Page 39

CHAPTER 39

DAISY HANSEN’S PARENTS FOLLOWED me to the 2 Sisters Detective Agency office. They were staying at a hotel in town while they looked for their daughter, but I didn’t want to go to a public place with them. Talking with the Rayburns about their daughter’s disappearance and possible murder over drinks in a bar might look uncomfortably celebratory if it was captured by web sleuths.

Our two vehicles drove in somber convoy through the empty streets. I unlocked the glass door through which their son-in-law had shuffled uncertainly not so long ago and settled them in the chairs in front of my desk. The Rayburns had the drawn, bloodless pallor of parents with a child in peril, a look I’d seen a thousand times when I’d represented wayward kids.

“First of all,” Mark Rayburn said, “while we consider ourselves, uh, on Troy’s team, as you put it” — he glanced at his wife — “it’s not because we think he’s a great guy.”

“Troy has an anger problem,” Summer said bluntly. She tucked a strand of silver-streaked blond hair behind her ear.

“What kind of anger problem?” I asked. I was honestly curious. It didn’t match what I’d observed about him so far. “Have you seen signs?”

“Yes. He snapped in front of us once.” Mark’s lips tightened. “It was a few years back. We live out in Vegas, and Daisy and Troy were at our place for Christmas. Some neighbors were over too. A kid who lives two houses down sprayed Troy in the back of the head with a water pistol, and the guy just lost it.”

“It was embarrassing.” Summer shifted in her seat. “Okay, so it was Christmas, and emotions were high. We know that Troy’s family, the Hansens, are not a tight-knit group. They’re from some small town in the middle of nowhere in the north of the state. There’s always been conflict in his family. So for Troy, Christmas and Thanksgiving and that sort of thing are ... you know. Stressful.”

“And that Sanderson kid is an asshole. Everyone thinks so. But you keep it together.” Mark stabbed a finger on my desk. “Especially at the in-laws’ place.”

“ Especially at the in-laws’ place,” Summer echoed. “We recognize that Troy was triggered somehow, but we don’t sympathize with how he reacted.”

“What did Troy do?” I asked. “When the kid sprayed him with the water pistol?”

“He threw a lawn chair.” Mark brushed invisible lint from his knee. “Yelled at the kid a little. It really soured the afternoon. Nobody felt very comfortable or festive after that. But that’s Troy. He dampens the mood. Gets sullen or brooding. Everyone will be having a good time and then Troy will say something or do something strange, and suddenly it’s crickets.”

“He’s the kind of guy who cracks a joke at a funeral.” Summer winced. “And falls asleep at a wedding. He just ... makes the wrong choices.”

I sat there quietly, thinking.

“Summer was more concerned about the Christmas incident than I was. To be honest,” Mark said, “I don’t know any man who hasn’t yelled at a kid at least once in his life.”

“You seem to be apologizing for your son-in-law,” I said to Mark.

“For his anger, yeah. But Troy’s just kind of ... odd.” Daisy’s father sighed. “We’ve never disliked him — we just didn’t really get him or his goofy friend George. And we couldn’t ever understand what our daughter saw in Troy. They just didn’t seem a match, you know?”

“Troy wasn’t Daisy’s usual type,” Summer said. “In high school, in college, she always dated high achievers. Team captains, class presidents. Popular kids.” She made an upward ramp with her hand. “Or at least, she dated boys who seemed more like her. So when she brought Troy home just after she graduated and moved out to LA ... we met him and we thought, Oh .”

“Oh,” Mark echoed, nodding, his eyes wide.

I tried to keep my tone even: “Well, there are worse things to be than slightly offbeat.” Mark Rayburn’s eyes flicked over my pink hair and tattoos, and he kept nodding.

“We weren’t happy when we discovered that Troy had waited more than a day before reporting Daisy missing,” Summer said. “But we weren’t surprised.”

“You weren’t?”

“It was in keeping with the kind of person we’ve known him to be. He’s not alarmist. He’s logical to the point of ridiculousness.”

“But Troy doesn’t deserve this circus that’s following him around,” Mark said. “The things people are saying. Including the police.”

“You believe the police are wasting their time by looking at Troy?” I asked.

“Yes.” Summer gripped the edge of my desk. I saw the hard mask she was wearing to hide her terror of losing her child start to slip. “The last time we spoke to Daisy, she was in love. But it wasn’t Troy she was in love with.”