Page 76 of My Heart to Find

“But we told them Mr. Richards’s is sexist and racist. And now this.” I look at them, and when none of them try to stop me, I call Trevor.

He doesn’t answer.

I fire off a quick text to him instead.

“I can’t believe this,” Lizzy says. She looks closely at Phia who’s looking decidedly green. “Are you okay?”

Phia nods. “I just want to forget it happened. Come on, can we watch a DVD or something?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Damien

“OKAY? CAN YOU HEARme?” I peer at my laptop screen, at the little square where Cara’s face is. I bought a subscription to Squadcast yesterday, and today, Cara and I are trying it out. She’s logged in at her house and I’ve invited her as a ‘guest’ onto the podcast.

We’re really going ahead with theDamien the Detectivepodcast, and there’s something so exciting about doing this with her.

Today is just a test though as we’re both getting used to using Squadcast.

“Yep, I can hear you,” she says. She leans closer to her camera, and even across the interwebs, I can see the brightness in her eyes. “So, who do we plan to ask to be guests?”

I look down at my notebook. It’s on the table next to my laptop. “Obviously Trevor,” I say. “I messaged him yesterday, and I also asked about their parents or the other siblings. I told him usually podcasts try to interview the people around a missing person, you know, to really give a sense of who they are.”

Cara nods. “Does he think they’ll agree?”

“He’s not sure. He is the only one who thinks she’s actually missing. So, there’s that. But you and Marnie had some of the same teachers, right?”

“Must’ve. Though there was a high turnover of staff at the school though.”

“But you’ll know some of them,” I say. “So ,can you message them? See if any of them are up for it? I also want to talk to the cops if I can. I mean, it’s going to be difficult, but we need this to be as close to a professional podcast as we can, and those always include talks with detectives.”

“And clips of the calls made to the police by the family or whoever reported them missing. That was Trevor, right?” Cara says. “There must be a recording of the call he made to the cops about her not coming home.”

“Oh, there will be. Just depends on whether we can actually get access to it. Pity we haven’t got someone like Marnie with us who’s into computer science.”

Cara nods, but then stops.

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