“Listen, Tessa. I’m not trying to order you around. I just want to make sure you’re safe. I went to find you in the lobby and you weren’t there.”

Her voice stiffened. “You’ve still got a lot of work to do on this whole stepdad thing. You can’t freak out every time I’m not exactly where you want me to be.”

I was about to counter that she had a lot of work to do herself in the role of being a stepdaughter, but I managed to hold back and said instead, “I’ll meet you where you are.” It wouldn’t have been protocol to tell her that a prisoner had escaped. “Have you eaten lunch?”

“Got distracted by dessert.”

And in that way she took after her mother—opting to eat dessert first.

“Okay, listen. There’s a Thai place just another block or so from you down the street from that one bookstore. They have a ton of vegetarian items on the menu. I’ll catch up with you at Renaldo’s. We can walk down from there. Give me a few minutes to wrap things up here.”

She hung up, which I took as her way of agreeing to the plan.

24

Julianne rang the doorbell and waited for the woman to open the door.

She’d spent most of the day looking into the disappearance of Miranda Walsh, a graduate student who’d attended one of Timothy’s book signings and then went missing later that night. No one had seen or heard from her in six months.

There weren’t any security cameras at the bookstore or videos of the signing, but Julianne had called in a favor with a former Detroit cop whom she’d worked with before he moved to New York City when his wife got a new job. He was with the force up here now, and he’d passed along some details about the case.

“So, we’re square?” he’d said.

“We’re square.”

The favor was Julianne not telling his wife about the affair they’d had two years ago.

A middle-aged woman with frothy, gray-tainted hair answered the door.

“Hello. Mrs. Walsh?”

“Yes?” She studied Julianne somewhat suspiciously. “Can I help you?”

Julianne still had her Detroit Police Department badge and now held it up just long enough to allow Mrs. Walsh to see that it was a legitimate police ID. “I’m Detective Springman. I’m wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your daughter, Miranda.”

“My daughter?”

“I know she’s missing. We’re following up on some—”

“Do you know where she is?” The woman gasped. “Did you find her?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. We’re just verifying some facts. May I come in?”

“Um. Yes. Of course.”