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CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

THE KELLERS

Keller opens the front door and is hit with the smell of cooked meat.

The twins call out from the kitchen, “Mommy!” A sound that always fills her up with something warm, something that takes away any darkness that clings to her from the job.

Heather and Michael bound into the entryway. Their faces are tomato-red from the beach.

“It’s Taco Tuesday!” Michael says.

Bob materializes, and his bald head also glows red.

“You know it’s Saturday, not Tuesday?”

Bob grins. “It’s Tuesday somewhere.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works and—” She stops herself.

“How’s Pops feeling?”

“Starving,” Bob replies. “We waited for you. Let’s get a move on.” He grabs Heather’s hips and they start a conga line. Michael latches on and he gestures for Keller to join. Keller shakes her head, but she reaches down and joins the procession.

The dining room table is set for a feast. Music floats in the background from a portable Bluetooth speaker Bob brought in his luggage.

At the table, Pops looks much better than when they arrived. A sparkle in his eyes. Skin less ashen. The magic of Bob. And the kids. She kisses Pops on the head and then takes her seat.

After they say grace, Heather passes the bowl of ground beef to Pops, who takes a scoop and jams it into a taco shell.

“You had an eventful first day,” Pops says. “Already famous.”

“You’re famous, Mommy?” Heather asks, wonderment in her voice.

“No, silly. Pops is just playing. Right, Grandpa?”

Pops winks at Keller, passes the meat down the line.

Bob has disappeared into the kitchen, and when he returns he holds a tray of frozen drinks. Margs for Keller and Bob; frozen lemonades for Pops and the kids.

Pops is not pleased. “I can handle a cocktail.”

“Not according to your nurse,” Bob says.

Pops shakes his head.

“And I already confiscated your secret bottle of Jack,” Bob adds, “so don’t even .”

Pops narrows his eyes, but his lips curl up ever so slightly at the edges. “How’d you know about my stash?”

“I spent my teenage years siphoning it. I was always amazed you didn’t notice how watered down your booze tasted.”

Pops gives a mischievous smile, eyes the twins. “Teenage years will be here before you know it. My revenge is coming.”

“Dad,” Bob says, changing the subject, “Janet texted, said she may be in town for work Monday. She’s trying to come in a day early to see everyone.”

“Aunt Janet’s coming tomorrow?” Heather says. Bob’s sister is another ray of light. And a fountain of gifts for the kids.

“I said she’s going to try ,” Bob says, tempering expectations. Janet is the epitome of the cool aunt, but also has an erratic work schedule, traveling most of the year.

After dinner, Keller and Bob sit on the bed in Janet’s old room, the kids and Pops down for the night. Bob still has some toothpaste caked on the corner of his mouth. She thumbs it away, gives him a kiss.

Bob hasn’t asked about her day yet. They’re simpatico that way. He knows she’ll talk when she’s ready. Knows she needs some family time to decompress. But she also senses that something’s bothering him. Something other than his father’s condition.

“Everything okay?” Keller asks at last.

“You know you’re all over the internet.” He pauses, then adds, “Again.”

She nods. “My new ASAC made that clear. Sidelined me over it.”

His face softens. “I’m sorry.”

How did she find this man? He doesn’t try to make it better, doesn’t try to fix things, he just says the two perfect words. And listens. But there’s something wrong, she knows him well enough to understand this much.

“Seriously, what’s wrong?” she says.

He hesitates.

“Robert Jerel Keller…” she says. He’s gotten unrelenting grief over his middle name. It’s some weird combination of two family names. She can’t remember the details. Just that his friends love to tease him about the name Jerel. And Keller uses it when she’s mock scolding him.

“I watched the videos from the bridge. If they hadn’t grabbed you… you and the kid could’ve gone over.”

“The videos make it look scarier than it was. I was totally safe.”

A lie, but sometimes you have to.

His mouth turns downward. Bob isn’t a fool.

“I need you to be more careful. We need you to be more careful.” He swallows hard, like there’s a lump in his throat. “We need you, G-woman.”

Keller experienced life-threatening injuries on her first brush with internet fame: a cold case involving a workplace slaying at a Blockbuster video when she was pregnant with the twins. She can’t put Bob through that again.

“I promise,” she says.

He nods. That’s it. Given the silence in her home growing up, so many grievances stewing but never resolved, she always marvels at Bob’s ability to draw her out, listen, then move on.

“Any closer to finding the students?” he asks.

Keller shakes her head.

“One of the fathers, the writer, has been all over the news.”

“Dead end.”

They found Blane Roosevelt’s father at a low-end motel. Drunk and out of it, and quickly cleared of any involvement in the disappearance of The Five.

Keller tells him about Blane’s mother, the high-powered State Department official with a bounty on her head. About the Maldonados—Stella’s father being attacked, or more accu rately, chased-with-intent-to-scare by a disturbed young man caught in the cross fire of infidelity. The one she had to save on the bridge.

And she tells Bob about her detour on the way home to the FedEx facility and the video of someone in a Smurf mask driving the Mystery Machine away from where the students’ phones last pinged.

“Wait, so the frat has a van painted like the one from Scooby-Doo ?” An admiring look spreads across Bob’s face. “And nice find with the truck videos,” he adds.

“I’m not sure my new ASAC thinks so.”

She reported the lead to Peters. He reminded her that he’d asked her to keep a lower profile, but he seemed to forgive the transgression since it provided a lead. She imagines the video-forensic arm of the task force wasn’t thrilled with Keller since they’d concluded there were no cameras in the area to mine for clues. Peters likely has them working all night at the FedEx facility.

“You think whoever is in the Smurf mask abducted the kids?” Bob asks.

“Or it’s one of the kids themselves.”

So many leads, so many dead ends. It’s rare for a case to identify multiple potential perps in such a short period. Even rarer for so many leads to go nowhere. Most violent crimes are solved relatively quickly. Typically, criminals confess. Keller’s instructor at the academy said prisons would be half empty if people just exercised their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Even if there was no confession, it usually didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to solve a serious crime. If you’re the victim of violence, you probably know the perpetrator. Husbands or boyfriends, typically. And they’re usually no match for DNA, modern criminology, cell data, Ring cameras.

“So other than your Scooby-Doo van and Smurf video, you have nothing?” Bob asks.

Keller nods, feeling a heaviness infuse her body. “And the longer the students are gone, the less likely they’ll survive.”