I frowned. “Uh-oh,” I said as I sat down. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Candice closed the lid to her laptop and regarded me thoughtfully. “I got a call while you were in with your client,” she began.
“I heard the phone ringing,” I said.
Candice nodded and again hesitated before speaking. “It was Jeremy and Jessica Lovelace. They want to hire us.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “They do?”
Candice folded her fingers into a steeple, resting her chin on her hands. “Harrison filled them in on how we wouldn’t be asked back on the case. He tried to assure them that he could handle things from here on out.”
I smiled. “Don’t tell me; let me guess. Jeremy and Jessica didn’t exactly find his reassurances reassuring.”
“Bingo,” Candice said with a wink. “Anyway, they want to hire us as a team to work the investigation.”
“What about Bianca’s mother, Terry?” I asked.
“She’s on board too. She’s been making copies of Bianca’s journals before she hands them over to Harrison. She wants to ensure we have access to as much information as possible.”
My brow furrowed. “Her journals?”
“Don’t you remember?” Candice asked, and when I shook my head, she reminded me that I’d mentioned to Terry that there was a clue in Bianca’s journal about what might have happened to her.
“Oh, yeah,” I said as that came back to me.
“There is a catch to all this, however,” Candice said, and I noticed that her eyes dropped to the desktop.
“And that is?”
“We cannot in any way interfere with the FBI’s investigation. In fact, when Jeremy Lovelace called in a few favors of his own and attempted to get us back on the bureau’s team, he was told by Gaston’s superiors to butt the hell out.”
“Harrison went above Gaston’s head again, didn’t he?”
Candice sighed. “It appears so. I think that asshole knows some other assholes in some pretty high places, which means this might get sticky for Dutch if the FBI becomes aware that we’re nosing around.”
“Great,” I said. “Just what he needs. More trouble.”
“Still, you and I could really use the cash. And Lovelace was willing to agree to our price—which, trust me, I didn’t skimp on when I quoted him an hourly rate.”
“Lord knows we could use the revenue,” I agreed.
“So what do you want to do?”
I thought it over for a little bit and checked in with my crew. My right side began to feel light and there was a sense of peace that settled into my abdomen. “My crew thinks we should go for it,” I told her. “So I’m in.”
“Awesome,” she said happily. “I’ll call the Lovelaces and tell them we’re on. You go home and get some rest. We’ll start this thing early Monday morning.”
“Great, thanks, Cassidy,” I said, getting up.
“Hey, Sundance,” she called to me as I moved through her doorway. When I turned back, she said, “Remember, we need to keep Dutch out of it for now.”
“In other words, you don’t think I should tell him.”
“I don’t,” she said.
I agreed, but my radar let me know that I’d certainly hear about it later.
Monday morning after the gym, Candice and I drove up to Battle Creek again, following the directions we’d been given by Terry Lovelace. We arrived at her beautiful home a few miles east of Jeremy and Jessica’s, and as we trailed up the winding driveway, I noticed how sparkling clean and well tended everything seemed. The gardens and lawn were perfectly maintained. The house looked freshly painted, the white so brilliant it made me squint, and the shutters also appeared to have received a fresh coat of deep green. Mentally, I wondered whether this was how Terry had been dealing with the worry and anxiety over Bianca’s disappearance. It appeared that maybe she’d kept busy on the house to avoid having too much time to think, and I had to give her credit for not crumbling into an unmoving mess, as I might have done in her situation.
We parked next to a silver Mercedes and headed to the door. It opened even before we had a chance to ring the bell. Terry stood there looking pale and frail, and I wondered whether now that she knew Bianca was really gone, the crumbling would begin. “Hello, ladies,” she said with a forced smile. “Please come in.”
We entered the house and were immediately warmed by the heat of a fire in the front room. My first observations were that the inside of the house was even more perfect than the exterior. The carpet had been meticulously vacuumed, each line a symmetrical parallel to the next. No clutter dotted the espresso-stained side tables. Just a bowl of potpourri and a side lamp.
The furniture was simple but tasteful; two olive wing chairs faced a chocolate brown leather couch, and olive throw pillows were placed just so.
“Please have a seat,” she offered, taking our coats to the front closet.
Candice and I both perched carefully on the edge of the couch. Neither one of us wanted to disturb the tidiness of the room. “Would you care for some coffee or tea?”
“Coffee would be lovely, Mrs. Lovelace,” said Candice.
“Make that two,” I added.
I noticed that Terry seemed relieved to have something to do with her hands before getting down to business. I imagined that she must be trying very hard to hold herself together.
She returned after a bit with three cups of steaming-hot coffee on a tray and set that down on the coffee table. After offering us cream and sugar, she picked up her own cup and seemed to stare blankly into it, lost in thought. “I’ve made copies of all Bianca’s journals,” she said at last. “I gave the originals to the FBI.”
“Thank you for taking the extra step,” Candice told her. “Hopefully there will be something useful in them.”
Terry nodded, but her face didn’t look convinced. “I’ve been all through them,” she said. “Last night I combed through all seven of her journals. Even those going back to high school. I couldn’t find anything in there that stood out. Nothing she wrote triggered any alarm.”
“What do you know about Bianca’s friends or the people she hung out with?” Candice asked, and I noticed that she’d discreetly placed a pocket-sized tape recorder on the coffee table.
Terry eyed the device but didn’t object to its use as she answered. “Bianca had tons of friends. She was such a warm and outgoing person, she made friends easily. There were three girls up at school that she hung around with the most. I can give you their names and e-mail addresses if you think that will help.”
“It would,” said Candice. “And what about boy-friends? Did Bianca date?”
Terry inhaled deeply, appearing to struggle to hold herself together. “No,” she whispered. “There was a boy that she was crazy about named Craig Stevenson. Those two were great friends all through high school, but he was captain of the football team and always had a new cheerleader on his arm. Bianca had the world’s biggest crush on him and I knew that she was privately waiting for him to notice her as something more than just a buddy.”
“Do you think he ever did?” Candice asked.
Terry seemed to catch the implied meaning in Candice’s question, which was, did Terry think that maybe Craig finally noticed Bianca and things got out of hand and one thing led to another and Bianca ended up dead? “No,” Terry said. “The last time I heard Bianca refer to Craig, which was about two weeks before she disappeared, he was overseas in Spain doing four semesters as an exchange student. To my knowledge, he’s been out of the country this whole time.”
“What about acquaintances? Did Bianca ever mention anyone hassling her or giving her a hard time over something? Even a misunderstanding?”
Terry shook her head and took a tiny sip of her coffee. “No,” she said. “Never.”
Candice looked down at a small notebook she’d taken from her purse and asked, “Can you forward me all the e-mails you might have received from Bianca while she was at school?”
r />
“I can.”
“Also, is it possible for you to get me a copy of her last school schedule?”
“Why would you need that?” Terry wondered.
“I’d like to retrace her steps,” Candice explained.
“I’d like to know the places she walked on a daily basis. For her to have disappeared so quickly, and with no one noticing, tells me that someone might have known her routine. They were familiar with her schedule, where she went on a regular basis and when she might be vulnerable.”
Terry audibly gulped and her complexion grew paler still. She nodded her head numbly and my heart went out to her. Instinctively, I searched the ether for her daughter, wanting to give her even the smallest bit of comfort, but Bianca’s energy was absent from my sixth sense today.
Candice too seemed to pick up that Terry was close to losing it. Setting her coffee down, she stood up and said, “I believe that’s enough for us to get started on, Mrs. Lovelace. Thank you so much for meeting with us. I know last week had to have been especially difficult for you and you have our sincer est condolences.”
Terry and I stood up as well and our hostess said, “I appreciate all your efforts, Candice. I just want them to release my daughter so that we can hold her funeral.”
“The coroner still has her?” Candice asked.
Terry inhaled deeply, even as tears welled in her eyes. “They do,” she whispered. “We hope it will only be another day or two. They don’t want to miss documenting any evidence.”
An awkward kind of silence followed and neither Candice nor I seemed to know what to say to offer any comfort to Terry. She was the first to break the silence, though, when she said, “Jeremy has been handling the press, thank God.”
“Press?” Candice asked curiously.
“Yes,” Terry said. “I believe one newspaper reporter and someone from channel seven contacted him. His friend Bill Gaston told Jeremy to tell them as little as possible. They’ve all but concluded that Bianca’s death was either an accident or a suicide, which bothers me a lot.” Suddenly Terry’s eyes focused hard on Candice. “I’d like to call them and tell them what the FBI really suspects, Ms. Fusco. I don’t want my daughter being thought of as mentally unstable enough to commit suicide. What do you think?”
Candice seemed to shift slightly. “I think that it’s better for the time being to follow the FBI’s instructions, Mrs. Lovelace. I think that whoever could have done this to Bianca might really hope to get the story in the papers and on TV. You might be feeding right into them by saying anything.”
“But what if someone out there can help? What if someone saw something that can point to the killer and all they need is to hear about it on the news?”
I looked at Candice, knowing she was in a tough spot. She really couldn’t explain why the FBI wanted to keep this case on the down-low right now without revealing to Terry that there were two other missing teens—one of whom might still be alive. If Tracy said anything to the press, that could incite the killer to murder Leslie and move on to another victim.
Candice handled the delicate situation very well by saying,“Mrs. Lovelace, I know that more than anything you want the person responsible for your daughter’s death to be captured and brought to justice, and if that is truly your goal, I think it’s best to listen to the advice of the FBI. They know what they’re doing, and all they’re asking for is a little time to get to the bottom of this and put some of these clues together without tipping off the killer that they’re on to him. It would also help us with our investigation if you said nothing to the press. I mean, the last thing Abby and I need is some reporter sniffing around our investigation.”
Terry gave Candice a weak smile. “Well, when you put it like that, Candice, it makes a lot of sense. I just hope whoever did this to my daughter is caught soon.”
Candice stuck out her hand. “We’ll do our best to make sure that happens, Mrs. Lovelace, and we’ll call you the moment we find anything relevant.”
After handing us the copies of Bianca’s journals and getting our coats out of the closet, Terry looked at me and asked softly, “Did she come to you again?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I was open to it, but she’s not with us at the moment.”
Terry seemed concerned. “Do you think she’s all right?”
I squeezed her arm gently. “Of course she is,” I reassured her. “What I know about the dead is that it takes a lot of energy for them to come through to someone like me, and once they use up that energy, it can sometimes take them a little while to recuperate. Don’t worry, I’m absolutely positive that she’s okay and that she hasn’t gone far away from you.”
Terry swallowed hard. “Thank you,” she said.
We left her and began the long trip back to Royal Oak. I’d made sure to wait until after Dutch had gone to work to meet Candice, so I wasn’t worried about him wondering where I was or why I was dressed in a suit. And as my phone with the tracking device linked to his phone had been lost in Vegas, I wasn’t worried about him checking some GPS system to figure out that I was far outside of town.
About the time we were approaching our exit, Candice said, “Want to grab some lunch?”
My eyes went to the clock on the dash and my stomach answered first with a loud gurgle. “I do.”
“What sounds good?”
“Coney Island?” Strange though it may sound, the Detroit metro area offers the best damn hot dog and chili combo ever.
Candice smirked. “You and your junk food.”
I shot her a look. Candice spent a lot of time trying to convince me to eat right. I spent an equal amount of time trying to get her to cheat a little. “If I offer to get a side salad, can we go to Sparky’s on Woodward?”
“They’ve closed down,” Candice told me.
“What?” I gasped. “When?”
“Three weeks ago,” she said. “A lot of restaurants and small businesses have closed around these parts,” she reminded me. “Some of them can’t survive.”
I scrunched down in my seat and pouted. “Well, that just sucks,” I moaned. “I loved Sparky’s.”
Candice gave me a pat on the head. “Buck up, lil’ camper, I know a joint.”
About ten minutes later we were on the south side of town and seated in a booth with duct tape on the seats, cracked Formica tabletops, and salt and pepper shakers that had seen better—cleaner—days. “This is great!” I said, looking around in approval.
Candice chuckled. “Remember to order the side salad.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, inhaling deeply as the rich aroma of onions, chili, hot dogs, and mustard filled my nostrils.
We gave our order to the waitress—who, like the salt and pepper shakers, had also seen better days—and began to discuss our game plan for Bianca’s case. “Nothing new came to you when we were sitting with Terry?” she asked me.
“Nope,” I said, after taking a long pull of my Coke. “The ether was quiet.”
“What do you think that means?” she asked.
I thought about that for a minute before answering. “I think it means that we have all the clues we need to get started. And because Bianca specifically mentioned her journals, I think that’s where we should start.”
Our food arrived and my eyes widened as I surveyed the huge plate of Coney fries set in between Candice and me. “Yum!” I sang happily, diving right in.
Candice gave me a minute to indulge my taste buds before she continued. “I also think I should head up to MSU.”
I cocked my head. “You want me to come with you?”
She nodded. “You’re better than any bloodhound. Maybe there’s a trace of her up there, some kind of imprint you can pick up on to help us bring out another clue or two.”
“You know,” I said, pointing a fry at her, “that’s a damn good idea. When do you want to head to East Lansing?”
“As soon as her mother sends me the class schedule. If she doesn’t e-mail or fax it to me by this af
ternoon, I’ll give her another call and remind her.”
“I’m free tomorrow,” I said.
“Perfect.”
“And give me half of the journal entries today,” I added. “I’ll take them home and see if my radar hits on anything.”
“Done.”
“Then what?” I asked after a bit of silence.
“I’ll conduct my usual routine and do some digging into Bianca’s credit, assuming of course that she had any. I’ll contact her friends, teachers, roommates, and acquaintances and see if there’re any clues there. I’ll look into her bank accounts, e-mails, and any other personal information I can get my hands on and try to find the needle in the haystack.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s a lot of work. Maybe you’d better give me all the journal entries, then.”
Candice laughed. “Done,” she said.
We left the restaurant and Candice dropped me at my place with the journal entries. I went inside, changed into sweats, and curled up on the couch with Eggy and Tuttle (our dogs) to begin sifting through Bianca’s most private thoughts. I started with the entries just before she disappeared, working my way backward. It bothered me at first to think that I was invading her privacy—it felt so voyeuristic—but I reminded myself that it was Bianca who had suggested I sift through her journals in the first place.
Dutch came home around six, catching me by surprise. I’d been completely absorbed in Bianca’s world when I heard his car pull into the driveway. Quick as a flash, I bolted to my home office and stuffed the copies into the bottom drawer of my desk. I then zipped back to the couch and flipped on the TV.
“Hey,” he said when he came through the door.
“Hi, sweetheart!” I said happily. “How was your day?”
Dutch eyed me suspiciously. Maybe I was a little too happy. “Fine. Yours?”
I shrugged. “Nothing special,” I said.
“Why are you panting?” he asked, noting that I was still breathing a little heavy from running back and forth to my office.
I forced a laugh and lowered my lids seductively and purred, “You take my breath away, hot stuff.”