“Of course. What do you want, Steve?”
Steve puckered up. “Little kiss?”
“Not if you pulled Jesus himself out of the toilet.”
Steve narrowed his eyes and started to sink the sweater again.
“Wait! Wait! I’ve got something even better. A kiss is so fast. It just comes and goes—”
“Not when Steve kisses.”
I let that roll off me and kept going. “This is way better.” I fished a tube of lip balm out of my pocket and held it in the palm of my hand. Steve poked his head forward, then tentatively came around his bucket, pulling my hand just under his nose.
“Lipstick?”
“Better.” I uncapped the balm and spread it across my lips. “Lip balm. I use it everyday. All the time. If you take this, it’s like your lips will be touching my lips all the time.”
Steve cocked his head.
“That’s awfully sexy. If the little man here doesn’t want it—” Will went to reach for my hand, but Steve rolled up on his tiptoes, yanked the balm from my hand, and squirreled backward with it tucked against his chest. He glared at Will. “Steve’s woman.” He uncapped the lip balm, rubbed it across his lips. I looked away as his eyes rolled backward and a little moan of pleasure emanated from his thin black lips.
“Where’d you get the sweater, Steve?”
“Someone tried to flush it down the toilet in the bathroom upstairs.” He rolled the balm over his bottom lip and closed his eyes. “Sweet kisses.”
“The upstairs bathroom? When?”
“Sweet, sweet, Sophie kisses.”
“When, Steve?”
He cracked open one eye. “After lunch. Took Steve a while to get it out. Not because Steve is weak.” His eyes flashed open, panicked. “Because water is strong.”
“Which toilet?”
“Huh?” Will asked.
“Which toilet was that stuffed in?”
Another swipe of the lip balm. Another ecstatic roll of his eyes. “Second from the wall. Next to the handicap.”
I dug through my purse and yanked out a travel bag, covering my hand, plucking out the sweater and dropping the sodden thing into it. “Thanks, Steve. You’re the best! Let’s go, Will.”
Once we were clear of Steve and the high school, Will turned to me. “So you traded some ChapStick for a toilet-soaked sweater? That’s—that’s horrific, love.”
“No—I mean, yes, it’s gross—but I was there, Will. I was there when this sweater was flushed.”
Will looked mildly impressed.
“I was in the upstairs bathroom and someone came in. She was crying, but it sounded like she was angry. She screamed a little bit and then went into the stall next to me and I heard her throw this”—I pointed to the bag holding the sweater—“in.”
“You heard it or you saw it?”
“I heard it because she—well, she didn’t know I was there in the bathroom. But I know I heard it. She wasn’t going to the bathroom because her feet were facing the wrong way and it didn’t sound like someone going to the bathroom. And she was wearing sneakers and socks! I heard something hit the water and then she flushed. And I thought it flushed for a while, but then I didn’t really think about it.”
Will’s impressed look went to one of slight disgust. “I think this is the most disgusting clue we’ve ever found.”
“Well, we have to look at the sweater. We have to find out who it belonged to.”
Will grimaced. “You didn’t recognize the flusher by the shoes?”
I brightened. “Well, I can certainly narrow it down that way. I know it was a student. Who was wearing white socks and sneakers.”
“Excellent. That cuts out approximately six people. Well done, love. Now take a look at the sweater.”
“I’m not going to look at the sweater. You look at the sweater. I already told you the information. So technically, it’s your turn to do something.”
“You
I chewed my bottom lip. “Okay, how’s this? We’ll let it dry out a little bit while we go to Cathy’s and then we can both figure out what to do with it.”
Will didn’t look convinced, but he agreed anyway, and started the car.
Chapter Six
The closer we got to Cathy’s house, the further my heart dropped toward my gut. I couldn’t get her mother’s voice out of my head—the slow, sad way she spoke, the overwhelming sense of hopelessness even when I told her that Will and I were looking at her daughter’s case with new eyes.
“I think this is it,” Will said, jutting his chin toward the tract home in front of us that looked like every other tract home in the neighborhood. I swallowed hard, looking at the two front windows that seemed to stare back at me, two black eyes accusing, burning into my soul.
“Do you really think we should be doing this?” I asked.
Will swung his head toward me. “You told me you talked to the girl’s mum. You told me she was okay with it.”
“I did and she is, but”—I massaged my palm with my thumb and stared out at the house—“I feel bad now.”
“Isn’t this the proper way to ‘work a case,’ as you say?”
“Yeah, but I just feel so—like we’re taking advantage of Mrs. Ledwith. She sounded so sad on the phone and now we might be using her daughter’s death to bring another girl home?” I shook my head. “It just doesn’t seem fair.”
Will wrapped his big hand around my elbow and squeezed gently. His eyes were soft, a lick of hair blowing over his forehead. “A girl dead, another one missing—none of this is fair, love. But if Cathy’s death could help another family to not go through the same grief, don’t you think her mother would want that?”
I shivered; the idea of death and kids had once been so blissfully foreign to me. I liked it that way. “Yeah, I guess so.”
I followed Will up the walk, still trying to assuage the guilt that welled in my chest. This was Cathy’s house. Cathy had walked up this path everyday. Had her mother stood out here and waited the day Cathy didn’t come home?
I was overwhelmed with a paralyzing grief. My stomach went heavy.
“You okay, love?”
I swallowed hard and took Will’s arm when he offered it. I let him lead me to the porch. Cardboard boxes were stacked just to the left of the house’s double doors. I squared my shoulders and rang the bell while Will peeked in the top box. “Kitchen stuff. Looks like someone is moving.”
Julia Ledwith pulled open the door and offered Will and me a close-lipped smile. “You must be the investigators.”
Will looked at me, slight question in his eyes, but went with it.
“You’re Mrs. Ledwith?” he asked.
She opened the door wider and ushered us in, pulling on the neck of her faded Stanford University sweatshirt. “Actually, it’s Ms. Foley, now, but you can call me Julia. Can I get you both something to drink?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned and left us standing in the foyer.
