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Kennedy and Nick didn’t talk or listen to any music as they raced back to the Lindgrens’. Kennedy was certain she had dreamed up this whole night. She was probably still so jetlagged she was in Carl and Sandy’s guest room coming up with some elaborately bizarre daydream. Or maybe she hadn’t even arrived in Massachusetts yet. Maybe she was dozing off on the plane from Seattle, sitting next to the cute French businessman who would ask her a dozen questions about China when she woke up.
The bus jolted and hopped with every minor bump in the road. Kennedy was afraid she’d get carsick. She clung to the door handle as if she could ground herself that way. That’s what she needed. Some kind of grounding stability.
Nick parked the bus lopsided along the curb since there were two police cars taking up the Lindgrens’ driveway. He raced out without saying anything, and Kennedy sprinted behind him. She didn’t know what she expected to see when she burst after him through the front door. A dozen police officers, maybe a few members of the press, men and women in suits holding notebooks and pens. Instead, there were two men in uniform sitting around the Lindgrens’ dining room table, with a plate of cookies and muffins on the Lazy Susan in front of them.
Kennedy froze in the hall beside Nick, and the two officers looked up. She recognized them both.
“Just in time.” Carl stood up and pointed at the man with reddish stubble spreading out across his chin. “I think you both already know Dominic, chaplain for the BPD.”
He nodded and offered Kennedy the slightest trace of a smile.
“And this is Detective Drisklay.”
Kennedy’s lungs constricted once at the sight of the middle-aged man sipping coffee from a stained disposable cup.
“Miss Stern.” He gave a courtly nod that felt almost mocking in nature.
“What’s going on?” Nick asked. “Does anyone know how Noah’s doing? Have you been able to find him yet?”
“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” said Drisklay in his characteristic monotone.
“Well ...” Nick pulled out his phone and glanced at the time. “It was a little over an hour ago when I dropped him off at his mom and dad’s. Right after eleven.”
“Did you go in the house? Did you see either of his parents?”
Kennedy’s mind wandered slightly until she decided that if Detective Drisklay and her chem professor Adell ever created a love child, he would be a modern-day version of Hercule Poirot. She tried imagining his famous mustaches on a face like Drisklay’s. If this weren’t such a tense situation, she might have allowed herself a giggle.
“We didn’t see anybody,” Nick answered. “We just drove up and dropped him off at the point where the driveway turns around.”
“Did either of you watch to see if he actually went in the house?” Drisklay fired off questions without showing any interest in Nick’s answers.
Kennedy’s stomach tightened. Were they in trouble?
“No.”
“What about before you dropped him off? Did he act unusual in any way? Say anything that might give us a clue where he could be now?”
Sandy pulled out two chairs. As soon as Kennedy and Nick sat down, she passed them the cookies and muffins even though no one at the table was eating.
“We need to know where Noah might be.” Drisklay took a noisy gulp of coffee.
Kennedy looked at Nick as if studying his face might jog her memory. It didn’t help.
“He didn’t really say anything in the car, at least nothing I remember. He was pretty quiet.”
“Mrs. Lindgren, you said you saw him a few minutes before he left here?”
“That’s right.” Sandy was out of her bathrobe now and dressed in the same clothes she had worn that day. “Nick said that Noah was ready to go home, so I assumed that he must have patched things up with his dad. I was glad for the news. It’s not right for a family to be torn apart by a ...”
“Would you say that he was particularly sullen or quiet when you saw him?” Drisklay interrupted.
Sandy frowned. “I’m sorry, Detective, but come to think of it, I was only half awake. We’ve just adopted our little boy from South Korea. Only been three weeks since we brought him home, and I’ll be pickled if I’ve ever gotten a full night of sleep since he ...”
“So he didn’t act any differently tonight when you saw him?” Drisklay’s voice was even more drone-like the normal. Kennedy wondered if that was the way he showed frustration. Sandy twirled a long strand of hair around her finger. “No, he didn’t act any different at all tonight. Kicked and screamed like usual until his father ...”
“He’s asking about Noah, woman.” Carl’s voice still held its usually good-natured tone, but there was no sign of patience or humor in his expression. “He wants to know if you noticed anything different about Noah before he left.”
Sandy frowned and stared at some of her split ends. “No. That boy’s always pretty quiet, far as I remember. I recall one time we’d been invited over for dinner at the Abernathys’, and he refused to ...”
“And you two?” Drisklay snapped, except his volume never rose. “Was the kid acting unusual in your opinion?”
Kennedy didn’t know Noah well enough so she let Nick answer the question.
“Well, I did think it was a little strange he changed his mind about going home. We’d been texting for a while about how mad he was at his dad and how hurt he was. His dad kicked him out of the house. You probably heard all the details of that.”
For the first time since the beginning of this impromptu interrogation, Kennedy turned her attention toward Dominic. The chaplain hadn’t said a single word, but he leaned forward with his hands folded on the table in front of him and seemed twice as engaged as the detective.
Drisklay scowled. “So nobody can say that this kid acted any different than normal, and nobody has any clue where he went, is that it?”
Everyone stared at the other faces around the table, and Kennedy got the same sinking feeling she had as a third-grader when her teacher yelled at the entire class.
“I’ll try calling him.” Nick pulled out his phone. “We have a pretty good relationship. I guess if he has to hear about his dad from anybody, it may as well be me.”
Drisklay set down his cup, splashing a few drops of black coffee onto Sandy’s lacy table runner. “I’m not sure you’re getting the full picture, here. We don’t need to find the kid to tell him his dad’s dead. We need to find the kid because as of right now, he’s our primary suspect.”