Things We Didn't Say_ A Novel - Kristina Riggle [37]
“I don’t want Mallory to feel like she’s replacing you.”
She closes her eyes and sags in the shoulders. “I’m tired of everything we do viewed as how it affects Mallory. That’s why you don’t want me to leave? Some strategic gambit?”
I pull her in for a hug. “I need you.”
I hugged Mallory so recently that my animal mind compares before I can tell it to shut up. Casey is shorter, more slight. Her head rests on my chest, not my shoulder.
But she doesn’t cling as tight.
“Please stay here.”
“I don’t think the kids want me here,” she says, her voice muffled by my chest.
“It’s just a bad day.”
“I’m not talking about just today.”
I take her shoulders and gently push back to look at her face. “The kids love you.”
“Jewel puts up with me. Dylan . . . He’s been acting like I’m invisible now for weeks. And you’re not blind. You know how Angel feels.”
“She’s a teenage girl. If she behaved perfectly, there’d be something wrong with her. And she’s been through hell with her mom, she’s really sensitive. Every time I say anything even lightly critical, Angel flips out.”
Casey rubs her face under her eyes, then asks me, her stare hard, “What if Mallory tries to get the kids back?”
“She won’t.”
“Why are you so sure? What if she goes after me as unfit to be in the house?”
“That’s ludicrous, plus the biggest case of pot calling the kettle black, my God. She’s steady tonight but believe me, she’s all kinds of crazy. And manipulative. You’ve been . . . I can’t think of a wrong step you’ve made. And believe me, after what I went through with Mallory . . .” I try a smile.
“Not a wrong step, huh?” she says, but she’s not looking at me, and has the strangest expression on her face. “I need to step outside.”
Oh, she’s feeling guilty about the smoking. “Case, smoking doesn’t make you an unfit stepmom. It just makes you stink.”
“Ha,” she says weakly, and heads out the door.
I bump into Mallory coming out of Jewel’s bedroom. “Put on your pajamas, sweetie, I’ll be right back up,” she calls over her shoulder. “I think we should call the police back,” she whispers to me as we descend the stairs.
“They said a detective would call in the morning. I tried, but they think he’s just another runaway.”
We’re in the kitchen now, and Mallory puts her hands on her hips. Angel is back in the front room, watching TV. I can hear canned laughter and see the flickering light. Out of reflex I wonder what Dylan is doing in his room, and this is like a punch.
“I will call him back,” Mallory continues. “And I will convince them that my son is not some hoodlum runaway, and that we think he’s meeting a sexual predator.”
“We don’t know that for sure—”
“Goddamn you and your calm! You think you’re so great because you keep it together for everyone, but guess what, sometimes you need to panic, and this is one of those times. Our son is out there, at night, meeting someone with a fake picture, a disconnected phone, and an e-mail address that could be anywhere. Where do you suppose he’s staying the night if his ticket was only to Cleveland?”
I have no answer. Possibilities flash through my mind from a bus station bench to highway overpass to . . .
I did a story about a missing girl once, on a weekend cop shift. They found her weeks later, strangled and naked in the woods.
But Dylan is a boy, a young man in fact. He’s smart, too.
Apparently, he’s also easily led.
Mallory is not waiting for my answer, because she never waited for my blessing to do anything, even when we were married.
“Yes. Yes, this is Mallory Turner, I talked to you a few minutes ago about Dylan. We have significant reason to believe this is not just a simple runaway . . . Well, first of all, he’s never done this before. He’s a good kid, plays in the band, very respectful. This is very odd behavior. The picture that this supposed girl sent, it’s obviously some model head shot. And it’s a Gmail address—anyone can sign up for those with any kind of name. But here’s the thing, in the actual message? Whoever this is had to talk him into this. Lure him, you might say . . . He’s a good kid, but