Page 80 of Three Girls Gone

Amanda shook her head and left Tammy’s. Trent knocked on the door for 307.

After a few more tries, the door was opened, and a man in his twenties was standing there. His hair was sticking up in the front. “Who are— Police? Is everyone all right?”

“Not exactly,” Amanda told him. “We need to talk to you about your friend who stepped in for you last night after you went home sick.” She ran with the story as they were told it.

“Huh?”

“He helped Tammy at the ice cream parlor,” she elaborated.

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then you never sent a friend to help Tammy at the Scoop last night?”

“No.”

“Okay. Thanks. That’s all.” She bobbed her head at him as if to say he could return to his life. It took a few seconds for it to penetrate.

“Okay,” he dragged out and closed his door.

Amanda and Trent regrouped in the car.

“So our killer impersonates a server, when he could have just as easily posed as a customer,” Trent said.

“He wanted to get as close as possible, and like we talked about, this is a game to him. He must have seen Eloise celebrating with her friends, ducked inside, and seized an opportunity to get close. We need to revisit Mara Bennett and press her more on this Wilson M. So far, he’s our strongest lead.”

“Only I got the feeling she told us all she knew.”

“Are you willing to take the chance she missed something? Because I’m not.”

“All right.”

Trent got them headed to the apartment being shared by the sisters, and Amanda pulled out her phone. She debated whether she should call Katherine again and decided in favor of. She answered after the second ring. “There she is,” Amanda said. “It’s me.”

“I see that. It’s a fancy new technology called Caller ID.”

At least she was holding on to her sense of humor. “Not sonew,but that aside, how are you doing?”

“Please don’t even ask that. There are no words.”

If Amanda could reverse time, she wouldn’t have asked. “I know Malone sent you home.”

“And the chief. But I’m not alone. I’ve got twenty-four-hour security detail in case this guy comes for me.”

“I don’t think you should take any chances. Let’s just say nothing would surprise me at this point.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s getting brazen, making himself more visible, almost like he’s taunting us, challenging us to find and stop him.”

“I just hope you find that little girl alive. Though…”

Amanda’s mind slipped where Katherine’s might have gone. Even if they saved Eloise’s life, they might be too late to preserve her innocence. “I know what you’re thinking, but we can’t go down that road. We do what we can.”

“If I hadn’t wasted your time with Harrington, then maybe…”

“There’s no benefit to thinking that way. Everyone understood what you saw there.”

“Well, you’re more forgiving of me than I am.”