“It sounds like she went underground months ago. Dropped her old friends, found some new ones. Who knows what she was involved in? Quite a rap sheet she’s got.”

“If you’re trying to accuse Claudia of something, you’re dead wrong,” I snapped. “She wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“You sure about that?” Bruxton barked back. “Maybe she changed after you stopped speaking to her.”

Whatever patience I’d had evaporated at that moment. He’d hit me where it hurt, and he knew it. “I think it’s time you left,” I said. I stood and Bruxton followed my lead, but he didn’t move towards the door. We stared at each other for a moment before I broke the silence. “Maybe if you were as good at doing real police work as you are at digging into my family history, you’d get somewhere.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You knew when you met me that my mother had killed herself. That’s going back more than a decade, but one neighbor mentioned it and you went looking under every rock. Some serious detective work there.” I’d been angry when Bruxton had brought up my mother’s death in the interrogation room, but I’d been so determined to make the police see that my sister wasn’t dead that I’d tamped down my feelings. Now they were boiling over and I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “If you cared as much about finding Claudia as you do about listening to neighbors gossip and rooting through my family’s dirty laundry, you’d find her.”

Bruxton stopped chewing his gum. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been straight with you.”

“About what?”

“If we’re going to figure out what the hell is going on, we’ve got to be honest with each other. Can we sit down?” He popped more gum into his mouth. “I should’ve talked to you about this before. It’s been awkward. I need to clear the air with you.”

“About what?”

“I’m a cop. It’s my job to find out what the hell’s going on.” He was chewing frantically, making his sharp-jawed face more animated than usual. “Sarah Lyons told us your mother died on New Year’s Eve, but she didn’t know all the details. I did. I was there.”

“What are you talking about?”