“Oh, no.” Alicia, the sensitive one, shot Vicky a dark look. “Come on, guys.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. Shoot me. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.” Vicky looked chastened.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” assured Jamie. “I don’t really think it had to do with me. I agree that it could have been a burglary gone wrong. Maybe they didn’t know Emma was there. It didn’t seem like it at the time—it seemed so personal—but maybe that’s what it was. It’s just that the police have never figured out anything, and it stole Emma’s future.”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” said Alicia. “It’s . . . how long ago?”
“Twenty years, about.” Jamie could’ve told them to the day if she’d wanted to.
Bette said, “Can we get back to me for a minute? If I divorce Kearns—”
“When you divorce Kearns,” Jill interrupted.
“If I divorce Kearns, I’m going to take a terrible hit to my lifestyle. I don’t know what I’ll end up with. The house has a mortgage I can’t afford, and the kids are expensive. And he’s turned them against me anyway, so maybe I should just spend some money now . . . take a trip to Hawaii, or Bora Bora. I’d really like to go there.”
“Expensive,” Vicky pointed out.
“Kearns would never take me,” she said, her lower lip protruding. She was clearly feeling sorry for herself.
Alicia said, “Maybe you can work things out.”
Jill and Vicky both gave short, aborted laughs. “Sorry, Bette,” said Vicky when Bette turned hurt eyes on her. “But when Kearns finds out about . . . stuff . . .”
“Your extracurricular activities,” Jill said.
“It’s just not going to work,” finished Vicky.
Jamie finally remembered Phil Kearns from high school. Studious. Maybe a tad humorless. Was he the guy Emma had labeled “repressed”? “What does your husband do for a living?” she asked.
Bette sniffed. “Whines about his job. He’s in commercial real estate. He’s never happy. He says I’m never happy, so we’re never happy.”
“For God’s sake, get a fucking divorce,” Jill said.
Alicia asked, “What can we do to help?”
Bette managed to pull herself out of her pity party. “More wine?” she suggested.
And Vicky started waving for the proprietress again.
Chapter Eight
Cooper stood just outside the doors to the media room, recognizing most of the songs on the DJ’s playlist, and for that he had Marissa to thank. He didn’t feel old, but he was cruising toward forty, only a few years left. His stepdaughter was keeping him teen relevant.
The administrators at the school and the volunteers, mostly women, had taken him up on his offer to help chaperone, as if he were sent from heaven. They posted him outside the main door, while others kept vigil on the other exits, just in case some enterprising teen decided to escape. Kids were clustered in groups all over the main floor and on the stage above. Two of the volunteers were on the stage as well, a man and a woman, though they seemed more interested in talking to each other than watching their charges.
He looked down the empty hallway that led to the main doors of the school, the length of a basketball court away. There was another chaperone outside the media room’s second door to the hallway, which also was the nearest exit to the bathrooms. A couple of kids had told him they wanted to use the facilities and he’d turned them back in and said to use the other door, to which they’d groaned and muttered comments about being jailed.
He smiled to himself. Laura had wanted to exert her parental superiority, which was an ongoing need of hers; she believed he and Marissa were somehow plotting against her. She was therefore constantly making sure they knew who the real boss was. Tonight, he’d thwarted her by simply going along with her suggestion to chaperone. He’d learned early in their marriage that it was the best way to blunt her need to turn everything into a fight wherein he was always at fault. His seemingly easygoing attitude had won him major teasing at the station. Howie tried to make out that he was “pussy-whipped,” a completely politically incorrect term that was also spectacularly inaccurate. Cooper hadn’t explained his tactics to Howie. He didn’t much care what anyone thought. What he cared about was working for the department and solving crimes and being there for Marissa. That was his life, and he was satisfied with it.
But then his thoughts turned traitorously to Jamie Whelan again. She’d hovered on his mind all day, no doubt about it. He’d wanted to reach out and hug her when they were standing in the parking lot.
Like that would make better what had happened to Emma.
Emma.
“She was here for like ten minutes,” Race Stillwell had told him in disgust the night of the attack. “Did you have something to do with it?”
They’d been standing outside the house after Emma left.
“Me?” Cooper had held himself back from shoving Race up against his car. Race had always been pugnacious; his younger brother was even worse.
“Well, what the fuck. She’s babysitting. Took over for her sister for the Ryersons.”
Cooper had a quick mental image of Dr. and Mrs. Ryerson. Nadine Ryerson oozed a certain sex appeal, while her husband seemed uptight and quiet. A MILF, one of his friends, Mark Norquist, had said of her, but then Mark was always saying stuff like that.
Cooper shrugged. He’d been thinking of blowing off the Stillwell party himself, had only gone because Emma might be there. Had spontaneously asked her sister at school that day to come because she looked like Emma.
“Let’s spook her,” Dug Douglas said. “It’s almost Halloween. We know where the Ryersons live.”
“She should still be here,” Stillwell growled.
They were standing by their cars. Race’s words burned Cooper. He knew it was a bit crazy, but he thought of Emma as his. They’d shared a few kisses, but Emma had made it clear she wasn’t interested in anything further. Race was practically
