“We’re getting lots of tips—but 90 percent of them are from crazy people. The big cases bring out the big nuts. I think half the people in the county have had some kind of prophetic dream about her.” Nicole popped another chip into her mouth. “We’re under orders to treat everything seriously. So we’re going on a lot of wild-goose chases, but we haven’t found anything. It’s like Katie walked that dog out her front door and vanished.”
Allison sighed. “The results from the trap and trace on her phone show nothing unusual. Almost all of it is calls back and forth to her parents. A few calls to the senator when the program started, then nothing.” For now, she kept to herself the subpoena for Senator Fairview’s records.
Cassidy looked disappointed. “What about her blog?”
Behind her, a Mexican soap opera played silently on TV. Allison watched a young woman with flashing dark eyes slap a handsome man in the face. A second later, they were in each other’s arms.
“Clearly Katie was having some kind of stormy relationship with somebody,” Nicole said. “But whether it was the senator or a boy—or both, or someone else entirely—we don’t know. And we checked her e-mail, but there’s nothing to go on there.”
Cassidy said, “But look at Fairview. He knows the whispers are start-ing. He’s showing up with his wife in tow at any kind of event where there will be cameras. He’s always got his arm around her. I think he’s acting guilty. And so does Rick.” She sighed. “Rick. That man is amazing! I haven’t felt this hot for a guy since my first boyfriend!”
“If you say so,” Allison said.
Cassidy said defensively, “Well, what was your first time like?”
“The usual.” Allison looked away. She picked up a chip. “More his idea than mine.”
Nicole raised her head, as if scenting something interesting. “How old were you?”
“Sixteen.” Younger even than Katie, she realized. But she hadn’t felt young. Her father had just died, and she had felt as old as the world.
“So he went to school with us?” Cassidy asked, licking the salt off the rim of her margarita.
“Kind of.” Allison could barely hear her own words.
“What—did he drop out?” Cassidy arched an eyebrow. “You had yourself some kind of rebel boyfriend?” She and Nicole exchanged a grin.
They might not have run in the same circles, but they both knew Allison had been just as buttoned-down in high school as she was now. Part of her just wanted to see the surprise in their eyes.
“No. It was Mr. Engels.”
Cassidy set down her glass. “Wait—the AP English teacher? Wasn’t he like, fifty or something? And married?”
“He told me we were in love.”
“Love? Hello?” Nicole said flatly. “You were just a kid. That’s not love. That’s some adult manipulating you by using the magic word.” She sat back and crossed her arms. “I see that kind of crap every day.”
It hadn’t seemed like that at the time, Allison thought. It hadn’t seemed like that at all.
Allison already felt like an adult when she met Mr. Engels. Not only had her father died, but Lindsay was cutting classes and smoking, her downhill slide already well under way. Most mornings when Allison got up, her mom was sprawled on the couch, asleep under the quilt Allison had spread over her the night before, a bottle of brandy on the coffee table.
Mr. Engels had talked to Allison about world and national events. He wanted to know her opinions. He listened respectfully. She began staying after school and helping in his classroom rather than go home and face her mother’s retreat, her sister’s absence. At least Mr. Engels noticed things about her. Little things, like if she bought new earrings or wore her hair up. He was old, forty-six, but after a while Allison was barely aware of that. He was just her friend. He told her about his wife, about how she was so busy with the bakery she was opening that she really didn’t have time to talk anymore. That’s what he liked about Allison. That he could talk to her, and she really listened.
And that was the exact same thing she liked about him. They were “kindred spirits,” that was how he had put it.
“I thought we were kindred souls,” she said. Said out loud, the words were ridiculous. And yet at the time they hadn’t been.
“The first time was in his office. I stayed after to help him. And I was in the storage room, and he came in and I had to squeeze by.” She shivered, remembering what it had been like. “And one thing led to another. For a long time I thought it wasn’t really his fault.”
“You really believed that?” Nicole asked. “You were the child. He was the responsible adult.”
Allison realized that she had asked God’s forgiveness years ago, but she had never truly forgiven herself. She felt a flash of pity for the girl she had once been. Pity and tenderness. She sighed. “I was lonely and looking for attention. And he told me he loved me, and I believed him. He said it was true love.”
Even Cassidy—who had long ago told both women about losing her virginity when she was fourteen—looked skeptical. “Maybe when you’re a teenager you can tell yourself it’s true love. But an adult—he knows it’s not that simple.”