“Is this an interrogation, A.L.?” she asked, sounding deliberately bored.
“No,” he said.
“Then what’s your point?” Jacqui asked.
“My point is, don’t do that again. Don’t go looking for Tess’s daughter.”
“But it’s okay if she looks for my daughter. Is that how this goes?” Now Jacqui’s voice was loud. He was sure if Traci had her door open, she was hearing every word.
“Shush,” he said.
“Don’t shush me.”
He held up a hand. “Fine. Can you please keep your voice down so that Traci isn’t a part of this conversation?”
Jacqui pressed her lips together. “Fine,” she said.
“I... I don’t ask you for a lot, Jacqui. I pretty much let you set the rules about when and where I get to see Traci. And you’ve been fair and we’ve managed to work through things. All I’m asking is that you not purposely screw up what I’ve got going with Tess.”
She stared at him.
He stared back.
“Is that all?” she asked finally.
“Yeah. That’s all.”
She turned. “You can let yourself out, A.L.”
He did just that. He was pretty sure he’d gotten his message across but whether Jacqui chose to heed the request was anyone’s guess.
Fourteen
The next morning, Rena was drumming her fingers on her desk when A.L. arrived at 6:30. She looked as if she had something to tell him. “What?” he asked.
“We checked for the wrong sister,” she announced.
“I’ve only had one cup of coffee. You’re going to have to give me more than that.”
“We checked to make sure that Kara Wiese didn’t have a sister.”
“And that her mother was dead,” he added.
She waved a hand. “This is about sisters.”
“Okay,” he said. He pulled out his chair.
“Alice Quest has a sister,” Rena said. “We never checked for that. There was no reason to.”
“And this is important because?”
“Because she lives in Dover.”
A.L. picked up his empty coffee cup and set it back down. “Very little in life is a coincidence.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s true,” A.L. said. “What’s her name?”
“Melissa Wayne.”
“Older? Younger?”
“Older by two years. Alice is fifty-two. Melissa just turned fifty-four. Alice lied to us. Looked us right in the eye and lied. We were talking about Brenda Owen calling her and we asked her if she knew Dover and she said no. Her sister lives there.”
“She also said that she’d never heard about Corrine Antler. Guess we don’t know if that’s true or not,” he said.
“I’m going to find out,” Rena said. “I’m pissed at her and...I guess disappointed.”
“Yeah, doesn’t look good for Alice,” A.L. said. “Do you think it’s even possible that there is any intersect between Alice and Rosemary Bracken?”
“I thought of that. Nothing that I’ve been able to find thus far. But I think I’m going back to Dover.”
“Your gut is talking to you again?” A.L. asked.
“I think its heartburn,” she said. “Maybe you should go back to the psychic and ask her about Dover.”
“I think I’m going to talk to a few more parents, ask some more specific questions about Alice.”
“Are we in danger of missing the trees for the forest?”
“We’re not going to ignore everybody else. But the dogs haven’t picked up Emma’s scent anywhere else.”
“As irritated as I am that she lied to us, I can’t get past the fact that if she really was responsible for Emma’s disappearance and Emma was in her backyard, why didn’t she simply just tell us that Emma had been there once? I don’t know, make up something like she took the kids for a field trip and had to stop at home to check something and Emma got off the bus and wandered around the yard.”
A.L. shrugged. “I don’t know. Who knows why people say what they do?”
“Maybe she was just telling us the truth,” Rena said.
“But still, you’re going to Dover.”
“I have to. Too many ties to that area to ignore it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and run into Coyote Frogg.”
“Any day you can stumble over a meth addict is a good day,” A.L. said. “Keep in touch.”
“Before I go, I just have to ask. How did your conversation with Jacqui go?”
“How do you think it went?”
“I don’t know. I had this wild daydream that she threw herself at your feet and tearfully told you that ever since Tess came into the picture, she’s realized how much she loves you and that she must have you back.”
“That didn’t happen.”
“That’s it. That’s all I’m going to get. That didn’t happen.”
A.L. sighed. “I talked. She listened or pretended to listen. I’m never sure which.”
“What are you going to tell Tess?”
“Nothing. She asked me to handle it and I’ve done the best I can. What happens next is anybody’s guess.”
“I think you’re pretending that you’re not concerned but that is totally not true.”
“You have somewhere to go, right?” he asked.
“Send Tess some flowers. Everybody loves flowers.”
“Goodbye,” he said. Then he turned his attention to his computer.
* * *
Flowers, huh? Once he knew that Rena was out the door, he tapped a few keys, brought up the website of the Petal Poof, the little store on the main street. It was a step back in time looking at their information. Months ago, one of their employees, Jane Picus, had been a victim of the serial killer who had almost killed Tess.
He’d liked the people at Petal Poof. Thought they had nice flowers.
It was Saturday so they’d be open, just not yet. Probably at nine.
He walked back to the break room and filled his cup with what looked like industrial-strength coffee. He didn’t mind. The more caffeine, the better. When he got back to his desk, he reached for the list that Rena had been working on. He saw the two names of parents that she’d yet to reach.