“I was going to, but when I went out to talk to him, he was on the phone with a client who wanted to change an ad at the last minute, and I could tell he was going to be in a bad mood when he got off. And then I was going to tell him this morning, but he had an early meeting and was rushing around.” Allison realized she was spinning her plain gold wedding ring around her finger. “I’ll tell him tonight.”
“This calls for a celebration.” Cassidy waved the waiter over. “Do you have any sparkling cider?”
He shook his head. “The closest I’ve got is Italian soda.”
Cassidy looked at Nicole. “Maybe we should order another bottle.”
Nicole shook her head. “I’m already past my limit. You know how rigid the Bureau is.”
FBI agents were required to be “fit for duty” at all times—which meant that having more than one or two drinks, even on weekends, was out.
“All right then,” Cassidy said. “Italian sodas all the way around. Oh, and one Chocolate Bag—and three spoons.”
It was Jake’s signature dessert: dark chocolate molded to look like a small paper bag and filled with white chocolate mousse and fresh berries.
When their Italian sodas came, the three women clinked their glasses together.
As her friends smiled at her and dipped their spoons into the dessert, Allison’s mind raced. Was she really ready? What if something went wrong? And should she be bringing a child into a world where bright, beautiful girls went missing?
CONVERSE RESIDENCE
December 16
Do you have any news?” shouted a woman standing in the Converses’ driveway. She wore a bright blue Columbia parka embroidered with the logo for Channel Two. Pushing the microphone into Nic’s face, she said, “It’s been three days since Katie disappeared.” Just as she ignored the few snowflakes lazily drifting from the sky, Nic paid no attention to the reporter or the cameraman filming them.
In her work with Innocent Images, Nic had gotten a reputation for working well with parents of missing or exploited children.
“These Converse people are high maintenance,” her supervisor had told her. “You’re good at that.”
An hour earlier, Nic had called Katie’s parents and asked to meet. Now she walked up the front stairs of the Converses’ white Victorian home. The oversized front door was nearly covered by a giant poster reading: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? It showed Katie dressed in her navy blue page uniform, with a smaller inset of a grinning black dog. Except for its size, the poster was a twin to the posters now stapled to hundreds of telephone poles all over town.
A tall woman in her early thirties answered Nic’s knock. Her dark hair was cut in a chin-length bob, and her eyes looked like bruises. Pinned to her sweater was an oversized button with a color photograph of Katie, with the word Missing stamped in white on the bottom.
“Nicole Hedges, FBI.” Nic held out her badge.
“Come in.” The woman closed the door behind them. “I’m Valerie Converse.” A tall, thin man with short gray-blonde hair hurried into the entryway. “This is my husband, Wayne.”
Wayne looked about fifty, his face weather-beaten. Behind gold wire-framed glasses, his blue eyes swam, wet and reddened. He too was wearing a button. “Have you heard anything?” he asked urgently. “Anything at all?”
Nic had to shake her head. “We don’t have any news, but this morning we formed a task force with city, county, and state police, as well as the FBI.”
A task force when there was no evidence of foul play was unusual, but Wayne and Valerie had the power to pull some strings, and the fact that Katie was sponsored by Senator Fairview had been underlined. And the more the locals had looked, the less they thought Katie was a runaway.
“We’re examining footage from all the ATM, traffic signal, and parking lot cameras within a three-mile radius. We’ve got teams showing Katie’s picture at every restaurant, store, and bar in Northwest Portland. We’ve set up a hotline and are asking the media to publicize it. And we’re talking to every sexual predator within a five-mile radius.”
“Dear God,” Wayne said, “do you think Katie’s dead?” He grabbed Nic’s arm, squeezing until his fingers pinched her bones. “Is that what you think? That some monster took our little girl and now she’s dead?”
“We have no evidence of that,” Nic said, and Wayne released her.
The truth was, they had no evidence of anything. It was as if Katie had walked out of her parents’ house three days ago and vanished.
“Where were you people when Katie first went missing?” Valerie demanded. “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Last night, Wayne never even went to bed. He was searching all the Dumpsters in the neighborhood, wondering if he’d find her body. Her body!” She pressed closer, her breath sour.
Nic took a half step back until her shoulders brushed the door.
“A beautiful young girl goes missing, and you wouldn’t help us! Didn’t you people learn anything from Candy Lane?”