Page 58 of Missing White Woman

My heart was still in space but somehow managed to speed up. Me. They needed me to confirm that it was Ty. There was no way in hell.

When I didn’t say anything, Calloway spoke. “We could call his mother again, though she wasn’t really helpful last time we spoke. But Baltimore’s only a few hours in the car. Hopefully someone else would be driving since I’m sure she’ll be upset.”

Even Calloway’s frown felt manipulative.

I nodded, which she took to mean I was satisfied. She spoke again. “Can you come down to the ME’s office? We can go right now.”

“I need to get dressed.”

“I’m happy to wait.”

“It’ll take a while.” I wiped my eye.

“No problem. I’ll figure out how to make coffee.”

And then she actually went to the coffee machine. I looked around. Housekeeping had cleaned. The place was spotless minus the sneakers I’d left in the middle of the room. Anything worth snooping through was still in the bedroom. I went in there and locked the door.

I found my cell phone buried in the comforter. Six missed calls. All from Adore. The phone rang again just as I was about to call her back. “They found him,” she said as soon as I answered.

My body instinctively clenched up, tried to fold into itself, like I was hearing the news for the first time all over again.

“I know. He must’ve been hiding out there.” I tried to swallow all the air in the room. “Since he killed her.”

She paused. “I was hoping you’d slept in. Hadn’t seen he’d died on TikTok or something.”

“Calloway told me.”

“She called?”

I took a seat, not even bothering to straighten the comforter out. Just sat on the lump that had formed when I got out of bed. It wasn’t like I could feel it anyway. “She came by. Still here actually. Wants me to come down. Identify the body,” I said. Then: “He hates water. Can’t swim. Won’t even put his toe in. I tease him about it.” My mouth slammed shut, realizing present tense was no longer applicable. Ty would forever be associated with things that ended ed. “Teased.”

“Bree, don’t do this.”

“I have to,” I said.

We were both silent, and when I did finally speak, I lied again. Pretended like I didn’t know what she was referring to.

“Who else is going to ID him?”

It took her a second to answer, like she was trying to decide if she was going to play pretend with me. Like we were eight and sitting in front of a Dreamhouse. After a second, she picked up the Barbie. “He doesn’t have family?”

“Not here. I’m not going to let his mother drive all the way up from Baltimore so she can spend three hours with false hope that maybe, just maybe, it’s not her child.”

“Fine. Tell Calloway you’ll meet her. We’ll meet her there.”

The idea instantly made me feel better. I hadn’t been inside a police station since I’d been dragged into one in cuffs. That was by design, making sure ever since that I followed every rule. And yet I was still here, in this situation. I shifted until the lump of blankets was no longer right under my legs. “She’s gonna want to know when.”

“Why? Not like he’s going anywhere.” She paused. “I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have said that. I know you loved him.”

Another ed.

“I did,” I said, though the man I loved was far from the one Calloway wanted me to ID. “Let me go tell Calloway.”

“I’ll head to the hotel now.”

We hung up.

Calloway was on the couch. She perked up as soon as I opened the door. “That was a quick…”

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