Page 21 of Duplicity

Detectives stood in the living room, one of them Simon’s brother-in-law. Marianna’s mother, Leanna, sat in an armchair with her legs bent so her feet were on the seat, her arms around her knees. She was barely thirty-five but looked much older tonight.

Cat heard a shuffle and peeked down the hall. Marianna’s little sister stood in her bedroom doorway, clutching a blanket with her thumb in her mouth.

Cat took a couple of steps, crouched, and waved the girl over.

Bridget scurried to stand in front of her, maybe five years old. Old enough to have grown out of the stage where she needed a blanket for comfort, but young enough still that she went back to it on a night like tonight.

“You okay, Bridge?”

The little girl sniffed. Her eyes were hollow. She took the last couple of steps toward Cat and climbed up on her knee.Ouch.Not her good leg. Cat slid her arms under the girl and tried to figure out how to stand and keep hold of her without them both going down.

She adjusted the girl’s weight to her left hip rather than on her weapon side and planted her left foot so she could—hopefully—rise without falling.

Halfway up, she faltered. Someone grasped her elbow, holding her steady. She leaned into it and looked over to find Simon slightly behind her left shoulder. “Thanks.”

She held the girl to her front.

He only nodded. A second later, he was back to looking at the screen of his laptop.

Cat wasn’t going to watch him work when a room full of people were looking at her—one of them his sister’s husband. She headed for the living room and settled onto the couch, not letting go of Bridget. The little girl sighed against her, every inhale a choppy breath.

The middle sister hadn’t appeared. Cat asked, “Where’s Marge?”

Leanna stared blankly at the coffee table and the stack of magazines about famous people and weird medical conditions.

Bridget said, “Crying in the bathtub.”

One of the detectives, not Simon’s brother, said, “I’ll get a female officer to check on her.” He walked by Romeo, who hung back nearly in the hall, and walked out.

Lucas caught Cat’s eye and motioned with a tip of his head to the missing girl’s mom. Apparently, they wanted her to try talking to the woman.

She shifted on the couch. “Leanna? Can you tell me what happened?”

After a second with no response, when Cat was almost about to nudge the woman, she turned her head and looked at Cat.

“Tell me what happened.” She kept her voice soft in case the worried mother got spooked.

“She came home from work.” Leanna sniffed.

“Her car is here?”

Leanna nodded, dropping her cheek to her knee with her face angled toward Cat. “The yellow Nissan.”

Romeo left the room.

“So, she came home…” Cat let that drift off, inviting Leanna to keep talking.

“I heard her car. She came down the side, to the kitchen door. I was watching TV. When I heard the kitchen door open, I yelled for her to take the trash out before she took her shoes off.”

Cat asked, “Did she respond?”

Leanna shook her head. “She doesn’t normally. Unless she’s arguing. So, I figured she did it.”

“And then?”

Leanna winced. “She never came back in. I went to check, and she was nowhere. Not in her room. Not outside in the alley where the trash cans are. She was just gone.”

A sinking feeling descended in Cat’s stomach, but at the same time, she had a lot of questions. Why this girl? Why here, tonight? There had to be easier places to snatch her if that was even what had happened.

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