“I wanted to tell your sister,” he continued, now looking directly at Edie, “that even if she answers all these questions to their satisfaction, the DA is never going to take her case to trial because she will be under indictment for felony assault of my son. She will be the definition of an unreliable witness.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Gabe.

“Your daughter has serious problems, Michelle. No wonder she disappeared.”

“She disappeared because of what Chad did to her!” screamed Edie. “He’s just like you. He thinks he can do anything. But he can’t. You can’t scare us. We’ve got the video and we’re going to the police. You think Claudia can’t stand up to some questions? Claudia is a fucking hero.”

She had everyone’s attention now. Her body felt better than it had in weeks. The strength she needed finally kicking in.

“Did you steal that kid’s phone?” Edie asked him.

“Eden,” said Ridley. He stepped forward and put his hand on her arm, a light, intimate touch. “You need to calm down, honey.”

Michelle grabbed Edie’s hand and pulled her close.

“Back up, motherfucker.” Michelle’s eyes were wide, nostrils flaring: her face ugly with the horror of what she suddenly suspected. This is what Ridley did, Edie thought. He made the people around him ugly.

“Trevor told the cops you stole his phone,” Edie said again. “Did you?”

“I offered him a lot of money and he wouldn’t take it. That kid is in way over his head, okay? He’s lucky we didn’t press charges on him after he attacked Chad, in broad daylight.”

“I wonder why?” said Gabe.

Ridley turned to Edie’s dad. “He speaks.”

He’d barely gotten the words out when Gabe whacked him across the face with a coffee table book.

“What the fuck!” shouted Ridley, stumbling sideways. His leg caught the corner of a side table and he crashed to the ground, knocking over a vase full of wildflowers that shattered when it hit. An explosion of glass and water.

“Do you know where Claudia is?” Gabe asked, now standing over him, struggling to keep his voice steady. Edie had seen her father this angry only once before, a decade ago, when he kicked in a door the night he learned his dad had died in a car accident.

Ridley tried to get to his feet but Gabe kicked him in the stomach.

“No!” shouted Ridley. “I don’t know where she is! All I know is she sliced my son with a box cutter in a motel room last weekend. If I were her I’d go to Mexico. Or jump off a fucking bridge.”

Silence dropped over the room. Edie looked at Ridley’s bleeding, aggrieved face and thought: we will destroy you.

“We’d better not find out you’re lying,” said Michelle.