“Wait a minute, were you questioning her?” Bebe’s nostrils flared. “You can’t do that, she’s underage! You can’t question a minor without an adult or guardian. Everyone knows that.”

Witnesses don’t usually refuse to be questioned unless they have something to hide. I wondered what Bebe didn’t want Jade to reveal. “All right,” I said. Not I haven’t arrested her, so I can question her all I like, not she’s the one who came to me. Just all right. I needed Miles and Bebe to give me access to the kid so I could find out what she knew. If Jade shut down at their behest, nothing I said would open her up again. “Let’s talk, then. All of us.”

“I don’t think so,” Bebe said. “You should know that when this is over and done I’ll be issuing a formal complaint.”

Over and done. Like her brother’s disappearance and the blood-soaked sheets he left behind were a minor inconvenience that would soon be sorted, laughed about for years to come.

Without another word Bebe grabbed the girl’s arm and hauled her from the room. Before they were out of sight Jade looked over her shoulder at me and sneered.

This time I smiled back.

Jade’s phone was still in my hand.

FOURTEEN

My God,” said Camilla Sinclair. “You’re a mess.”

Word for word it was the same thing Norton told me minutes earlier in the kitchen, when Bebe and Jade left and he found me wet and injured staring down at the phone in my hand. I’d long since forgotten the discomfort of clothing that slurped when I moved. I had full access to Jade’s phone. Without knowing how quickly it would auto-lock again, though—my own phone was set for the standard five minutes—I didn’t have much time to nose through it before it would be rendered inaccessible. I needed to be alone. And now here was Norton.

Deep creases formed on his forehead as I told him what happened, and he apologized for my burn so profusely you’d think he caused it himself. Grabbing some ointment and gauze from a cupboard, he insisted on bandaging my hand. He was efficient, and soon the burn was wrapped tight. I waited for him to be on his way. Instead, he ushered me out of the kitchen and down the hall to face his boss.

“Detective Wellington,” Camilla said, turning to Tim, “will you permit me to find your associate some dry clothes?” She lifted her chin, and for a second the pleats of skin on her neck were as taut and smooth as Bebe’s. The firelight gave Camilla some much-needed color, but all in all she looked worse than when I saw her last. “We’re about the same size, she and I. She can accompany me upstairs, if you like.”

A lot of women Camilla’s age talk to men as if they assume the guys are in charge. I guess that’s because in their day the guys usually were. I’d introduced myself to Camilla as a senior investigator, head of my unit, but she didn’t think to ask how I felt about her plan even though it involved me stripping down in a stranger’s bedroom in the middle of a case.