“Really, really well... Shannon’s not a friend of Kim’s, is she?”
“Kim?” I asked, having no clue what he was talking about.
“Kardashian. I thought you only reported crime stories when there was a celebrity hook.”
He just couldn’t resist making a dig, could he? It was as natural to him as swallowing.
“Oh, come on, Matt. You know I don’t work forBuzzanymore.”
A few years back I’d covered celebrity crimes for one of those weekly tabloid magazines, the kind that features heart-stopping headlines like “JLo Suffers Spray Tan Tragedy.” I know, what the hell was I thinking? But I needed the paycheck.
Wong gave a playful shrug.
“That’s right, thanks for the correction. You’re anauthornow. Thinking of turning this little story into your next book?”
“I’d tell you,” I said. “But then I’d have to kill you. How’s your new job going?”
“Great, they love me there.”
“Good to know. Anything you can tell me about the situation here?”
“You mean, do I think the husband did it? Probably. But you’re getting a little bit of a late start on the story, aren’t you, Bailey?”
“Oh, you know what they say, Matt. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.”
Jeez, I was on a roll with the comebacks, wasn’t I? If crime writing fell through, I might be able to find work as a mug writer. At that moment, thankfully, Kelly slipped out of the building and cocked her chin in a gesture that indicated she was ready for me.
“Oops,” I said. “Gotta run. Talk to you later.”
“Just remember, sometimes even the sweetest-looking sisters hate each other’s guts.”
With Matt, it was always hard to tell if a comment like that was a friendly tip from one reporter to another or a red herring meant to throw you off the real scent. I ignored him and hurried toward Dot’s.
As I reached the building, the small bunch of people who’d been inside began to file out. The last, a middle-aged, barrel-chested man with shiny black hair, held the door for us.
“I’m gonna grab a sandwich,” he told Kelly. “Be back in about twenty.”
“Thanks, Hank.” She motioned for me to enter ahead of her.
“I didn’t mean for you to have to chase everyone out,” I told her. “But I appreciate the chance to talk.”
“I actually have no clue what anyone besides Hank is doing hanging in here,” she said, quickly tugging the elastic from her ponytail. She smoothed her hair tightly in place and then wound the elastic back around it. “They’re supposed to be finding Shannon, not gossiping like a bunch of ninth graders. Sit wherever you want, okay?”
At first glance, Dot’s looked to me like it’d been designed during the JFK administration and not touched since. AsKelly and I both slid into seats at a metal table strewn with flyers and used cardboard coffee cups, I took a better look at her. She was a fairly attractive woman, sharing some key features with Shannon—the green eyes, strong straight nose, and high cheekbones—but they hadn’t come together in the same stunning way. It made me think of shots I’d seen inBuzzof celebrity brothers and sisters who bore a strong resemblance to their famous siblings but had not been tapped by the remarkable-beauty fairy themselves.
“I know the police have an intense search going on,” I began. “Anything turn up today?”
She quickly shook her head. “Not yet, no. And that’s why we need to get the word out further. So that if anyone spots Shannon, they’ll call the tip line. You can run the number in your story, correct?”
“Of course. When was the last time you spoke to Shannon?”
“I called her Sunday night, around seven o’clock.”
“Did the two of you talk about anything in particular?”
“I was just asking her to drop off dinner for our mother the next day. It’s usually my turn on Mondays, but my husband was out of town, so I was the only one who could go to my daughter’s soccer game that afternoon.”
I couldn’t help but pick up on the odd flatness to Kelly’s tone. Maybe staying detached was helping her cope with her sister’s disappearance. Maybe stress and fear had bled all the emotion out of her voice. Or maybe I was seeing a hint of what Matt Wong had alluded to.
