Candice’s frown turned into a full glare. “This is why no one trusts the press anymore,” she muttered, then looked at me as if to ask if I was ready to go.
But I wasn’t quite done with Houghton yet. “Professor,” I said, making sure to remove any sense of condemnation from my voice. “Did Bianca suggest to you that she might already have a story idea?”
Again, Houghton looked uncomfortable. “She never told me directly, but yes, I believe she had something in mind.”
“How do you know exactly?” I asked.
“When we had this discussion, she asked me if there was perhaps a line that she ethically shouldn’t cross, and when I pressed her on that, she said she’d heard rumors regarding a powerful politician that could end a career.”
“And what did you tell her?” Candice pressed.
Houghton swallowed. “I told her that the public had the right to know about the ethics and morals of the people they’d elected to government, and if she could uncover anything of substance, then it was her obligation as a journalist to bring it to the public’s attention.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to collect myself. I really hated this asshole. Finally I looked back at him and said, “You’re sure Bianca never let on who she wanted to expose?”
“No,” said Houghton, and I could tell he was growing impatient with our line of questioning.
“And you didn’t think that her disappearance was in any way connected to the story she was going to work on?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Houghton. “We had that conversation only a week before her final exam and her disappearance. With all of her other classes and finals, she couldn’t have had time to work on the story, so I assumed it was unrelated.”
But my radar wanted to suggest otherwise. I knew there was something here, but I also knew it was only a small thread in this bigger puzzle. I turned to Candice and motioned with my head that I was ready to leave.
“Thank you for your time, Professor Houghton,” she said. “We’ll let you get back to your work.”
We left the professor’s office and hurried down the hallway, Candice pestering me for details along the way. “What’s your radar saying?” she wanted to know.
I waited until we were outside so that I could face her and talk about it without being overheard in the crowded hallways or stairwell. “Bianca was absolutely working on that story,” I said.
“And you think that whoever abducted her was the target of the investigation?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but I felt my left side immediately grow heavy, which totally confused me. “No,” I said, and was surprised to hear it come out of my mouth.
“No?” Candice repeated, looking as confused as I felt.
I nodded. “Yeah, my radar says that’s off,” and as I said that, immediately my right side felt light again and I was even more confused. “Hold on,” I said, and closed my eyes to concentrate. There was a mixture of thoughts running through my intuitive filter. I knew that the story Bianca was working on had something to do with her disappearance, but I couldn’t figure out how. Finally I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Maybe.”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe her disappearance is connected to the story,” I said, and when Candice shot me a rueful look, I added, “Sorry, toots, that’s the best I can do.”
“How do the others fit into this, then?” she pressed.
That stumped me. “Smoke screen?” I offered, saying it like a question.
Candice seemed to consider that for a minute. “Okay,” she conceded. “Or maybe this isn’t about Bianca at all. Maybe it’s about some grudge the wacko who abducted her has against state political leaders, and killing their children is his way of getting his point across.”
I sighed, suddenly very weary. “Yeah, well, it’s all I’ve got.”
Candice nodded. “Okay, then, we’ll follow your lead and see where it takes us. If you get a chance, go back to her journals and keep digging. Maybe she wrote about her story idea in one of them.”
“Will do.”
“I’ll scour her e-mails for any reference to an article or news story she might have mentioned to her dad. Maybe he even talked to her about it and that’s where she came up with the idea in the first place.”
“Oh, and make sure you ask her friends if she was working on some juicy story—they might have heard something too.”
“I’m on it,” Candice promised.
Game plan in hand, we headed home.
That night as I was cozying up next to Dutch and just beginning to drift off to sleep, my radar gave me a really big buzz. I sat up in bed and felt my heart begin to beat faster as my anxiety grew. “Abs?” Dutch asked, setting down the David Morrell novel he’d been reading.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, working to pull some details out of the ether.
“What exactly?”
I stared at him with wide eyes. “I don’t know,” I whispered as my sense of dread increased.
“Can you tell me who it might be about?”
I blinked at him and felt out that question. “It’s about a female,” I said. “No . . . wait,” I added. “It’s about two women. One older, one younger.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
I closed my eyes and my heart sank. “Yes,” I whispered. “One of them is close to death, but I can’t tell who it is!”
Dutch’s hand rubbed my shoulder. “It’s okay, honey,” he soothed, and I realized I was breathing heavily. “We’ll figure it out.”
My eyes opened and I stared urgently at him. “It’s bad.”
Dutch nodded gravely. “Do you think these women were attacked?”
I closed my eyes again, then slowly shook my head. “No . . . there’s no attacker.”
“Were they in a car accident?”
I frowned. I could feel the fact that one of the women was in grave condition, but how she’d gotten that way I couldn’t tell. And the other woman’s energy felt so . . . so . . . familiar that it was eerie. And then, as if a lightbulb above my head were suddenly turned on, I knew who the second woman was. “Ohmigod, Candice!” I gasped, opening my eyes and reaching over Dutch for the phone on the nightstand.
“She’s hurt?” Dutch asked, helping me by handing me the phone.
I didn’t answer him because my hands were shaking as I tried to dial her number as fast as I could. I pressed the wrong buttons and hung up, swearing in the process. Just as I was about to click the phone on and try again, it rang in my hands. I jumped, as it was so unexpected, and noticed immediately that the caller ID read Fusco, Candice. “What’s happened?” I demanded when I answered, knowing she was calling with bad news.
It took a moment for her to answer me. She was crying so hard on the other end of the line that I couldn’t make out anything she said. “Where are you?” I pressed. She blubbered something that I couldn’t make out, so I tried again, calmer this time. “Honey, I’m on my way, but I can’t understand you. Just take a deep breath and tell me where you are and we’ll be there in two minutes.”
“Hos . . . hos . . . hospital!” she wailed.
“Beaumont?” I asked, hoping it was the local hospital right down the street.
“Yes,” she said as her sobs continued.
“We’re on our way!” I clicked off the phone before jumping out of bed and grabbing a pair of jeans.
“What’s wrong?” Dutch asked me again as he too got out of bed and reached for his pants.
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking all over. “Candice is at the hospital and I’ve never heard her so upset.”
“Is her grandmother okay?”
I froze and gawked at him. All the clues suddenly clicked into place as the right side of my body confirmed that something was very, very wrong with Madame DuBois. “I don’t think so, Dutch,” I said. “I think something’s happened to her.”
“Come on,” he said, shoving his bare feet into loafers. “I’ll drive.”
&nb
sp; We arrived at Beaumont Hospital four minutes later. Candice was sitting in the emergency room with her knees drawn into her chest and looking so forlorn that she broke my heart. I rushed to her side and hugged her fiercely. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Candice, I’m so, so sorry.”
“She had a stroke,” she explained, her voice hoarse and nasal. “I tried calling her tonight, and when she didn’t answer, I went over to check on her. I found her on the floor in her kitchen.”
Dutch sat down on the other side of Candice and rubbed her back. “What can we do for you?” he asked gently.
Tears streamed down Candice’s face. Madame DuBois was the only family Candice had left. Her parents had both died of different cancers within two years of each other, and her sister had died in a violent car crash when Candice was little. I couldn’t imagine what she must be going through right now. “Just stay with me,” she begged. “They’ve got her in ICU, but no one thinks she’ll pull out of this.”
I hugged her fiercely again and felt my own tears slide down my cheeks. “As long as you need us, we’ll be here, honey.”
We waited with Candice until three in the morning. Around one a.m. she was called into her grandmother’s room by a kind nurse who suggested that Candice might want to spend some final moments with her grandmother. Dutch and I hovered outside the room, pacing back and forth until we heard the sound of the heart monitor bleep slower and slower; then it finally bleeped its last. Candice’s gut-wrenching sobs quickly followed.
As tears poured down my own cheeks, Dutch hugged me tightly and said, “Get in there and be with her. We’ll take her home with us tonight. She shouldn’t be alone. I’ll call off work tomorrow and help her with the arrangements.”
I nodded into his chest, unable to speak, then hurried quickly into the room to offer what small comfort I could to my very dear friend.
Chapter Seven
Madame DuBois’ funeral was held in the rain. Dutch and I both hovered with umbrellas over Candice, her forlorn figure hunched under the weight of her grief. She looked pale and exhausted as the cemetery employee worked the lift that slowly lowered the frosty pink casket of her beloved grandmother into the grave. I knew that Candice had to be thinking about the funerals of her other family members eased into the earth the same slow, sad way.
I squeezed her hand again and again, trying in vain to let her know that she wasn’t alone, that she still had family even if we weren’t blood related. As I glanced at the onlookers gathered around the gaping hole in the ground, I felt comforted by the fact that there were so many in attendance. All of Madame DuBois’ elderly friends from the senior center had come out. Her neighbors and the woman who did her hair each week were also there.
Many of Candice’s clients and friends had also come out, along with Dutch’s best friend, Milo. Dave and his “old lady” had come as well, and it touched my heart that they’d even postponed their move a few days so that they could attend the funeral and support a friend. Even my sister, Cat, had flown in for the day, and the area around Madame DuBois’ grave was covered with dozens of bouquets of pink roses that my wealthy sister had so generously and thoughtfully purchased. Cat stood on the other side of me and I nudged her with my shoulder.
“How’s she doing?” she whispered into my ear.
I whispered back, “I’m worried.”
Cat nodded, her own eyes pinched, but she mouthed back, “She’ll be okay.”
I sighed as I looked absently around again at the flowers and the mourners getting soaked in the rain. I wanted to take Candice away from this somber scene as soon as possible and have her curl up on my couch, where it was warm and dry and I could take care of her, so I didn’t notice right away when someone new joined the gathering.
Among the mass of white and blue hair, my gaze belatedly picked out a familiar face and I literally gasped in surprise. Candice’s head lifted and her eyes looked at me. “What?” she asked.
I squeezed her hand and nodded to our right. “Harrison is here.”
Candice’s tired lids blinked in confusion, but she followed my head motion as I indicated him on the other side of the grave. “Huh,” she said, her tone flat and lifeless. Gaston had sent flowers and a card to my house, probably hearing from Dutch that Candice was staying with us, and he’d sent his condolences and regrets that he couldn’t attend the funeral, as he had business in Washington. I’d been very touched by his thoughtfulness, but for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why Harrison had come.
Candice didn’t seem to dwell on it either. Her blank stare returned to her grandmother’s casket as it settled into the bottom of its earthen cradle. The priest made the sign of the cross over his chest and concluded the service, thanking everyone for coming and offering his final condolences to Candice.
As the crowd solemnly dispersed, I linked my arm through Candice’s and gently pulled her away. “Come on, honey, let’s get you home.”
Candice stayed with us for the next five days. At first I worried that she wasn’t going to pull out of the deep well of sadness that she’d settled herself into. As she sat on our couch, refusing food and my attempts to get her to go outside for a run or at least a brisk walk, I became increasingly concerned that she wasn’t going to come back to herself.
But on the evening of the third day I noticed that my friend began to make idle conversation. It started with the weather and moved on to the news and current events. Finally on the morning of the fifth day she found me in my office, poring over Bianca’s journals. “Hey,” she said meekly.
I’d been so engrossed I hadn’t heard her come in and I jumped a little in my chair. “Hi there,” I said, smiling a little at my own reaction. “How ya doin’?”
Candice shrugged and came to sit in front of my desk. I tried not to stare at the pronounced collarbone peeking out of her shirt while her clothing hung on her like a sack. I knew she’d barely eaten anything in the last week and the girl had undoubtedly lost more weight than was good for her, but the dark circles under her eyes looked a bit less prominent today and I took that as a good sign at least.
“Have you found anything?” she asked into the silence that followed her sitting down.
I rolled my head from side to side, trying to relieve the stiffness after being hunched over so long. “Not really. I keep looking for clues around her spring-break adventures, but the girl didn’t do the usual thing on her vacations.”
“The usual thing?”
I nodded. “No beaches, boys, and bedlam for Bianca. Last year she helped build a row of houses for Habitat for Humanity. Her senior year she attended a conference with her dad, then helped organize a cleanup along the Rouge River.”
Candice shook her head. “She was a good kid.”
“One of the best,” I said sadly. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.”
“Did you go back to her spring breaks from prior years?”
“You mean back through high school?” When Candice nodded, I said, “Nothing that points to anything. She went to London with her mom her junior year, and that’s as far as her journals take me.”
“I called Jeremy Lovelace after we got back from MSU to ask him about Bianca’s big story. He said she never mentioned anything about working on something like that with him, and further, he insisted he never discussed anything that might be inappropriate about his colleagues with Bianca. Also, he was under the distinct impression that she wasn’t very interested in local politics in general. She liked bigger stories with broader scope, like foreign wars, global warming, etc., etc.”
“It sounds like that’s a dead end, then,” I said, feeling totally frustrated with this case.
“Yep,” Candice agreed. She then ran a hand through her hair and sighed, looking around the room like she needed a distraction before her eyes found mine again. “I think I’m hungry.”
I grinned. “Come on,” I said, getting up quickly before she had a chance to change her mind. “Let’s go find you a good meal.” br />
Twenty minutes later we were seated in my favorite Thai restaurant as two steaming plates of pad Thai were placed in front of us. Candice and I ate in silence for a little while before she worked up the energy for more conversation. “I think we need to change direction.”
I swirled my rice noodles thoughtfully with my chopsticks. “Where are we going?”
“It’s not so much where as who,” she said. When I cocked my head and looked at her quizzically, she explained, “We’re not making any headway following Bianca. Maybe it’s time we switched our focus.”
“To one of the other kids,” I guessed.
“Yep.”
“Which one?”
“Which one does your radar suggest?” she asked, turning it back on me.
I thought about that for a minute. “The boy,” I said, feeling it deep in my gut.
“Kyle Newhouse,” Candice said thoughtfully. “Okay, I’ll do a little research and maybe we can plan a road trip to Columbus.”
“You up for that?” I asked carefully.
“It beats hanging out on your couch and feeling sorry for myself,” Candice said with the smallest of grins.
Mentally, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, so glad to see a bit of my friend coming back to life. “I’m game,” I said.
Candice and I left for Columbus two days later. Armed with several pages of notes and a map of OSU, we arrived on campus midafternoon. I wasn’t sure how Candice had obtained Kyle’s school schedule, and thought that the fewer questions I asked about her methods, the less I might have to fess up to if I happened to be asked under oath about it later.
We parked on the street just down from Kyle’s old dorm and walked to the front door. Again we’d both dressed very casually. We even came with backpacks to make ourselves blend in. “How did you want to work this?” I asked.
“The same way we tackled Bianca’s disappearance,” Candice replied. “We’ll walk his schedule backward and see if your radar can come up with anything.”
We spent much of the next three hours going from hall to hall walking the way we thought Kyle would have gone. On the trip from the last class back to Kyle’s dorm, my radar finally dinged. “Hold on,” I said, swiveling my head from side to side as I took in my surroundings. We weren’t far from the library. In fact we were just on the other side of the parking lot from it.