“I wish I knew,” Imani said, matching Bill’s tone if not his volume. “But I can tell you with absolute certainty that she wouldn’t run off somewhere without Ava. I’m sure you know how hard she tried to have her and that she couldn’t have any more children. She’d never leave her daughter.” Imani lowered her voice another notch. “The fact that she’s not here means that she’s in trouble.”

Bill’s fair complexion revealed all the blood rushing to his head. “She’s in more than—”

“Mom.”

The call stopped all conversation. Imani spun toward the staircase, expecting to see a devastated Ava beside Vivienne. Blessedly, only Imani’s lanky girl fidgeted atop the fourth step. “Um, Ava says she can’t go to the house. She’s afraid she might see something.”

Nancy’s face crumpled. “I understand.” The strain from fighting tears showed in the older woman’s taut neck. “I’m not sure I want to go myself.”

“I’ll go.” The words were out of Imani’s mouth before she considered the implications. Confronting anything that might make her fear more for Melissa’s life would be devastating. But she did want to ask the cops about Melissa’s supposed internet boyfriend and the rumors that they were spreading. She also wanted to make them see the real Melissa: a woman who’d suffered a miscarriage and then, realizing she couldn’t have more children, scaled back her career at the height of her fame to focus on her only child. Secretly, she also wanted to see the crime scene. Perhaps there was something in the house that would strike her as wrong, something that only someone close to Melissa would realize.

“I know the house’s layout and what teenage girls need nowadays,” Imani said. “And Ava can text me a list of anything special that she wants.”

Bill gave Nancy the same pointed look that Imani had tried with Philip moments before, communicating via pupil intensity. Nancy blinked slowly in response, an almost imperceptible movement that Bill, apparently, knew how to interpret. He turned to Imani. “Hopefully the detectives don’t turn you away.”

Imani went for her coat. Twenty-four hours was all the time she’d had for hope and despair, she decided. The period of mourning was over. It was time to help the police find her friend.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

TONYA

A missed call from a child left home alone was disturbing. Five was downright terrifying. Tonya froze atop the subway stairs as her cell flooded with notifications bearing Layla’s name. She clicked on the first voice mail, her heart beating in her throat.

“Mom. You have to come home!”

The panic in her daughter’s voice shook Tonya from her paralyzed position. She jogged up the remaining stairs, clearing two at a time until she could take off into a run.

“They’re moving everything to the street!”