I understood that yesterday’s call was undoubtedly a shock after so many years. But the woman’s anxiety seemed out of proportion. The shaking hands. The terrified eyes. I didn’t like what I was sensing.

“Your home is beautiful,” I said, wanting to reassure.

“Tawny likes things bright.”

“Is this Tawny?” Gesturing at the woman framed in mother-of-pearl.

The parakeet eyes looked at me oddly. Then, “Yes.”

“She’s grown into a beautiful young woman.”

“You’re sure about the cat?”

“I’m sure. Do you have other pictures?”

“Tawny hated being photographed.”

As with the Violettes, Ryan allowed silence, hoping one or the other Kezerian might feel compelled to fill it. Neither did.

Murray switched legs. Behind him, through a matching archway across the hall, I noted a dining room of identical footage with an identical bay window. The table was glass. The chairs were molded white acrylic and made me think of the Jetsons.

When Bernadette spoke, her words were not what I expected. So far, nothing was. “Is she dead?”

“We have no reason to think that.” Ryan indicated no surprise at the question.

Bernadette’s shoulders rounded slightly as her expression melted. Into what? Relief? Disappointment? I really couldn’t read her.

Jake spread his feet. Frowned his frown.

“But we have new information,” Ryan said.

“You’ve found her?”

“We haven’t determined her exact location. Yet.”

Bernadette’s knuckles blanched as her fingers tightened again.

Ryan leaned toward her. “I promise you, Mrs. Kezerian. We are closing in.”

“Closing in?” Jake snorted. “You make it sound like the play-offs.”

“I apologize for my poor choice of words.”

It struck me. Unlike the Violettes, the Kezerians were asking no questions about the nature of the “new information.” Or about Pomerleau’s movements over the last decade.

Jake pinched the bridge of his nose. Again crossed his arms. “If you have nothing to tell us, why are you here?”

“We were hoping Tawny might agree to an interview.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath. Looked at Bernadette. Her face had gone as white as the walls around us.

In my peripheral vision, Jake’s arms dropped to his sides. I ignored him and focused on his wife. Bernadette was trying to speak but managing only to swallow and clear her throat.

I reached out and took her hands in mine. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I thought you’d come to tell me you’d located Tawny.” More swallowing. “One way or the other.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” I didn’t.

“Who we talking about here?” Jake demanded. “Who is it you’re tracking?”

“Anique Pomerleau,” Ryan said.

“Sonofabitch.”

“Tawny’s not here with you?” I asked Bernadette.

“I haven’t seen my daughter in almost eight years.”

CHAPTER 19

“OH, GOD.” A tiny sob bubbled from Bernadette’s throat.

“I am so sorry,” I said. “Obviously, Detective Ryan and I were unclear.”

“You’re here about the woman who kidnapped my child?”

“Yes,” I said. “Anique Pomerleau.”

Bernadette slipped her hands free of mine and extended one back toward Jake. He made no move to take it. “You came to question Tawny?” she asked.

“To talk to her.”

Bernadette brought the unclaimed hand forward onto the armrest. It trembled.

“We were hoping—” I began.

“She’s not here.” Bernadette’s voice was flat, as though a door had slammed shut somewhere inside her. She began picking at a thread poking from the piping.

“Where is she?”

“Tawny left home in 2006.”

“Do you know where she’s living?”

“No.”

I glanced at Ryan. Tight nod that I should continue.

“You haven’t heard from your daughter in all that time?”

“She called once. Several months after she moved out. To say she was well.”

“She didn’t tell you where she was?”

“No.”

“Did you ask?”

Bernadette kept working the errant strand. Which had doubled in length.

“Did you file a missing persons report?”

“Tawny was almost twenty. The police said she was an adult. Free to do what she wanted.”

Thus nothing in the file. I waited for Bernadette to continue.

“It’s crazy, I know. But I figured that was the reason you’d come. To tell me you’d found her.”

“Why did she leave?”

“Because she’s nuts.”

Ryan and I looked past Bernadette toward her husband. He opened his mouth to continue, but something on our faces made him shut it again.

Bernadette spoke without taking her eyes from the thread she was twisting and retwisting around one finger. “Tawny endured a five-year nightmare. Anyone would have issues.”

My gaze slid to Ryan. He did a subtle “Take it away” lift of one palm.

“Can you talk about that?” I urged gently.

“About what?”

“Tawny’s issues.”

Bernadette hesitated, either reluctant to share or unsure how to put it. “She came back to me changed.”

Sweet Jesus! Of course she did. The child was raped and tortured her entire adolescence.

“Changed how?”

“She was overly fearful.”

“Of?”

“Life.”

“For Christ’s sake, Bee.” Jake threw up his hands.

Bernadette rounded on her husband. “Well, aren’t you Mr. Compassionate.” Then to me, “Tawny had what they called body-image issues.”

“What do you mean?”

“My baby lived in conditions you wouldn’t wish on a dog. No sunlight. No decent food. It all took a toll.”

I pictured Tawny in my office, overwhelmed by a trench coat cinched at the waist.

“She didn’t grow properly. Never went through puberty.”

“That’s understandable,” I said.

“But then her body, I don’t know, started playing some kind of high-speed catch-up. She grew very fast. Developed large breasts.” Bernadette shrugged one shoulder. “She was uncomfortable with herself.”

“She was irrational.” Jake.

“Really?” Bernadette snapped. “Because she didn’t like to be seen naked? News flash. Most kids don’t.”

“Most kids don’t go batshit if their mother accidentally peeps them in the crapper.”

“She was making progress.” Cold.

“You see what I’m dealing with?” Jake directed this comment to Ryan.

“You knew about Tawny from the day we met.” Bernadette’s tone toward her husband was acid.

“Oh, you’ve got that right. And we haven’t stopped talking about the kid since.”

“She was seeing a therapist.”

“That asshole was part of the problem.”

Bernadette snorted. “My husband, expert on psychology.”

“The quack took her to the cellar where they caged her. In my book, that’s over-the-top fucked up.”

That surprised me. “Tawny and her therapist visited the house on de Sébastopol?”

“Perhaps the treatment was a bit harsh.” Softer, almost pleading. “But Tawny was doing well. She was attending community college. She wanted to help people. To heal the whole world. When she called that one time, she said she was back in school.”

“But she didn’t say where.”

“No.”

I glanced at Ryan. He was studying Jake.

“How did you two get along?” he asked.

“What? Me and Tawny?”

Ryan nodded.

Jake’s voice remained even, but the set of his jaw suggested his annoyance was no longer just with his wife. “We had our spats. The kid wasn’t easy.”

“Spats?” Bernadette snarled. “You two hated each other.”

Jake sighed, impatient with accusations clearly aired more than once. “I did not hate Tawny. I tried to help her. To make her understand that life involves boundaries.”

“Be honest, Jake. She left because of you.”

“She never embraced me as a father, if that’s what you mean.”

“You drove her away.”

The Kezerians exchanged a glance boiling with anger. Then Bernadette turned back to me. “Tawny moved out after a blowup with my husband. Stormed upstairs, packed her things, and left.”