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My buddy Crede is waiting for me outside. “Lunch is next,” he says with a tight smile. “Though we only have thirty minutes left of it…”

I give him an apologetic look.

“It’s fine.” He sighs. “Today was tater tots. I hate tater tots. Dinner is more relaxing anyway.”

Chapter12Past

The Day Afterthey questioned me at the station, Detectives Audrain and Poley made a visit to Gran’s recovery room. I met them in the lobby, and we shuffled in the room together, hospital badges stuck to our clothes, heads at a respectful angle. I blinked in surprise. She was propped by a stack of pillows, glaring at Audrain and Poley—tiny and mighty.

Her hair was combed, and she was wearing a shade of lipstick I’d never seen before. No doubt she’d sweet-talked some nurse into letting her borrow it. Gran felt naked without lipstick.

While they reintroduced themselves to Gran, I parked myself in a chair in the corner of the room to supervise. I didn’t trust Audrain as far as I could throw him. I thought the detectives kept it together pretty well when she told them what incompetent, prejudiced, half-asleep assholes they were.

“Piper has been missing for seventy-two hours.” She folded her hands gracefully on top of the covers, her voice cold and firm as she gave the news. Everyone knew what law enforcement said about missing kids—you had to find them within the first forty-eight hours,or chances were, you weren’t going to find them. Gran continued. “Any type of physical evidence and leads you may have gotten on that first day are gone.” She let that sink in. “My granddaughter told you what happened, and you refused to believe her. What are you doing to find her?”

It was now clearly Audrain’s turn to speak. Gran pressed her lips together and resumed her glare.

“What we have,” he said, “is a handbag, and five seconds of grainy surveillance video from a bank. What we don’t have are names, witnesses, or proof. We can’t confirm that she didn’t get into that car willingly.” Audrain looks at me. “Sisters don’t tell each other everything…”

“Are you a sister?” I asked.

“We dusted the bag and everything we found inside for prints. None of the prints on the items are in any police database.”

“So you’re saying the men who kidnapped Piper are criminals you’ve yet to arrest before now?”

“Mrs. Walsh—”

“Miss,” Gran interrupts him.

“Right,MissWalsh,” he corrects himself. “We’ve opened an investigation, and we have detectives on the ground as we speak. They’re canvassing the neighborhood with her photo—”

“What about the ferry? They could have taken her on there—she might have used a bathroom. There have to be cameras on those things…” Gran’s hands were shaking, and she noticed it the same time I did. Unclasping them, she reached for her water. Before I could stand to help, Poley jumped up to get it for her. Handing the cup to Gran, she stayed by her bedside, blocking my view.

“We’re checking on that, right now actually. I’m expecting to hear something back within the hour. Our officers are also interviewing sex offenders in the area. We’ve tapped your home phone in the event a ransom call comes in.”

“How can I answer ransom calls if I’m here?” she snapped.

Poley nodded like she’d already thought out the answer. “We have someone near the line until we can get Iris back to your apartment.”

“Iris? You expect my traumatized fifteen-year-old granddaughter to negotiate with kidnappers for ransom?”

“Gran,” I said closing my eyes, “I want to. Besides, I know their voices.”

Gran stared at me but didn’t say anything. She seemed to be shrinking in the bed, getting further and further away.

“We’ve got everything under control.” Audrain looked at Poley, who looked at me. I nodded. I was getting the feeling that they were saying what they needed to say to keep Gran calm.

Poley made a sound that might indicate sympathy. “What we need from you is to rest. We might have a lot more questions in the coming hours, and you should be on your game—not exhausted. For Piper…”

“You’ve had a health scare, Mrs. Walsh. We’re trying to be conscious of that. Also your doctors have threatened us,” she admitted with a small smile.

Gran seemed fine with her answer. Fine enough—she was tired. She always made a point of choosing her battles wisely. But that didn’t stop her from pushing right into the next question.

“That kid who arranged the meeting Piper had with those boys, Dupont, have you looked more into him?”

Audrain and Poley exchanged a look. “We have. He came into the station with his mother this morning. He claims the conversation they had at school on Friday was about money Piper owed him for weed.”

“That’s a lie!” I blurted. “I was right there listening to the whole thing. He never said anything about weed. Neither did my sister.”