“Bex?”
She sat up ramrod straight, all thoughts of drifting back into sleep-filled oblivion gone. “Detective Schuster.”
“You didn’t call me back last night. Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah.” She coughed into her hand. “I’m fine.”
“I want you to know that we’re protecting you, Bex. You’re not on your own in this. We’re going to find your father. So there still has been no contact?”
Bex gnawed on her lower lip, her heart speeding up and doing a breathless double thump. She thought about her father’s downcast eyes, the earnest way he pursed his lips when he was telling her—admitting to her—that he wasn’t guilty, that Detective Schuster was framing him. She shifted in her bed. “Uh, no. He hasn’t reached out.”
The detective blew out a breath. “Okay, well. Let’s keep each other posted.”
“Okay.”
“Hey, Bex?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re doing a great thing here. You’re helping to take a dangerous man off the streets.”
Bex hung up the phone without answering. She let a beat pass before pulling her laptop into her lap.
“Bexy?” Denise knocked, pushing open the door a half inch. “You awake?”
“Yeah.”
Denise opened the door, sitting on the edge of Bex’s desk chair. “Everything okay?” Her eyes were searching.
“Totally. Yeah.”
“Michael said you were out really early this morning.”
A stripe of heat burned the tops of Bex’s ears. “Uh, I was just having trouble sleeping so I went for a walk.” She shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “No big deal.”
“Not really, no.” Denise looked away, seemed to think better of it, then fixed her gaze on Bex. “It’s just that—I mean, I want to be cool and all, but I’m still your mom. Your foster mom. I’d like it if you wouldn’t just go out like that. At dawn. Or at night. They still haven’t caught Darla’s killer and…”
Bex nodded, wondering when Darla’s name would stop triggering that awful memory—her broken body on the beach, those milky, unseeing eyes. Then she thought of Detective Schuster suddenly showing up in town. Had he really been looking for her, or was he hunting for Darla?
Bex’s stomach started to churn, pinpricks of heat burning through her nightshirt.
“I’m really sorry, Denise. I won’t slip out without telling you. And about everything else lately…” But even as Bex finished her statement, she knew it was a lie. “I’m sorry.”
Denise stood up. “Hey, no problem. We never really set any ground rules. We’re new at this, you know.”
Bex forced a smile she didn’t really feel. “Me too.”
She really did like Michael and Denise. There probably weren’t cooler or nicer foster parents in the entire system but Bex’s father—her dad!—was back! Maybe, that same tiny voice cautioned her. Maybe… She thought of the psychologist, the eyewitness testimony. Serial killers are master manipulators…
“You should probably hop in the shower or you’re going to be late for school.”
As soon as Denise closed the door behind her, Bex flipped open her screen and went directly to the fan forum. GAMECREATOR was already online.
Bex clicked the private chat icon and GAMECREATOR accepted. She started typing, her fingers stopping after just two letters: H-I. Did she say “dad”? Did she call him by his screen name? His first name? Finally, she hit Enter and watched her piddly “Hi” fill the screen.
GAMECREATOR: Thanks for talking with me last night.
BETHANNER: I still can’t quite believe that was actually you.
GAMECREATOR: You don’t think it was your father? The one who ordered two waitresses to bring more powdered sugar that one time at the Black Bear Diner? Oh, man, was your granny mad at me when I brought you home. Said you kept her up nearly all night!
Bex grinned. She remembered that dinner. She had wanted pancakes for dinner and her father had indulged her, stopping first their waitress and then another to bring Beth Anne another white bowl mounded with powdered sugar. That second waitress had lingered after setting the bowl in front of her, had leaned one bony hip against the torn Naugahyde booth and talked to Beth Anne’s daddy in a slow drawl that didn’t sound like it came from North Carolina.
Because she was from Texas. She was Amanda Perkins. Three days later, her body was found mostly undressed in a ditch, what was left of her pink Black Bear Diner uniform streaked with reddish-brown blood and dirt. Bex remembered how the sodden uniform had looked, rolled up in a Ziploc bag and held aloft by a man in rubber gloves.
BETHANNER: I remember that night. I remember the waitress. Her name was Amanda Perkins. She was murdered 3 days later.
There was no response from GAMECREATOR.
BETHANNER: She talked to you. Did Schuster know her?
GAMECREATOR: Probably. Lots of cops ate at that place. It was kind of a hangout.