Cortez. The one that Sykes and Peterson would never know about otherwise.
“Damn it.” Kerri shifted into drive and prepared to merge into traffic. Since turning twelve, Tori had insisted her mom let her out at the sidewalk in front of the school. No public displays of affection and certainly no pulling into the car line to let her out nearer the building. But with all that had happened, Kerri had hoped to drop her off closer to the entrance. Mostly to avoid the huge display of pink flowers and teddy bears piled around the fountain in front of the school in memory of Brendal. Not that Kerri resented the display. Of course she didn’t. It was just so hard for Tori right now, and she wanted to do all in her power to protect her.
Kerri took a deep breath and prepared to ease into traffic. Before she could, a black Charger nudged up to the curb behind her. She looked from her rearview mirror to her side mirror, confusion lining her brow. The driver’s door of the Charger opened, and Falco emerged.
What was he doing here? They weren’t supposed to meet up until later.
Kerri kept her foot on the brake, expecting him to come to her window and give her whatever news wouldn’t wait. Possibly there had been abreak in their case. When he’d called last night, he’d learned nothing from the final two names provided by Caldwell. He had managed to get a few minutes with Lucky Vandiver’s father, who claimed to be as lost as the rest of Kurtz’s friends about why he would have been murdered. He had no easily verifiable alibi for his whereabouts on Sunday night. He’d dozed off in front of the television and didn’t wake up until Lucky arrived home at nearly eleven. Then they’d both gone to bed. Had the father been covering for the son or vice versa? Falco had noticed the security cameras outside the stately home. Assuming they could scrape up sufficient evidence, a warrant for the security video would tell them if the son or the father had left the house that night during the time frame in question.
But that was a huge if.
The evidence techs had found more than a dozen different sets of prints in the stockroom of Leo’s Tobacconist, but so far all had been matched to employees and Leo himself, as well as a few that belonged to Asher Walsh. Basically, other than the cocaine that showed up in Walsh’s lab work, they had nothing new unless that had changed since their conversation last night.
Rather than come to Kerri’s window, Falco slipped between their vehicles and came to her passenger-side door. Confused all the more, she shifted into park and hit the “Unlock” button. Falco opened the door and slid into the seat Tori had vacated.
“I thought we were meeting at the office.” Kerri didn’t like the closed expression on her partner’s face. This typically meant there was something he had to tell her—something she wouldn’t want to know.
“Did you hear from your librarian friend last night?”
Kerri frowned. “No. I would’ve told you if I had. In fact, I called and left her a voice mail this morning, but she hasn’t called me back.”
A new kind of worry crept into Kerri’s thoughts. Before she could voice her worst fears, Falco spoke.
“She won’t be calling you back, Devlin.” He glanced forward before meeting her gaze once more. “There was what appeared to be anattempted carjacking on her way to work this morning. She stopped at a red light and ... well, you know how it works.”
Kerri sank deeper into her seat. “She’s dead.” It was the only explanation for the expression her partner wore.
Falco held her gaze, gave a slight nod.
“Because she talked to me about what happened at Walker Academy.” Kerri started to shake deep inside.
“It gets worse,” he warned.
Kerri swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. “Worse how?”
“A female student from Walker Academy, the same age as Tori, is missing. Her mother went into her room this morning to get her up for school, and she was gone.”
