Jane, on her knees, looked up at Tuck. She, at least, might be reasonable. “It’s three in the afternoon, Tuck, it’ll be dark in an hour.”
“So? We can take my car, if that’s what’s worrying you.” Tuck unlooped her orange scarf, then stretched her arms across the back of Jane’s striped armchair. “We can leave yours in the front so they’ll think you’re home. And the cat’ll come out when she’s hungry.”
“So who’ll think I’m home? Who is ‘they’?”
“Whoever. Whoever you’re scared of. Whoever you still think chased us on the Mass Pike.” She pointed at Jane. “Whoever you think broke into your apartment.”
“Well, the cops seem to think there’s no ‘who.’ They think the door ‘came open’ because I forgot to lock it. Which I most assuredly did not.” Jane kept peering under the couch, the pooching belly of the upholstery blocking her view. “Still, I’m calling a locksmith. Changing the lock. Cat. Come out. I’m not kidding.”
“Whatever,” Tuck said. “Tomorrow, then?”
Jane couldn’t decide whether she wanted Tuck to hurry up and leave so she could be alone, or wanted Tuck to stay so she wouldn’t be alone. She almost laughed. Well, Mr. Surveillance across the street was on the job, of course. That made her feel so much better. She should text Jake and thank-
Huh. He never answered her text from yesterday, after he’d pantomimed text me at Maggie Gunnison’s office. Maggie Gunnison’s office.
That gave Jane an idea. But she couldn’t act on it with Tuck around. “Sure. Tomorrow. Call me. Did you tell Carlyn you weren’t coming?”
“Yeah, I did.” Tuck used a forefinger to dab an invisible something from the glass coffee table. “Well, no answer, but I left a message. And I think tomorrow we should just go. Don’t call in advance. Then she won’t have time to, I don’t know. Concoct a story.”
“Whatever.” Jane watched Tuck’s finger. Fingerprints. If Tuck was worried about her identity, there was an easy way to find out. “Tuck? Listen. You know your file, your baby file?”
“My-?”
“Yes. File. The one Ella showed you. Did it have your baby footprint in it?”
“My-?”
“Your baby footprint. You know. The ones they take at the hospital. Sometimes it’s on the birth certificate, sometimes it’s on a separate document. Mom used to show me and Lissa our little footprints, all the time. She said that’s how she’d prove we were hers, if anyone tried to take us away from her.”
She saw Tuck’s look.
“It was a game. A game. We loved it, and always told Mom we needed a copy of her footprint. In case they tried to take her away from us.” Jane paused for a fleeting second, flickered a glance upward. Hi, Mom. Miss you. “You had to be there. Anyway, your footprint. Was it in your file?”
Tuck considered, then shook her head. “No. No footprint.”
“I wonder who has it, then,” Jane said. “If there is one.”
Jane’s cell phone trilled. Coda streaked out from under the couch and hurtled down the hall.
“She hates the phone,” Jane said. “I know the feeling.”
She checked for caller ID. Up popped the photo she’d taken a couple of months ago in the newsroom, right after her election story hit the front page. Wire-rimmed glasses, pencil behind his ear, paper cup of celebratory champagne, big smile.
“Shit. I forgot to call Alex back,” Jane said. “So, ah, are you-”
“Outta here,” Tuck jammed on her knit cap. “Mañana, sister. Road trip. I’ll call you.”
“Hi Alex,” Jane said, waggling her fingers at Tuck as she opened the apartment door.
“Thank you,” she mouthed. They could talk more tomorrow. Then, into the phone. “What’s up?”
Walking down the hall toward her study, she absently pushed books back into place on the floor-to-ceiling shelves, listening to Alex’s questions about her “breakin.”
“Yes, I’m okay, thanks. The police didn’t take fingerprints. Yes, I’m having the lock changed.” She pulled out her desk chair and signed in to her computer with her free hand. The stack of notes from Maggie Gunnison lay right there on the desk. So did that Inspector General report Alex had given her from his couch filing system.
Alex was still talking, seemed to know the whole damned story about the open door. Not about the truck thing, though. Should she tell him? Maybe there was nothing to tell. “Yes, that’s what the police think. But I always lock…”
She paused, listening, as Alex’s concerned voice interrupted her.
“Sure. Yes, I understand. I’ll lie low another day or two. If that’s what you think is best.”
Glass half full. Maybe being banished was a good thing. She could work on the Tillson story without having to actually produce any copy. She could still check her e-mail. and see if anyone called. And she needed to find Hec Underhill. He just might have a photo of Brianna Tillson’s murderer.
A ball of fluff landed on her lap. “Where’s your collar, cat?” Jane said. “Oh, nothing, Alex. Yeah. I’m fine. Does anyone else have my Tillson story? TV? Are the police naming her?”
She opened the IG report on her desk, turned the spiral-bound pages as Alex told her how the cops had slammed the lid on the Callaberry Street thing. Nothing coming out of HQ.
“Alex?” She stared at page 37, his voice blurring as she realized what she was reading. It might be nothing, but-“Oh, someone’s at the door,” she lied. “Might be the locksmith. Talk later, okay?”
She almost missed the off button as she tried to hang up without taking her eyes off the page. “Special Circumstances,” the bolded chapter heading said.
The inspector general analyzed the fifteen so-called “special criminal circumstance” cases handled by DFS in the previous three fiscal years. Research reveals the DFS has no established systems for custody or inquiry for the children who may have witnessed criminal activity. The inspector general recommends there be designated a qualified individual who…
Jane skipped the rest of the sentence, lured to the end by a footnote. The numbered footnote indicated, she knew, that the DFS had responded to the IG’s recs and taken corrective action.
She flipped to page 71, and slid a finger to response #7:
The DFS agrees with the IG’s assessment, and as a result has appointed an on-call therapist-counselor, Bethany Sibbach, MSW/PhD. Dr. Sibbach is designated as “point of contact” for all children considered witnesses or persons of interest in a criminal investigation connected with a fostering situation. Dr. Sibbach is a registered and licensed…
“Bingo,” Jane said. The cat looked up at her, blinked. “That’s what I said, cat. Bingo. Paging Doctor Sibbach, right? Because she might not be happy about it, but the good doctor could have the scoop about Phillip and Phoebe. Then I will have the scoop, and we’ll all live happily ever after.”
The cat did not seem to care.
“Hel-lo, Google.” Jane typed in Bethany Sibbach’s name. “Show me the money.”
43
“Welcome. Look all you want, Officers.” Curtis Ricker’s insolent stance and leering sarcasm hardly conveyed welcome, but Jake knew it didn’t matter how Ricker felt. They had a warrant allowing them to search every damn inch of this Allston duplex, Ricker’s half of it at least, and they could also confiscate Ricker’s drowned cell phone. If they could find it. After they’d finished griping about their backlog, barebones staff, and impossible workload, the geniuses in IT had admitted they could probably retrieve something.