“Tea would be fine, Mrs. Winters.”
She gestured toward the kitchen island and Detective Harper took a seat in one of the metal-backed chairs. While Alecia poured two mugs, she was able to study him out of the corner of her eye. Tall, thin, maybe sixty. He wore wireless framed glasses and an unkempt mustache. He looked like an insurance salesman rather than a detective, but it was the keen blue eyes behind the glass that made her hands shake as she scooped sugar. When she set the ceramic mug in front of him, it clattered on the wooden countertop.
He seemed nice and comfortable with the silence.
Alecia wiped her hands on her jeans. “What can I help you with, Detective?” she finally asked. She remained standing across the island. The other chair would be too close, too intimate.
“I’m here to ask you about your husband, Mrs. Winters. And Lucia Hamm.”
Alecia stared into her mug, the surface ringed and rippling from Gabe’s heavy running upstairs. She’d gotten so used to it she hardly realized he shook the floor anymore. Detective Harper looked around their small, thin-walled townhouse, the teetering clutter on every flat surface: papers and envelopes and folders and bills and toy trucks and felt markers—always markers everywhere—and felt the apples of her cheeks grow hot.
“What’s to ask? I don’t know anything.” Alecia shrugged.
“You might. Tell me about your husband. Where is he now?”
Alecia felt a stab of annoyance. “He’s staying with a friend, Tripp Harris. I assume you know that already.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m unsure where our marriage will end up. Because I don’t know what happened with that girl.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Mostly, yes. But we’ve been less than perfect for a long time. I need space to think, that’s all. It’s temporary.”
“What kind of troubles?” Detective Harper pulled out a small notebook and a Bic from his shirt pocket.
“I hardly see how or why that matters. Just standard-issue troubles. Are you married, Detective?”
Harris nodded. “Twenty-two years.”
“Then you know. It’s not all skipping through meadows.”
“No.” He smoothed the ends of his mustache with his fingers and wrote in his notebook. “But I’ve never asked her to leave so I could ‘think.’ ”
“Then you’re a better man than me. Which is fine.”
“Mrs. Winters, where was your husband on Monday night? Did you see him?” His voice was short, the banter was over. Alecia was relieved, she wanted him to just get to the point.
“He came over around six. I was making Gabe dinner and he showed up, no call or anything, to get clothes. It threw me. We had a fight.”
“About what?”
“Who knows?” Alecia traced the handle of the mug with her finger. “Our life. Him not being here. The girl.”
“What about the girl?”
“He just denies it and I can’t make sense of it, that’s all.”
“I’m going to need you to be more specific,” Detective Harper said. He sat up straighter, his patience with her waning.
“I can’t be! He came over, I was mad, I picked a fight. He asked me if I believed him and I said I didn’t know. It’s literally the same argument over and over again.” Alecia felt the back of her knees sweat; a bead between her breasts rolled into her bra.
“No new information?” he asked, sounding skeptical.
“No,” Alecia lied. She had no intention of helping them arrest her husband, but she flashed on the Instagram picture and Nate’s plea, it was an accident. It might have been the truth, who was she to decide?
“Mrs. Winters, have you seen Lucia Hamm?”
“God, no. I’ve never seen her at all in real life. Only pictures.”
“What pictures?”
Shit. “I looked her up on social media,” Alecia admitted. This part was true. “She’s a teenager. You know, bedroom eyes, cleavage, the works. She’s got that hair. Crazy blond, it looks white.” She bumped her mug with a shaky hand, the tea splashing on the counter. “She’s got a look about her, though. Something in her eyes seems off.”
Harper was quick, flat with his reply. “How so?”
“Just, I don’t know. They’re . . . empty. Soulless. Don’t you think?” Alecia searched the detective’s face. It remained impassive. “Well, anyway.”
“What time did your husband leave here on Monday night?” Harper asked, shifting in his seat.
“I’m not sure. Maybe six thirty? He didn’t stay very long. Gabe was happy to see him and mad when he left.” Correction, Gabe was inconsolable when he left. For two hours. She didn’t add the part where she almost texted Nate not to come over anymore. That she’d bring him his clothes. Anything but throw Gabe into another fit. Her eyes skimmed to the back door, the missing glass panel that she’d duct taped over. Harper followed her gaze.
“Your son do that, ma’am?”
“He . . .” She didn’t know how to answer that. He’d thrown an IKEA kitchen chair at it, the leg cracking the glass, splintering it outward until she screamed, the walls shaking with it.
He turned a page in his notebook and this, somehow seemed bad to her. That he would turn a page. The investigation took an unexpected turn.
“He’s five,” Alecia said finally, her teeth clenched. “Do you know about autism spectrum disorder? These children can be violent. They are frustrated. That’s all I plan to say about my son.”
He wrote, a wild, loopy scrawl for a moment and then flipped the page back and forth.
He gave her a smile, quicksilver. “That’s fine, Mrs. Winters. You were home all night?” He thought for a moment, then added, “With your son?”
“Yes of course. I can barely find a sitter for him in the daytime.” Alecia felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, a prickling sense that this was not routine. That this was something more, something bigger, darker. “What’s going on? I thought you were investigating Nate and this alleged relationship. Why are you really here?”
The detective leaned back against the chair, the cheap metal creaking with the effort to keep him upright. He watched her carefully. “Because the last time anyone saw Lucia Hamm was Monday night. She’s missing, Mrs. Winter.”
Alecia felt the world tilt just a bit. She gripped the edge of the island for support. “Missing?”
“Not going to school, not at home. A teacher at the school filled out a report.”
“Which teacher?” Alecia asked, sharp. She knew before she asked, before Harper said another word.
“Bridget Peterson. You’re friends, right?” He raised his mug, slurped loudly on the now-cold tea.
Alecia didn’t answer him. Instead, she pressed her palm to her brow bone where a cluster headache started to pound. Bridget? She had to know how this would look for Nate. The girl had likely skipped town. What the fuck?
Detective Harper wasn’t done. “The last person to see her alive, that we know of, is your husband, Mrs. Winters.”
CHAPTER 24