“I go to high school,” she said. “I’ve heard worse.”
Mr. Sheridan grinned and clapped her on the shoulder like a buddy. The man on the porch motioned for them to come in. “They need for us to get a move on,” he said. “So why don’t you pack your things and then we can talk more.”
“So my mom’s not here?” she asked again. She asked it even though she knew the answer. For some reason, she needed to hear it.
Mr. Sheridan, attorney specializing in criminal defense, shook his head, his expression grim. “No, honey, she’s . . .”
She needed to hear it, but he couldn’t say it. So she said it for him. “In jail.”
He squeezed her shoulder, just a light squeeze, meant to be a comfort, though nothing could be at that moment. “Yeah, honey. She’s in jail.”
They started to walk toward the porch, and that big-ass pumpkin, and the man who was waiting for them there. But she stopped one more time because she had to know. “Why is she in jail?”
Mr. Sheridan closed his eyes, thinking, she knew, of how he would answer. He looked just like his daughter did when she was mustering the courage to jump off the diving board. He opened his eyes again. “I might as well tell you, because you’re going to find out anyway. What with all the social media you kids have these days.”
She nodded encouragingly. She needed the truth, not some kid-friendly bullshit.
“She was arrested this morning on charges of money laundering and illegal prostitution.” He said it like he was saying, She got a ticket for running a stop sign.
She squinted at him. It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. It was so ridiculous it was laughable, though laughing seemed wrong at a time like this. They had the wrong person. This would get straightened out in no time. She probably didn’t even need but one change of clothes, because she would be back home that soon. Back home with her mom.
“My mother isn’t a prostitute,” she corrected him, straightening her back and giving him her bravest smile. “She owns her own marketing firm.” She thought of all the times she’d written that on her school forms, on the line designated for “Mother’s Employment”: “Owner, Ramsey and Associates.”
Mr. Sheridan didn’t argue. He just started walking, expecting her to fall into step beside him. After a second, she did. The man on the porch got closer and closer with each step they took. He closed the file he was looking at—probably a file cataloguing all the accusations against her mom. Violet’s eyes met his, and she narrowed hers. He gave her a little smirk. He was the enemy, accusing her mother of something she most certainly had not done.
Prostitutes do drugs and live in bad neighborhoods. Prostitutes wear hooker heels and leopard prints and push-up bras and hang out on street corners. Prostitutes have men hanging around all the time. Her mom was the boss of her own company, and other than Stanley, their lawn guy, Violet had never seen a man around. In fact, she had scolded her mother about it, told her she should go out on a date once in a while. Her mother was a beautiful woman, far more beautiful than Violet thought she, herself, could ever hope to be.
And her mom always answered the same way. “Honey, I’ve had enough men in my life. I don’t need any more.” Then she would smile and tickle her and suggest a movie they could watch or ask if they had any ice cream in the fridge. What the man on her porch and Mr. Sheridan and anyone else who would hear the news didn’t know was, her mother was perfectly happy with her life. She wouldn’t screw it up by doing something illegal. She would never do something that could take them away from each other.
Nico
Nico hated to be kept waiting, but he hated what he was waiting on even more. The scene on the sidewalk was clear: Norah Ramsey’s attorney breaking the news to her daughter. Nico stood by and watched as the life the kid had known got blown to smithereens. His heart heavy, he tried to look at anything else but the girl, who looked a little like his own daughter, Lauren—same light-brown hair, same hazel eyes, same slim frame. One day she would be a beauty, but she didn’t know it yet.
He checked the file he held in his hands, just to give himself something else to focus on while he waited. He flipped to the info about the daughter. Violet Ramsey was fifteen. His Lauren was thirteen, but looked fifteen. Violet Ramsey wore nondescript clothes—jeans, T-shirt, sneakers—ducked her head shyly if you looked at her, and her only makeup was some mascara and lip gloss. His Lauren thought “more was more” where makeup was concerned, wore loud colors to attract attention (preferably from boys), and encountered the world with her eyes wide and her chin jutted defiantly.
Nico tried not to think about Lauren, or his wife, Karen, or his son, Ian, for that matter, focusing instead on the job he was there to do. And that job was to first clear the scene so a proper search could be conducted. He was leaving nothing to chance, nothing that Norah Ramsey’s attorney could use later. He’d been at the helm of this investigation for months, waiting anxiously for this day to come. And now it was here. He just had to get the kid in and out of this house quickly so they could get on with it.
She would need her things, and he was going to personally catalogue every item she took with her, making sure she took nothing but necessities and nothing that might possibly be evidence. Though the kid looked shell-shocked and completely daunted, she could’ve been coached. Her mother could’ve told her
