“You’re sure about the cat?”
“I’m sure. Do you have other pictures?”
“Tawny hated being photographed.”
As with the Violettes, Ryan allowed silence, hoping one or the other Kezerian might feel compelled to fill it. Neither did.
Murray switched legs. Behind him, through a matching archway across the hall, I noted a dining room of identical footage with an identical bay window. The table was glass. The chairs were molded white acrylic and made me think of the Jetsons.
When Bernadette spoke, her words were not what I expected. So far, nothing was. “Is she dead?”
“We have no reason to think that.” Ryan indicated no surprise at the question.
Bernadette’s shoulders rounded slightly as her expression melted. Into what? Relief? Disappointment? I really couldn’t read her.
Jake spread his feet. Frowned his frown.
“But we have new information,” Ryan said.
“You’ve found her?”
“We haven’t determined her exact location. Yet.”
Bernadette’s knuckles blanched as her fingers tightened again.
Ryan leaned toward her. “I promise you, Mrs. Kezerian. We are closing in.”
“Closing in?” Jake snorted. “You make it sound like the play-offs.”
“I apologize for my poor choice of words.”
It struck me. Unlike the Violettes, the Kezerians were asking no questions about the nature of the “new information.” Or about Pomerleau’s movements over the last decade.
Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. Again crossed his arms. “If you have nothing to tell us, why are you here?”
“We were hoping Tawny might agree to an interview.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath. Looked at Bernadette. Her face had gone as white as the walls around us.
In my peripheral vision, Jake’s arms dropped to his sides. I ignored him and focused on his wife. Bernadette was trying to speak but managing only to swallow and clear her throat.
I reached out and took her hands in mine. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I thought you’d come to tell me you’d located Tawny.” More swallowing. “One way or the other.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” I didn’t.
“Who we talking about here?” Jake demanded. “Who is it you’re tracking?”
“Anique Pomerleau,” Ryan said.
“Sonofabitch.”
“Tawny’s not here with you?” I asked Bernadette.
“I haven’t seen my daughter in almost eight years.”
CHAPTER 19
“OH, GOD.” A tiny sob bubbled from Bernadette’s throat.
“I am so sorry,” I said. “Obviously, Detective Ryan and I were unclear.”
“You’re here about the woman who kidnapped my child?”
“Yes,” I said. “Anique Pomerleau.”
Bernadette slipped her hands free of mine and extended one back toward Jake. He made no move to take it. “You came to question Tawny?” she asked.
“To talk to her.”
Bernadette brought the unclaimed hand forward onto the armrest. It trembled.
“We were hoping—” I began.
“She’s not here.” Bernadette’s voice was flat, as though a door had slammed shut somewhere inside her. She began picking at a thread poking from the piping.
“Where is she?”
“Tawny left home in 2006.”
“Do you know where she’s living?”
“No.”
I glanced at Ryan. Tight nod that I should continue.
“You haven’t heard from your daughter in all that time?”
“She called once. Several months after she moved out. To say she was well.”
“She didn’t tell you where she was?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
Bernadette kept working the errant strand. Which had doubled in length.
“Did you file a missing persons report?”
“Tawny was almost twenty. The police said she was an adult. Free to do what she wanted.”
Thus nothing in the file. I waited for Bernadette to continue.
“It’s crazy, I know. But I figured that was the reason you’d come. To tell me you’d found her.”
“Why did she leave?”