“I’ve heard that.”
“Like everyone else in Moose River,” she said. “It’s not a secret, right? And I don’t think this time was any different.”
“You don’t?” I asked. “I think there might be—”
“See, that’s what you shouldn’t be doing,” she said, pointing at me. “Thinking.” She smiled at me. “I’m just kidding, of course.”
She wasn’t, and we both knew it, but I didn’t say anything.
“When Amanda ran away before – and to be clear, she did run away before – do you know what the circumstances were?”
“No. I don’t even know her family,” I admitted.
“Of course not,” she said. She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to share a ton of details with you because that wouldn’t be appropriate. But let’s just say the circumstances were similar. She’d just broken up with a different boyfriend. And she was under some pressure at school.” She smiled. “That sound familiar?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“So while I appreciate you bringing all of this to my attention, I really don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” she said. “Her family is checking with extended family. While they are concerned, I’m trusting that they know their daughter better than I do and right now, they aren’t projecting a sense of...urgency. I feel confident Miss Pendleton will show up any day now and we’ll find out she went hitchhiking to a friend’s in Iowa or something similar.” She smiled. “Okay now?”
I looked down at my lap for a moment. It took a lot to make me feel stupid. For years, I’d let my self-confidence wilt; I’d lost belief in myself. But when Jake came back into my life, it was like I found my self-confidence tucked in a shoebox at the back of the closet. And I opened it and felt strong and smart and beautiful again. It was just as much about me as it was about Jake – he might have helped me locate the box, but I was the one who opened it and tried everything back on for size. And wore it daily. Proudly. . So it took a lot to make me feel like I had no clue as to what I was doing or what I was talking about.
But Detective Hanborn pushed the right buttons. I felt very foolish sitting there in her office at that moment.
“Now,” she said, seemingly satisfied that I’d been properly chastised. “You mentioned something about having two reasons for being here. I assume Amanda Pendleton was the first. What’s the second?”
I shifted in the chair again, wondering if I should just walk out now and save myself from further embarrassment. The motivation I’d woken up with was now nowhere to be found, and I was afraid that anything that came out of my mouth at that point was going to sound ridiculous.
I took a deep breath. I’d come this far, though. I might have been wrong about Amanda Pendleton, at least in Detective Hanborn’s eyes. But that didn’t mean I was wrong about wanting to be an investigator.
I cleared my throat. “I was wondering if your office would ever, uh, consider an internship.”
“An internship?” Her brow furrowed. “You mean for one of your children?”
I shook my head. “No. I mean for me.”
Both eyebrows shot up. “For you?”
I tried to swallow away my nervousness. “Yes. I’m looking into becoming licensed. As a private investigator.”
Her eyebrows stayed up and her open mouth formed a small circle.
A knock on the door startled both of us and I turned around.
Belinda Hanborn, Priscilla’s sister, was standing there, all legs and blond hair. She couldn’t have been more opposite than Priscilla and, in fact, Jake and I had mistaken her for...someone else in Priscilla’s life...before Priscilla corrected us and told us that was her sister. She had the face and body of a swimsuit model.
Priscilla did not.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked, flipping her hair away from her face.
“Not at all,” Priscilla said. “What do you need?”
“Well, I…” Belinda smiled politely at me, then walked around the detective’s desk and leaned down to whisper something in the detective’s ear. Her hand rested lightly on the detective’s arm and her lips were nearly touching Priscilla’s ear. If I wasn’t mistaken, Priscilla seemed to be leaning into her.
Because they were... sisters.
And then Priscilla broke into a very un-Priscilla-like giggle and patted Belinda’s hand. “Give me a minute, okay? We’re almost done here and then we can...talk.” Detective Hanborn glanced at me. “Right?”
I grabbed my purse from the side of the chair and stood. “Actually, I think we’re all done now.”
“Really? But you had a question about an internship? For...yourself?”
Belinda was still bent over, her head now resting on Priscilla’s, eyeing me with beautiful, wide eyes.
“It can wait,” I told her. “Thank you for your time.”
“Anytime, Ms. Savage,” she said, not bothering to hide her happiness at my impending departure. “Thanks for the fritters. And Ms. Savage?”
I stopped in the doorway. “Yes?”
“Mind closing the door on your way out?” she asked, the eyebrow raised again. “My sister and I need to...chat.”
I pulled the door closed and didn’t ask any more questions.
TWENTY SIX
I spent the rest of my Sunday deliberately not thinking about Amanda Pendleton or the Bandersands or investigating. I retreated to the kitchen, turned on the oven, and baked up a storm of cookies and muffins and breads. I made a steak and potato dinner for Jake, Sophie and me and then woke up early the next morning to greet the other three kids when Thornton dropped them off before Emily had to get on the bus to school. Grace and Will passed out on the sofas as soon as they got home and Sophie slept in late. I made pancakes when they woke up and we had a nice, leisurely breakfast, getting caught up on how we all spent our weekend. Sophie told the other two about the movies she watched at her sleepover and Grace and Will relayed their escapades to the feed store to check out the acoustics for their dad’s upcoming gig. I stayed quiet about my visit to the Moose River police department.
Once they finished talking about their weekend, we went into schedule mode: what we had planned for the week and what was on the homeschool calendar. By the time breakfast was over, I was visibly more relaxed. This wasn’t a surprise. Because whenever I was down or frustrated or feeling like I was clueless, I had one go-to maneuver.
Be a mom.
And it worked every time. By mid-afternoon, I was feeling better and normal and didn’t even mind when Brenda called later and asked if I could grab Maddie from cheer practice again.
“Are your kids still sick?”
“No, thank goodness,” she said, breathing an audible sigh of relief. “And I somehow came through unscathed – me and Maddie both. Must have been our hand sanitizer baths that kept us healthy.”
If anyone would actually bathe his or her body in a tubful of hand sanitizer, it was Brenda.
“So we’re all fine,” she said. “Well, Johnny is suffering PTSD from the corn maze team builder. But no one is throwing up. Anyway, we took my car in to the shop this morning and it’s not done yet. And I’m pretty sure their free ride service doesn’t extend to picking my kid up from cheer practice.”
I chuckled. “Probably not. Yeah, no problem. I’ll get her.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I conned the neighbor into taking her but she’s not home. I tried my mom but she’s at the gym. Which is totally weird.”
“It’s no problem,” I said. “It’s ten minutes away.”
“I know. I just feel bad asking. I’ll owe you a plate of cookies or a jug of kombucha or something.”
“We’ll take the cookies,” I told her, not bothering to mention I had a counter full of desserts from my baking spree the previous day.
The kids declined riding along with me to the gym, so I headed over by myself, making sure not to wear the dreaded Moose River sweatshirt.
Greta Mathisen spotted me as soon as I entered the gym. She was dressed in exactly the same clothes as before, save for the red headband around her head. She tracked me to the spot on the bleachers and after she’d brought the girls together in the middle of the gym floor, she headed in my direction.