Apples Never Fall

Brooke pulled the pen from her mouth. Without realizing it she’d begun sucking it again, and now her mouth was filled with the bitter taste of ink.

She was the last one Amy had called.

“Anyway, I’ve gotta go,” said Amy abruptly, as if Brooke had been the one to interrupt her busy schedule, as if she were about to go run a corporation and not sit on a beach eating a muffin. “Call me later.”

This last instruction was given in her eldest sister do-as-I-say voice. It meant: Call me to confirm you’ve fixed this.

Brooke looked at herself in the mirrored wall and saw that her frown line was deeper than ever and her lips were stained a murky shade of Deep Ocean Blue.

Chapter 9

NOW

“So have you seen these scratches?”

The Uber driver, who was an electrical engineering student, looked in his rearview mirror, assuming his passenger (her name was Amy; he’d taken against the name ever since he’d briefly dated an evil bitch of an Amy) was talking to him and there were marks on his seats (like, whatever, Amy), but he saw she was on the phone and not talking to him at all. She’d obviously launched into conversation without bothering to say hello.

“The scratches on Dad’s face,” she said. “He says he got them climbing through the lillypilly hedge to rescue a tennis ball.”

Pause.

The Uber driver listened idly, his mind on tomorrow’s exam and tonight’s Tinder date.

“It’s just that Troy says the police will assume they’re defensive wounds.”

So this was possibly interesting. Her destination was the local police station.

“Meanwhile Brooke is suddenly adamant that we should hold off making a missing persons report at all.”

Pause.

“Because Dad told her it’s not necessary to report her missing. You know Brooke. Daddy’s girl.”

The Uber driver saw his passenger smile faintly. She had supermodel legs in shorts, ratty dyed hair, multiple ear piercings, and somehow simultaneously gave off a beachy vibe and an inner-city vibe. She was old, maybe even late thirties, but he’d go there.

“Yes, I think we ignore Dad and still report her missing, just in case. It’s been over a week now, so it’s … probably time,” she said. “I’ve got a nice photo of Mum. I printed it out. It’s one from when she and Dad went to the beach that day, remember, when they were trying to be happy retirees frolicking in the sun? Anyway, listen, obviously we tell them about Savannah, right? I mean, maybe not every single detail.”

Pause.

“Ah, yes, I will be normal, because I am normal.”

Pause.

“Nope. Not offended, Logan, never offended. I’ll see you there.”

She hung up and met his eyes in the rearview mirror as they stopped at a red light.

“My mother is missing,” she said brightly.

“That’s scary,” said the Uber driver.

“Oh, I’m sure she’s fine,” said the passenger. She turned her face to the window and spoke quietly, almost to herself. “She’s perfectly fine.”

Chapter 10

“Joy Delaney. Sixty-nine years old. Last contact was nine days ago when she sent a garbled text saying she was going ‘off-grid.’ She didn’t take her phone with her.”

Detective Senior Constable Christina Khoury read from her notes as Ethan drove them to interview the missing woman’s husband. Ethan’s full title was Plain Clothes Constable Ethan Lim but there was nothing plain about his clothes. Today’s shirt appeared to be mulberry silk. (Could it truly be silk?) His shoes had the luster of a grand piano. Christina tucked her own shoes back out of sight. They could do with a polish.