“Is there anywhere else that strikes you, any other routine they had?”
“The target range—the indoor one in Brooklyn, I don’t know the name. And there’s some other place for target shooting, indoors and out; it’s in New Jersey.”
Eve shook her head. “Anywhere less structured?”
“I know he took her out west—Montana. And I think they went out west without clearing it with me. I stopped asking because they’d lie, and Willow would lie in a way that made it clear she lied. Do you have any children, Lieutenant?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know what it’s like to fail as a mother.” Younger looked away, her eyes shattered. “I don’t know how to save her now.”
“Ms. Younger, we’re going to do everything we can to find her, to bring her in without harming her, to stop her before she causes more harm. What you’ve told me may help us do that. I’m going to have you taken back to your family. We’re going to take all of you somewhere safe until we find Willow.”
“Will I be able to see her, to talk to her when you do?”
“Yes.”
But she may not talk to you, Eve thought.
11
Eve didn’t have time for hysteria, and ten seconds after walking in to interview Alyce Ellison she wished, bitterly, she’d left the woman to Jenkinson and Reineke.
“Why is he trying to kill me?” Ellison’s shriek cut a dull, jagged groove through Eve’s skull. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t hurt anybody! Somebody’s trying to kill me.”
“Ms. Ellison—”
“The police came to my apartment! I didn’t even finish my dinner! People are going to think I’ve been arrested! I didn’t do anything! I could be killed any second!”
As she raved, Ellison whirled around the room, her arms alternately waving like flags, then coiling around her stick-figure body as if to hold what there was of it together. Her eyes, heavily lined in glittery blue, bugged out of her narrow face. Her mouth, heavily dyed in shiny red, never stopped moving.
“Sit down and knock it off.”
“What? What? Would you sit down if your life was in danger?”
“Lady, I’m a cop. My life’s in danger daily and I know how to sit down. Watch this.”
To demonstrate, Eve sat at the Interview table.
“Being in danger’s what you get paid for! Someone’s trying to kill me.”
“Not at the moment, so sit the hell down. Sit!” Eve snapped.
“You can’t talk to me like that.” Now tears swam, an ocean between glittery shores. “I’m a citizen.”
“Right now you’re wasting the time of the investigators on a series of homicides. Sit, shut it, or get out.”
“I’m not going anywhere. You have to protect me. I’ll—I’ll sue!”
“You have to be alive to sue.” Eve got up, walked to the door, opened it. “Sit or get out. Now.”
Ellison sat, dissolving into wild sobs. “You’re mean. You’re just mean.”
“I can be meaner because blubbering’s wasting my time, too. Suck it up. You’re alive and well and in protective custody. We plan on keeping you alive and well. Want that? Pull yourself together and answer some questions.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You knew Susann Mackie.”