He knows what my father does? I bite down on my lip in an effort to stop my chin from trembling.
“But missing girls frequently have just run off with a beau or for effect, so—”
“But Matthew is here, and Lydia never would have run away on her own. She just wouldn’t.”
“Even so, it’s still possible she’s alive and well.”
“If Lydia were able to, she would call. She would know we were worried about her.”
Detective Cassano seems to hesitate. “By ‘alive and well,’ I don’t necessarily mean that she would be free to call home. She could still have been taken and just not be able to call.”
“Oh. If a girl is taken, where are you most likely to find her?”
My question is met with silence. “I’ll be blunt, Miss Sail. I’m uncomfortable talking about this with a young lady.”
I huff out an impatient breath. “You’ll have to get over that, detective, because I care much more about finding my friend than I do your comfort.”
“If I thought there was a benefit to telling you”—there seems to be a smile in his words—“then I would. But you knowing the possibilities of where Lydia might be won’t help get her home. Just know that we’re checking everywhere we can think of.”
Despite how Detective Cassano seems amused by me, I don’t think I’ll be able to convince him these are details I should be privy to. But there are other questions he might answer. “Have you talked to our neighbors? Did anyone see her?”
“We’ve talked to most.”
“Did anyone see her?”
He hesitates. “Miss Sail . . .”
“Why don’t you call me Piper?” I poise my pen above my notepad. “Who have you not talked to? In the morning, I could talk to them, and then when we meet tomorrow afternoon, I could tell you if I’ve learned anything.”
“Miss Sail—”
“Piper.”
Another hesitation. “Piper, I admire your tenacity. And Miss LeVine is a lucky girl to have a friend like you. We don’t know exactly what happened to her, but . . . the evidence suggests she didn’t simply run away from home—”
“Of course not. I told you, Lydia would never do that.”
“Right. So, with that in mind, can you see why I might not want to send you knocking on doors?”
“I can help.” I want my voice to sound strong, but my words bleed with desperation. “I really can. Lydia’s been my best friend since we were toddlers. I know how she thinks and I know who she knows. I can be helpful.”
Detective Cassano exhales long and slow. “I get how hard it is to sit and wait. And, after talking to your headmistress today, I have no doubt that you would knock on doors or even take the L to the shadiest neighborhoods to look for her there. So while I really appreciate your spirit, and while I look forward to meeting with you tomorrow and going over your notes, it doesn’t seem very safe to have you do anything more.”
I feel myself flushing. What all did Headmistress Robinson tell them about me? “I’m many things, Detective Cassano. But safe isn’t one of them.”
There seems to be a tinge of amusement in his voice when he says, “I’ll see you tomorrow at three, Miss Sail.”
I awake the next morning to bright sunshine streaming into my room. My eyes are raw and crusted, and my lips chapped after a night of weeping.
At two this morning, I had dragged myself down to the kitchen for a glass of water. The memory of what I’d seen when I went downstairs makes me shudder even now. Father had been asleep in his armchair, an empty tumbler in his lap and a shotgun propped beside him. The gun froze me on the bottom stair, made my blood roar through my veins. Guns have always unnerved me. (“Good,” my father once said when I told him this. “Then stay away from them.”)
I couldn’t take my eyes off the firearm. Why was it out? Why was his chair angled toward the front door?
I crept to his chair, careful to avoid the side with the gun, and removed the tumbler from his limp hand. I draped an afghan over him and carried his empty glass to the kitchen. Just the smell of the strong liquor burned my throat.
As I rinsed it, my mind wouldn’t let go of the gun. Lydia being gone had us all on edge. Is that what this was?
“What are you doing up?”
Walter’s voice drew a yelp out of me. He filled the doorway of the kitchen staircase, the one that led to Joyce’s living quarters. He wore striped pajamas, and his curls were rumpled, but he seemed too alert to have been awakened by me.
“You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He studied my face a moment. “You look like you haven’t slept at all.”
I combed my fingers through my hair. “Probably because I haven’t.”
“Want to get some air?”
“Sure.”