Chapter 3
The house was quieter when I left the computer room. The kitchen counters were still littered with the party trays and bowls of food, but the people had dissipated, with just a few cops lingering outside.
My family were congregated in the living room.
Tommy was sitting on the faded tan sofa, staring at the floor, his children passed out beside him.
He looked exhausted, years older than twenty-eight.
I wondered if he had slept at all in the last twenty-four hours.
Suzannah sat beside him, holding his hand, her presence steady and grounding.
My father was across from them, his face still red and blotchy, though the tears seemed to have stopped.
Steve was seated in another armchair a few feet away. I’d met my stepdad only two times prior to this. My mother didn’t mix her new and old lives outside of the agreed-upon custody arrangement for Hazel. It was weird to see him so comfortable in this house.
Megan and Mallory sat at the feet of Steve’s chair, engrossed in their matching iPads. They had to be seven or eight now. Their identical faces were framed by long blonde hair that looked like my mother’s right before she chopped it all off. Her little mini-me’s. I barely knew them.
A stack of Missing posters rested on the coffee table.
I reached for one, my hands shaking a little.
Looking at Hazel’s photo, it was impossible not to see it: she looked just like me.
Not adult me, but me before everything with Alex happened.
Before I started dying my chocolate-brown hair blue-black and overemphasizing my features with heavy makeup.
Hazel looked like the girl I could have once been.
“You’re done already?” Tommy asked, looking up at me. “The police kept me for an hour.”
“Yeah, well, you probably had more to say.”
Looking at the poster was making me nauseous, so I dropped it back on the stack. “And they probably weren’t as rude to you as they were to me.”
“Tell me you didn’t offend the detectives trying to find my daughter.” My mother’s voice came from behind me as she emerged from the hall bathroom.
“By the way, you’re out of hand towels in the bathroom, Keith,” she said, as she wiped her hands on her dark designer jeans.
Tommy and Suzannah exchanged a knowing look. I envied their unspoken understanding. It made me feel surprisingly alone.
“Alert the media, Dad!” I said sarcastically. “Now we have a real tragedy on our hands.”
Dad ignored me. “We’ve had a lot going on, Lyla. Laundry hasn’t been a priority.”
“I didn’t mean you should do a load right now,” my mother said. “I was just letting you know.”
Footsteps came from down the hall, interrupting us all before my mother could say anymore. Pullman and Newbury reemerged. Pullman fidgeted with his tie as if he wasn’t used to wearing one.
“Detectives,” my mother said, looking relieved.
I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. Where did this reverence for the police suddenly come from? Was this Steve’s influence? The last time I had seen my mother speaking to a police officer in this house, she had threatened to beat him to death with her flip-flop.
I turned to Tommy, who gave a slight shake of his head. Not worth it.
“Well,” Newbury said, his hands in his pockets.
“Thank you all for your time today. We’re going back to the precinct to collate our notes.
We will have teams searching the surrounding area again tonight.
We ask you not to interfere with their work.
Stay put and call us if you hear or see anything suspicious.
Hazel very well might turn up here at any moment. Let’s hope that’s the case.”
Pullman was staring at me, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I turned to Tommy to see if he had noticed, but he was gazing at his hands in his lap.
“Thank you, officers,” my father said meekly. “For everything.”