“You’re certain?”
When she hedged, glanced at her nails, then began perusing the carpet, I felt it. That quake of doubt. That grain of skepticism rippling through her.
“Mrs. Lowell, anything you can remember would help. Did Harper have any cuts? Did she come home one day especially dirty or frightened? Anything that would have had you believing she had been abused in any way?”
“No.” Then she bowed her head. “Not anything that I noticed, but I didn’t really know her before Jason and I married. She seemed like a sweet girl. She was cordial and had decent enough manners. But after we came home, she was a very different child.”
So one person before their marriage and another after. “And she stayed with her biological grandparents during that time?”
“Yes. They’ve since died, sadly, but even they were at a complete loss as to why Harper would change so drastically.”
“Okay, well, maybe something happened on the trip home. I mean, was there any kind of an accident?”
“None was ever mentioned. Really, Ms. Davidson, this could go on all day.”
Crap. I was simply getting nowhere with this case. Not a single clue to go on.
We stood and her young housekeeper showed us to the door again, but this time Mrs. Lowell followed. The housekeeper seemed quite smitten with Garrett.
“I tried to call her,” Mrs. Lowell said. “She won’t accept my calls. Would you please have her call her father?”
“I’ll do my best.”
* * *
I called Cookie the minute we got in Garrett’s truck.
“Are all stepmothers bitches?” I asked her, knowing how awful that sounded. I cringed at the words myself. One of my good friends was a stepmother, and she was the best thing that ever happened to those kids.
“I was raised by my stepmother,” Cookie said. And I knew that. That’s why I’d called her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“Sure you did, and you have every right to wonder such a thing, hon, after what you’ve been through with yours. But mine was amazing. If not for her, my childhood would have been drastically different, and not in a good way.”
“Then I’m grateful for her, too.”
“Thank you. I’ll let her know. Did you need something?”
“Affirmation.”
She chuckled. “What kind?”
“The kind you just gave me.”
I told Garrett to head to the bank. I couldn’t imagine Agent Carson would wait for me much longer. My phone rang as we were headed over to the scene. Of course, everything would be back to normal now, but Agent Carson might be a bit miffed at me for not showing immediately.
“Where the hell are you?” she said in answer to my “Charley’s House of Edible Thongs.”
“Sorry,” I said, cringing at her tone, “I was making a delivery. Edible thongs are very popular right now.”
“So are prison uniforms.”
“Are they edible? That seems to be my best selling point.”
“If you are not here in two minutes—”
“Here!” I shouted into the phone as we pulled into the parking lot across from the bank in question. “I’m here.” I put one hand over the phone and whispered to Garrett, “She’s so sensitive.”
“Where here?”
“Turn around.”
Her short, dark bob swiveled to her left.
“Other way.”
She did a 180 and spotted us parking.
“Here I am.” I waved through the windshield. “And just in the nick of time. Whew.”
Before I got out, I turned to Garrett. He kept his gaze front and center, waiting for me to vacate the premises. He’d been quieter than usual. Well, okay, he was always quiet, but not deathly quiet. Not I’ve-been-to-hell-and-I’ll-never-be-the-same quiet.
I crinkled my chin and said, “Do you want to talk about it? What it was like to be in hell?”
He turned on me so fast, his movements reminded me of Reyes’s. His silvery eyes locked on to mine, his gaze hard, his jaw locked. When he spoke, he did so with eerie purpose, each syllable precise. “Do you want to talk about what it was like to have razor-sharp metal slice through your flesh until it scored across bone?”
Goodness. He was in a mood all of a sudden. “So, that’s a no?”
He quirked one corner of his mouth, but the gesture held no humor whatsoever.
“Okay, well, good talk,” I said, feeling blindly for the door handle.
He went back to staring out his windshield.
When I got out, Agent Carson stood tapping her toes on the pavement. I had no idea people really did that.
“So, what makes you think this was an inside job?” she asked. No hello. No how’s the wife and kids. Just business as usual. I liked her.
“I was told so by the robbers.”
“And their names are?”
“I told you, the Bandits.”
“The Bandits are a motorcycle club two-hundred strong. I need the names of the men who entered the premises at gunpoint, held a group of patrons hostage, and took currency that did not belong to them out of that bank.” She pointed across the street for reference.
“They didn’t actually pull their guns,” I said, correcting her. “They don’t unless they have to. I’ve seen the stories on the news.”
“Charley,” she said, a sharp edge of warning in her voice.