Vanished in the Night (11 page)

Veronica steeled herself to walk up to the door, feeling uneasy and embarrassed. She was being ridiculous.
They’d want to help her figure out what had happened to Max. They’d cared about him, too. Jimmy Delacroix had stopped by the house looking for Max after he’d been sent away. Veronica cringed when she remembered how her father had “welcomed” him. It hadn’t been pretty.

But that hadn’t been her and it had been a long time ago. Maybe he didn’t even remember. She got out of the Honda, then marched up the sidewalk to the front door and rang the doorbell.

It felt like forever before the door opened, but was probably only a few seconds. Jimmy would be listening for the doorbell. He was expecting a few more people, probably, and he wouldn’t want to keep them waiting. He had been that kind of kid, considerate and more thoughtful than most teenage boys. And in Veronica’s experience people didn’t change that much.

“Hi,” she said, looking up into Jimmy’s face. “I’m Veronica Osborne, Max’s sister.”

Recognition flashed across Jimmy’s face. “Ronnie Osborne,” he said. “Max’s little Pop-Tart.”

She blushed at the nickname. Max had said her freckles reminded him of the sprinkles across a frosted strawberry Pop-Tart, one of his favorite foods. She’d loved it when he called her that; it had made her feel special and loved. She hadn’t heard it in years.

“I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions
about my brother.” She hadn’t spoken loudly, but something in Jimmy’s posture must have communicated itself to the other men in the house. Conversations halted, and eyes turned toward the open door.

Veronica recognized four of the men. A few others seemed a little familiar, but four looked enough like their high school selves that she recognized them. In addition to Jimmy, she saw Caleb Herbert and Pernell Moore and Justin Tran.

Jimmy crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to ask me questions about Max?”

“If it’s not inconvenient,” she ventured, feeling uncomfortable.

“Who is it?” Justin called from inside the house and started walking toward the door.

“It’s Ronnie Osborne.” Jimmy didn’t move out of the doorway.

“Max’s sister? What’s she doing here?” Justin stood next to Jimmy. Caleb was there now, too.

“I’m not sure you know,” Veronica said, stumbling over the words a little. “They found Max. They found his . . . his bones.”

Why was it so hard to say? She dealt with death every day. She fought death every day. It was a war she’d always lose in the end, but she fought each battle as if it might make a difference.

She was too late to make a difference for Max, but
she had to do something. She couldn’t just sit there and let the police railroad her father. Maybe, just maybe, Max had come to one of these boys after he’d run away from the Sierra School. If so, maybe Zachary McKnight would start looking for what had actually happened to her brother.

And maybe her heart would stop ratcheting up its rate every time he came within a ten-yard radius of her. That would be nice, too.

“Kind of hard not to know about that, Ronnie,” Jimmy said. “It’s been the lead on the news.”

“I was wondering if maybe one of you had seen Max after he was sent away.”

“Sent away?” Caleb took a step forward. “That’s not how we heard it went down. We heard that a goon squad dragged him out of your house kicking and screaming and begging for mercy in the middle of the night.”

Justin took a step down out of the house now. “We heard that they did it because your father found out that Max was smoking pot.”

Ronnie dropped her gaze to the ground. What did they see in her face? Did they see her shame and her guilt? How could they not? She pressed on. “Did Max come to any of you for help? I was hoping that one of you might have seen him and might have some idea of where he was headed after he ran away.
Maybe that would give the police someplace to start looking. Maybe they’ll be able to figure out what happened to him.”

Pernell’s eyebrows rose and he looked at Veronica. Pernell had aged well. Dad hadn’t liked any of these men back when they were boys, but he’d hated Pernell with a special intensity. He was the only other African-American kid in the group besides Max. George had hated Justin and his quiet Vietnamese parents, but he’d hated Pernell much, much more. “Kind of too late now, isn’t it, Ronnie?”

“I know. I thought I’d ask anyway.” She should have been here years ago asking questions. She hadn’t been, though. She hadn’t asked because she’d hoped Max would come to her of his own will someday. She hadn’t wanted to hunt him down and force him to be her brother again. She’d wanted him to come back to her all of his own accord. “Did he? Did he contact any of you?”

None of them spoke for a moment and Veronica held her breath.

“What makes you think he would have come to us?” Jimmy asked, leaning against the door.

“Well, the police think he must have come back here after he ran away from the Sierra School. He wouldn’t have had any money or a place to stay. He would have had to go to somebody for help.” She
looked again from one face to another, hoping to see a glimmer of something.

“Oh, I get it now,” Caleb said. He turned toward his friends. “My mom told me the cops were crawling all over old man Osborne’s place the other day. They must think he did it. They must think Max showed up to ask his old man for help.”

“Max wasn’t that stupid,” Justin said. “No one’s that stupid.”

“So none of you ever saw him? He didn’t come to any of you for help?” Veronica pressed.

“Sorry, Ronnie. None of us ever saw him.” Jimmy turned to go back inside the house.

Veronica turned and walked right into Zachary McKnight, who grabbed her by the arm. “What the hell are you doing here?”

8

In seconds, McKnight had her marching back to her car, his hand on her elbow. Rodriguez was talking to Max’s friends.

“What the hell were you doing back there?” he demanded.

“I thought one of them might have seen Max after he ran away from Sierra. What are you doing here?”

His jaw tightened and he didn’t answer.

She wrenched her arm away. “You’re here for the same reason? You were going to ask them if they’d seen my brother after he ran away?” Perhaps she hadn’t given Zachary McKnight enough credit.

“Ms. Osborne,” he said, looming over her a little. “It is not your job to investigate what happened to your brother. The police department is doing that. At
worst, you’re going to get yourself hurt. At best, you’ll screw up this investigation and we’ll never be able to figure out what happened to your brother.”

“So I’m supposed to sit around and not worry my pretty little head while you accuse my father of murdering my brother?” Part of her anger was from the adrenaline coursing through her system, but it didn’t make it any less righteous. Plus, if he thought he could intimidate her just by being taller than she was, then he had no idea what it was like to go through life at five foot three. It didn’t bother her one bit. She took a step toward him so they were toe-to-toe.

“I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yes.” He threw his hands in the air. “No one is railroading anyone. Of course we’re looking at your father as a suspect. We always look at the family as a suspect. The fact that your father has a record, a drinking problem, and anger-management issues pushed him to the top of the list. His daughter saying that her daddy wouldn’t do such a thing is neither an alibi nor a reason not to investigate him. That does not mean, however, that we aren’t exploring all avenues. We are investigating this crime. Please stay out of our way and let us do our jobs.”

Oh, crap, he was right. Suddenly all the fight went out of her. “Am I free to go?”

“Of course.” McKnight stepped back.

She clicked the button to unlock her car and McKnight opened the door for her. He leaned into the car after she got in. “Let us find out what happened to your brother. If there’s anything you can do to help the investigation, we will ask. Until then, please stay out of it.”

She hated to be sidelined, hated to sit around and wait for answers. But she could understand what he was asking. Nothing irritated her more than well-meaning family members getting in the way in her ER. She couldn’t count the number of daughters she’d had to ask to shut up for ten seconds so their elderly mother or father could answer a question.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“It’s a start,” he said, and unexpectedly flashed a big grin at her. Then he shut her door, giving her a tap on the roof as an all clear.

Zach watched Veronica Osborne drive down the street in her Honda. Frank walked up next to him. “I wasn’t sure if you two needed a room or a referee.”

“I wasn’t, either.” Zach shook his head. Generally, he didn’t go for crazy; he didn’t want the drama. And he was pretty sure Veronica Osborne was packing a big ole suitcase full of crazy and bulging with drama. So why did he feel this little zing every time he looked
down into those big brown eyes? It made absolutely no sense. “Did you learn anything back there?”

Frank scratched his belly. “That the Kings suck, that nobody ever saw or heard from Max again after the goons hauled him away in the night, and that everybody and their brother blamed your girlfriend there for him being sent away.”

Zach turned and looked at Frank. “Any particular reason?”

Frank nodded and started walking back to the Crown Vic. “Yeah. She was the one who ratted out her brother. She found the Baggie of pot in his room and gave it to her father. That was the reason he kicked Max out of his house.”

“Interesting,” Zach said as he climbed into the car. She probably blamed herself, too. A big pile of guilt on top of finding out that your brother had been dead for twenty years? That could make almost anyone act a little nutty.

Frank tossed the
Sacramento Chronicle
on Zach’s desk. “We dropped to page three of the Our Region section today. That nurse who got murdered last night is bogarting our spotlight.”

“We need to take back our place, then. I keep hoping somebody will come forward. Somebody saw something
or heard something, even if they don’t know it. They just haven’t made the connection. We need to keep this in front of people.” He tapped his pencil against his desk.

“What are you thinking, Zach?”

“I’m thinking we need to get the word out.”

“How do you propose to do that?” Frank asked him.

“What about a press conference?” You had to hand the reporters a story. They didn’t have the time to go digging stuff up anymore. Hell, they barely had time to write the articles.

Frank snorted. “You hate talking to the press.”

That was true. He also sucked at it. They tended to twist him around and make him lose his temper. “Not me. The sister.”

Veronica was coming back from the grocery store when she found Zach McKnight standing in front of her condo door. Sadly, even if your life was turned upside down, there was still a need for Diet Coke and kitty litter. Laundry also had to be done. It actually shocked her a bit that all the mundane little tasks were still there for her to do. Her brother was dead. Shouldn’t the world stop? Just for a moment or two? She paused, balancing one of the bags on her hip. “What is it that you need, Sergeant McKnight?”

“I’d kind of like it if you’d call me Zach.” He flashed that grin at her again, the one that made his dimple come out.

She found herself grinning back at him. Dammit. She’d spent a few years giving her heart away far too quickly. She’d learned the hard way not to do that anymore. Heaven protect her from a man with both good looks and charm, especially one who had already said that he wanted something from her.

“You drove all the way over here to get me to call you by your first name? I’m pretty sure you could have done that over the phone.” She unlocked the front door and went in.

He followed her in, walking to the kitchen. “Your brother went somewhere after he left the Sierra School. We’re trying to figure out where that somewhere might be. It’s the first step in figuring out what happened to him.”

“I’ve told you everything I know. I don’t know what else I can do to help.” She shoved the milk in the refrigerator. “In fact, I’m pretty sure you told me to stop helping. Remember?”

“It’s not that we don’t want your help. We just want it to be constructive. So we were wondering if you’d be willing to do a press conference.” He started unloading the bags, setting items out on the countertop for her to put away.

“What good would that do? It’s already been in the paper. TV even covered it a little.”

“It would give what happened to Max a live, human face. A plea from the family often gets the media’s attention, and what grabs the media’s attention grabs the city’s attention. Maybe we’ll luck out and someone who saw Max that night will see how much you want to know what happened to your brother, and come forward.”

Veronica chewed it over for a minute. The thought of standing in front of a microphone with a dozen TV cameras aimed at her was not particularly appealing. She didn’t even like getting her photo taken for her employee badge. She definitely didn’t want to talk about Max, not even to her closest friends.

But it might help find out what had happened to him. It might provide information. It might ger her father off the hook. In the end, how important was what she did and didn’t want to do?

“Would I have to answer questions?” She’d seen how the reporters screamed questions at people and she couldn’t handle that. It wasn’t that she didn’t operate well under stress. She was amazing under stress. Give her a myocardial infarction and a cranky ER resident and she would shine like a freaking diamond. The quick-with-a-comeback thing? Not so much. She sat down at the kitchen table.

McKnight sat down across from her. “Maybe a few questions, but we’d make sure it stayed mellow. It’s not like you’re a politician who’s been caught in a sex scandal. You’re a grieving family member asking for the public’s attention.” He kept those caramel brown eyes trained on her, steady and calm.