For years, Amelia’s skin perpetually smelled like chlorine, her hair crunchy with a greenish tint and her nose was freckled from too many sunburns. Most Saturday mornings were spent at the pool, Whitney in the stands with the other parents and Amelia with her team, playing cards and eating snacks while waiting for her heats to be called. Sometimes Whitney hated it, waking up at the crack of dawn and then sitting in the retched hot sun all day. In Sacramento, most summer days were well over a hundred degrees. And she’d be out in it all day, waiting for the few heats Amelia would swim in.

“Rec league or at school?” McAvoy asked.

“Both,” Whitney said. “But I guess not this year. I thought she was signed up, but her dad informed me today that she dropped the school team.”

A look passed between McAvoy and Sandavol that made Whitney’s stomach twist.

“Why?” McAvoy asked.

Whitney shrugged. Looked at Natalie. “She told her dad it was because she’s overwhelmed with schoolwork. I don’t know if that’s true.”

“Do you think it’s possible that she’s depressed?”

The question threw her. She knew what depression looked like, and she’d never once considered that Amelia was. “I don’t think so.”

“Any other recreational activities? Choir? Drama?”

“No.” Whitney shook her head.

“What about a boyfriend?”

“I don’t know if I’d call Jay my boyfriend,” Whitney answered, twisting her hands in front of her. “Especially after what I learned today.”

Sandavol’s expression didn’t change. “I was actually asking if Amelia had a boyfriend but tell me about Jay.” Right.

The back of Whitney’s neck itched, and she reached back to scratch it. “He’s just a guy I met at a bar...err...a restaurant...and we started dating. He seemed really great, but today I found out he lied to me about where he lived.”

“Any idea why he did that?” McAvoy asked.

Whitney shook her head. “I can’t even get a hold of him now.” With shaky fingers, she took her phone out of her pocket and pulled up the picture of Amelia and the strange boy. Holding it up, she told them about her conversation with Becca. About the older man Amelia had been talking to online, and the boy she’d been seeing behind Whitney’s back.

When she finished, Sandavol handed Whitney back the pad of paper. “If you could add Jay’s and Michael’s details to the list that would be helpful.”

As she wrote their names, her stomach soured.

“And if you know of any other boys she’d been talking to, you can add their names.”

Whitney added the name Phil Lopez to the list, then handed it back to Sandavol.

“What about drug use?” McAvoy asked.

“No, I don’t think Amelia does drugs,” she said. “Then again, I didn’t know she drank either.”