You did. You begged me for a straight month when you were five.
I’m 12 now. Almost 13.
As the person who gave birth to you, I’m well aware of your age. Just think about the audition, okay? We can talk about it later. It would be a good thing to have on your resume.
My resume??? Mom, I’m not getting a job. Just playing the piano.
Honey, competition for good schools starts early. Many of your peers are juggling twice the extracurricular activities that you are. Remember, we agreed to let you drop French for the summer.
My “peers” are at the movies seeing Avengers right now!! Not me.
We can go this weekend. I have Saturday off.
I don’t want to go with you. I want to go WITH THEM. No chaperone. Def. no NANNY!
I know you think we’re too protective, but you don’t understand the dangers.
I don’t care. I wish some “predator” would come and take me. At least then I’d get out of the stupid house!
You don’t mean that. The very fact that you could say it shows you’re not mature enough to make these decisions. Your brother didn’t get to be thirteen and—
I’m sorry he died!! I really am. But I’m alive, Mom. I’M ALIVE …
Reed did a search on file for “Ty” and he got a lot of “ty” for “thank you.” Chloe did not appear to be conversing with anyone named Ty at any point. His name cropped up a couple of times in other chats, such as when someone named Aimee suggested Ty could give them a ride to Providence to see some YouTube star’s appearance:
Get your bf Ty on it! The whole point of dating an older man is bcuz they have wheels!
He’s not my bf, Chloe wrote back.
That’s bcuz he doesn’t exist, McKenna wrote.
One day u will c. I expect 2 c your apology on a cake. Chloe had attached an example—a multilayered professionally decorated cake that had a beautiful bouquet of frosted flowers and an elegant I’m sorry written out in sugar form.
His cell phone buzzed and he glanced at Tula before answering it. She had dozed off with a stuffed pony in her arms. Reed muted the television and took the call from Ellery. “Did you read it yet?” she asked by way of greeting.
“I’m looking at it now.”
“Nothing on this Ty kid.” She sounded frustrated. “If they were communicating recently, it wasn’t through this phone or through her computer. I’m wondering about the gaming system she had in her room. Maybe she met him that way.”
“Worth checking out. Did you see the picture of the cash? She must have amassed at least six hundred dollars.”
“I saw. It could explain where she got her second phone.”
“Except she said someone else gave her the phone.”
“Ty, maybe. Or maybe she bought it to escape the Lockharts’ monitoring and she just wanted to be mysterious with her friends. Either way, we have to find this kid Ty and find out what he knows.”
Reed made a noise of agreement. “Speaking of wayward children…”
“I made Ashley call our father. He said he was going to get on a plane to come get her. She told him to fuck off.”
Reed smiled in spite of himself. “Bet that felt good.”
“She’s in the shower now. But Reed, she can’t stay here. I can’t drop everything with this investigation to look after a kid.”
Reed took off his reading glasses and rotated his neck to crack it. All the lost people are not your personal responsibility, Sarit used to say to him. He always had the same comeback: What if it was our daughter who was missing?
She is missing, Sarit would inform him. She’s missing her father.
The cutting remark drew blood because he knew it to be true. Tula would love to see him more, as he would her. If he had a regular nine-to-five job that required no travel, he might have scored fifty-fifty physical custody of his daughter. He wouldn’t miss a single recital or a soccer game. The FBI could slot another profiler into his job and the search for the missing people would continue. What he was coming to understand, though, was that everyone was lost at some point. Sarit had been lost in their marriage and he had not recognized it until she’d faded from sight. He’d been lost himself last year when he had discovered the truth about his parentage. Tula would be lost one day, too. What he hoped she saw now was his dedication to helping other people, his willingness to listen. He hoped she knew how his heart followed her wherever she went. He hoped she knew he would travel the earth to find her and bring her home, no matter what form that took.
“You don’t have to let Ashley stay,” Reed said. “But if you don’t make a place for her, she might not come back.”
Ellery heaved a deep sigh. “She’s got your old spot on the couch.”
“Warn her it comes with a hound’s tongue bath in the morning.”
“It’s more fun when the guests figure that one out on their own.”
Reed slid his gaze to the laptop screen. “Listen,” he said, “wherever Chloe is and how she got there, I don’t think she sent the threatening text to her mother.”
“She sure seemed fed up with her to me.”
“She is that. But Chloe modulates her texts based on her audience. She uses slang and text-speak with her friends but more or less proper grammar when corresponding with her mother. It’s so ingrained that I doubt it would occur to her to switch now.”
“Great. We’re back to the probability that someone took her.”
“Someone who doesn’t care for Teresa Lockhart.” He had a developing theory that the person might have used Chloe’s exasperation with her mother as an opening, a shared bond: Here, have a secret cell phone where we can trash your mom together.
“Wait a sec, I’ve got Conroy on the other line.”
Reed used the intervening time to kiss his daughter’s warm head and tuck the covers securely around her. She mumbled something unintelligible into her pillow and clutched the pony around its neck. When Ellery returned to the phone, her tone was grim.
“The FBI is officially involved now.”
“What happened?”
“Teresa got another text from a different burner phone. I’m sending you the screenshot.”
Reed braced himself, the cords of his neck rigid, but the image still stole his breath away. Chloe Lockhart appeared in a close-up in front of what looked like a gray concrete wall. She had duct tape across her mouth, bruises on her face, and someone had chopped off her hair at the one-inch mark. Her blue eyes looked dazed, out of focus under the bright light from the camera. The accompanying text said: WILL U CRY IF SHE DIES LIKE THE 1ST ONE?
“There’s no way a twelve-year-old girl did this to herself,” Ellery said. “It’s definitely an abduction.”
It’s worse than that, Reed thought as he sank down on the bed. It’s the prelude to a murder.
13
Ellery stared out the floor-to-ceiling window of her loft at the city lights below her. Logically, she knew there was nothing more she could do for Chloe Lockhart at that precise moment. The tech team was doing their best to extract any information from the electronics. Every officer in the state remained on high alert, and Chloe’s picture was all over the news, meaning that millions of eyeballs across New England were on the lookout for the girl. Ellery’s eyes would simply be one more pair. She had no special knowledge, no obvious clue or place to start. Still, she felt restless, her skin crawling for need of something to do.