“Come on, Rosie, there’s an officer who wants to talk to you.”
“Why do they want to talk tome?” I asked accusingly as my father led me through the house. I despised the cops in this town.
My father gave me a dirty look. “Relax. They’ve spoken to all of us. They’re trying to get any information that will help them find Hazel.”
I didn’t see how I could provide anything that my father or Tommy hadn’t already, but I knew I had to follow procedure. Still, I didn’t like the idea. I was easily riled up when someone asked me questions I wasn’t prepared for. That much had been obvious from my time onTMHearlier.
I let my father steer me over to the living room, where the bulk of the uniforms were congregated. He stopped in front of a nondescript white man in a button-down shirt that strained against his stomach. He’d clearly gone bald early, despite not being much more than fifty. He was talking quietly with a younger man in a fitted suit.
“Detective Newbury?” my father said. “This is my daughter, Rose. She just got in from New York. You said you would like to speak to her.”
Detective Newbury eyed me up and down, the look on his face turning curious. Usually whenever men looked at me like this, it was because they were attracted to me, but this was something different. He wasn’t looking at my face or tits. He was looking at me with a smirk.
“Rose Dearling,” he said slowly. “The author.”
There it was. Detective Newbury was up-to-date on his investigation, and I immediately knew I wasn’t going to be treated like a worried sister when he questioned me. I was already the villain of another story.The Smiley’s Next Doorhad not been kind to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, pointingout every one of their ineptitudes and fumbles during Will’s case. I hoped this wouldn’t now be Hazel’s price to pay.
“Best-sellingauthor, actually,” I corrected him, my lips pursed. My father gave me a dirty look.
“Well,” Newbury continued, “how about we find a nice, quiet place to talk? We interviewed most of your family yesterday at the station, but we have a few questions for you as well. My partner here will be joining us.”
“I’m Detective Dominick Pullman,” the younger one said eagerly, thrusting out his hand.
Pullman looked like every guy I had gone to high school with. He was in his late twenties, with an uninteresting face that could be described as attractive only because there was nothing inherently ugly about it. His hair was short, probably the result of growing out that awful buzz cut men liked to get the moment they graduated the academy. I didn’t know Pullman, but he was indistinguishable from every other cop who had talked to me eleven years ago. I doubted he could surprise me.
“You can use my office if you like,” my father said.
“Thank you, Mr. Dearling,” Detective Newbury said, nodding at me. “After you.”
The office, formerly “the computer room,” was on the far side of the house beside what was once Will’s bedroom. The desk was against one wall and the old PC that had lived there for years was gone, replaced with a small, lightweight silver laptop that was presumably my father’s. He probably liked the routine of using the computer here, even if the device was now portable.
The old leather couch was also still there. I headed straight for it and took a seat, a small cloud of dust rising with my weight. Newbury reached for theaerodynamic desk chair and spun it so that he was facing me, letting Pullman go for the rickety wooden one shoved in the corner.
“So, Rose,” Newbury started, unearthing a pen and pad from his pocket. “You live in New York City?”
I stopped fidgeting in my seat to focus. We’d be starting with the softball questions, it seemed.
“Yeah, I do.”
Newbury nodded. “How long have you lived there?”
“About three years.”
He nodded. “Expensive city. Went there once with the wife. Don’t know how you do it. No offense, I’m sure it’s fun, but everyone crammed on top of one another like that …” He shook his head. “I’ll never understand it. I like having land to myself.”
Cops always mentioned the wife, even if she didn’t exist. It was a tactic. To make them appear more human. More likable. It was annoying, as was his cliched hatred of New York.
“Yeah, well, I find that places with a lot of land tend to have a lot of bigots living in them, so I prefer cities.”
That made Newbury stiffen.
“I don’t think we should make generalizations now,” Pullman said from beside him. I rolled my eyes.
“Why don’t we get back to the questions?” Newbury said, more curtly now. “Where did you live before New York?”
I sighed. It was painful to sit through this by-the-book interview. It wasn’t going to help find my sister any faster.
“I lived in Hanover, New Hampshire, while I went to Dartmouth,” I said, unable to hide my irritation. “And before that, I lived here.”
