10
They didn’t make it to Sydney’s parents’.
Max was walking Noelle to her vehicle in front of Sydney’s home and spun around when he heard a racing engine. A small Honda sped recklessly down the street.
What the hell?
The Honda veered around law enforcement vehicles, and officers waved for the driver to stop it.
The car abruptly braked in front of Sydney’s home, leaving tire rubber on the street.
A dark-haired woman leaped out of the driver’s seat and sprinted toward Sydney’s home, leaving her car door open and the vehicle blocking the road.
A man stepped out of the passenger side.
“Hang on there!” The front-door deputy stepped into the racing woman’s path and held out his hands. “No one’s going inside!” he hollered.
“I’ve got to see Sydney!” the woman screamed. “Let me in!” Even though she was much smaller than the deputy, she tried to push him aside, flailing her arms at him.
As one, Noelle and Max ran back to the home. The deputy grabbed one of the woman’s arms and whipped it up and behind her back, stopping her.
“Let go of me!”
“Hold up,” said Max as they reached the duo. The deputy’s maneuver had stopped her thrashing, and she met Max’s gaze.
“I just need to see Sydney,” she pleaded. Her face was wet with tears.
She knows.
“Stay back,” Noelle ordered someone behind Max.
He turned to see a man in his forties on the home’s walkway lift his hands. “She’s not thinking straight,” he said. “She’s distraught about Sydney. We’re friends of hers.”
“She’s my best friend,” wailed the woman. Her knees buckled, and the deputy lowered her to sit on the ground.
Max squatted to look her in the eye as Noelle watched the man at his back. “If you heard about Sydney,” he said calmly, “then you know she’s not in the house.”
Her face crumpled. “She can’t be dead.”
“I’m very sorry, but Sydney has died. I can see you’re good friends.” He nodded at the deputy, who slowly released his grip.
The woman covered her face with both hands and leaned against her knees, sobbing. “This isn’t happening. It can’t be true.”
“What’s your name?” asked Max.
When she didn’t immediately answer, the man behind him said, “She’s Merritt Blocker. She works with Sydney at the grade school. We both do—did,” he corrected, making Merritt sob harder.
Noelle leaned toward Max. “Her name is on the friends list,” she said quietly. “Who are you?” she asked the man.
“Shawn Nickerson. Merritt and Sydney teach a fourth-fifth split class. I’m the guidance counselor at the school.”
Noelle met Max’s gaze and shook her head. The man’s name wasn’t on their list.
“Merritt, how did you hear about Sydney?” asked Max.
“The school sent out an email,” said Shawn as Merritt continued to sob. “Stating they’ll have grief counselors there today and tomorrow for anyone who wants to stop in.”
“Isn’t school out for the summer?” asked Noelle.
“Yes. As of a week ago,” he answered.
“How did the school find out?” asked Noelle, looking at Merritt. “She was just identified this morning.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Identified?” Merritt hoarsely whispered, raising her head. “What does that mean? How would you not know who she was?”
Max and Noelle said nothing.
“Where’s Belle?” Merritt asked sharply. “Don’t tell me she’s with her dad. That asshole shouldn’t be anywhere near that girl.”
Max studied the woman. Anger had replaced her sorrow.
“How did she die?” Merritt asked. “Was it Trey? Did he do something?”
Red flags started to wave in Max’s brain.
“Why do you say that?” asked Noelle.
Merritt pressed her lips together and didn’t answer.
Max looked at Shawn, waiting for him to answer for the woman again. But he had nothing to say.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Max told both of them, and met the deputy’s gaze. He nodded, acknowledging that he’d keep an eye on them. Max led Noelle several yards away. “We need to interview them. Now.”
Indecision filled her gaze. “But we need to question her parents.”
“I agree. But these two are here now and we need to separate them.” He didn’t want Shawn answering for Merritt. They needed to share what they knew without influencing each other’s answers.
Noelle checked the time on her phone. It was nearly two o’clock.
“You can’t be everywhere at once,” he told her. “There’s too much going on.”
“I know. I’ll ask for Evan or Mercy to talk to the parents,” she said. She tapped out a text on her phone and slipped it back in her suit jacket. “Okay. Where do you want to do this?”
Max sat Merritt on the sofa in the family room and pulled up a chair to sit directly in front of her. Noelle led Shawn out back to the chairs on the patio, closing the slider firmly behind them.
Merritt sat motionless, her shoulders slumped, her emotions under control.
Max had taken her car keys and asked the deputy to move the car behind the house.
The car’s initial arrival was raising questions in Max’s mind about Shawn.
Why hadn’t he driven Merritt? Clearly she’d been unable to drive safely.
She’d nearly hit two patrol vehicles and an officer.
And that was just on this street. How had she managed the rest of the drive?
I wouldn’t have gotten in the car with her.
“First off, I’m very sorry for your loss,” he started. “I can tell you and Sydney were close.”
“We were.” Merritt’s voice was flat, drained of any emotion, her gaze on her lap.
“We met six years ago, when I started at the elementary school. After being there awhile, we told the school that we’d like to coteach a double-sized class.
We’ve been doing it for five years now. It was the best. We got to the point where we could smoothly take over in the middle of a lesson where the other left off.
We’d even finish each other’s sentences.
” She looked up at Max. “But it’ll never happen again.
Every time I enter my classroom, I’ll be looking for her. It’ll be like half of me is missing.”
“Would you show me the email you received about Sydney?” Max asked.
Merritt nodded and pulled out her phone. She opened an email and handed it over.
Max quickly skimmed the notice. It offered no details.
It simply said that the teacher Sydney Beason had passed and would be missed and gave the same information Shawn had shared about grief counseling.
It’d come from an official-looking email address.
“Is this an email address you usually receive school emails from?”
“Yes. I checked it twice because I didn’t believe it at first.”
“Who sends them out?”
“Depends. Our principal, usually, but I know the office secretary does it too.”
Where did they get the information?
He knew it happened. People talked. One of the responding law enforcement officers or someone at the medical examiner’s office.
Max studied the woman. Merritt appeared to be in her early thirties, but sitting on the couch with her shoulders slumped, she seemed the size of a middle schooler.
Her dark hair was slicked back and somehow tied in a knot at her neck.
She wore denim shorts and a cropped long-sleeved shirt that was inside out.
He wondered if she’d dressed too quickly or had done that for a reason.
“Can you think of anyone Sydney might have left Belle with? She’s not with either set of grandparents. ”
Merritt wiped her eyes. “Um. I’m not sure.” She drew a shaky breath. “I know her ex gets Belle every other weekend. I can’t think of anyone else besides myself.”
“You’ve watched her?”
“Well, no. But I would if she asked.”
“What does she do for childcare while she’s working?”
“There’s a preschool at the high school. It’s essentially a specialized class with two instructors and staffed by students learning about childcare. School district employees get priority enrollment.”
“Why did you say Trey shouldn’t be anywhere near his daughter?”
Merritt looked away. “I overreacted. He’s an ass, but I know he wouldn’t hurt his daughter.”
“Would he hurt Sydney?” Max asked quietly.
Her gaze flew back to his, and a long moment passed before she answered. “I don’t know.”
That wasn’t a no.
“Do you know of anyone else who would hurt her?”
“No! She’s the nicest person. Everyone liked her.”
How many times have I heard that and then later the person turned out to have bad secrets?
“What about Sydney’s current boyfriend? We don’t have his name.”
Merritt frowned. “She’s not seeing anyone. Hasn’t for a while.”
“Are you sure? Maybe it’s a new relationship.”
“She would have told me!”
“Do you know anyone who drives a bright-blue Jeep?”
She thought for a second and shook her head. “Why?”
“What about her roommate? We don’t have her name either.”
Merritt stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “She doesn’t have a roommate. Never has,” she said emphatically. “It’s always just been her and Belle.”
“Do you know of one of her friends with red hair?”
Confusion filled her face. “No. No one I can think of. Who told you she has a roommate? And a boyfriend?”
“Neighbors have seen them both around for at least a month,” Max said, keeping the facts vague. “And there are another woman’s clothing and shoes in the guest bedroom.”
Merritt shook her head. “No. She would have told me. Someone’s lying to you.”
“The clothes and toothbrush upstairs aren’t lying.”
Merritt started to stand, clearly intending to go upstairs.
“I can’t have you going up there right now.”
She froze and dropped back in her seat, her eyes wide. Merritt whispered, “Was she killed in the house?” She blinked and hesitantly looked around the room as if she might see blood.
“Nothing happened in the house.”
We think.
“Are you sure you don’t know of a red-haired acquaintance of Sydney’s? Do you know all her friends?”
“Well, I guess not. I think she has a group of mom friends she gets together with so their kids can play together.” She lifted one shoulder. “I don’t have kids, so I’ve never met them.”
Max added Moms group to his growing mental list.
“Maybe the other woman is part of that,” suggested Merritt.
“Maybe.”
But if she is a mom with kids, wouldn’t they be living here too?
He hadn’t seen evidence of another child in the town house. But the child could be living with its dad most of the time.
“I doubt some guy they saw was her boyfriend. He was probably doing some work around the house. I know Sydney had some plumbing issues.”
I don’t think she was kissing her plumber.
Although it could have started as a plumbing job.
“Could you put together a list of work friends who knew Sydney best?”
“I know her best,” Merritt stated. “But there are a few others we hung around with. But if I don’t know who this man or the roommate is, then they definitely wouldn’t know.” She shook her head, her tone serious.
“I’d like to talk to them anyway.”
Why is she so determined to present herself as Sydney’s closest friend?
Max glanced outside to where Noelle was interviewing Shawn. “You were driving pretty crazy when you got here. I’m surprised Shawn let you drive since you were so upset.”
“I think I was numb when we left home, and the panic started as we got closer. He kept telling me to pull over.”
Something about her tone when talking about Shawn drew Max’s attention. And that she’d said when we left home. “You are very close to him too.”
Merritt pressed her lips into a thin line. “We live together,” she admitted, “but no one knows. We want to keep it that way for a while.”
“Did Sydney know?”
“She figured it out a couple of weeks ago. I guess we did a pretty good job of keeping it to ourselves because we dated for six months before that.”
“So you had a boyfriend and Sydney didn’t know.” He raised a brow.
“Oh.” Her gaze dropped as the realization hit. “Yeah. I guess we were both good at keeping secrets.”
The sliding door opened and Noelle stuck in her head. “How much more time do you need?” Suppressed excitement emanated from her gaze.
She has something to tell me.
“We’re done,” said Max.
“Us too.” She looked at Merritt. “Your car’s parked back here. You can come this way.”
Merritt looked slightly startled but rose from her seat, and Noelle practically pushed her out the door, handing off their business cards and imploring her and Shawn to call if they thought of something new.
Then she slid the door shut and turned to Max. Over her shoulder he saw Merritt glance back with a small scowl as she went through the back gate.