“We are very sorry, Mrs. Johnson. We know this is hard to hear,” Detective Dietrich lamented, trying to give Carolyn a few minutes to grieve before they continued with the details.

  Desiree looked helpless, like she didn’t know where to begin comforting her mother. She had never thought in a million years that coming home after all this time would be like this—first her son became trapped in a nightmare, then her father and her brother, and now her sister and Rebecca. Desiree hadn’t felt comfortable when her mother sent Rebecca to look for Donna, but she had been too depressed about Tyree to protest.

  Detective Sharky wanted to get on with this notification, but he also knew from years of experience that he had to give the grieving relatives a few minutes before he started bombarding them with questions.

  “Can we come inside for a moment? We’d like to sit down and talk about some of the details. Maybe get a few questions answered?” Sharky said respectfully. “There is some very basic information about your sister and the deceased that we’d like to get from you both in order to try to sort this whole thing out,” Sharky said to Desiree. Carolyn was clearly in no shape to give them permission to come inside the house.

  Desiree nodded her agreement. She wanted to help the detectives as much as she could, especially if it meant that she would also get some information about her sister. She moved aside and invited the detectives inside.

  “C’mon, Mother. Let’s hear what they have to tell us so we can get Donna home as soon as possible,” Desiree told her mother, trying to sound as hopeful as she could. Then she led the detectives to the living room, and her mother trailed behind them.

  “Will this do?” Desiree asked, trying to be hospitable. She could see the detectives admiring the room like they’d never been inside a mansion before. She silently wished she wasn’t in this mansion, but back in her modest home in a part of Indiana her family would’ve never stepped foot in.

  “Perfect,” Dietrich answered.

  Desiree opened her arms invitingly. “You can have a seat. Make yourselves at home. Whatever you need to know to help the case, we will provide,” she told the detectives.

  Carolyn had finally calmed down a bit. Desiree sat her down on one of the Italian leather love seats, and Carolyn sat down next to her. As she and Sharky sat down in matching armchairs, Dietrich admired how the two women seemed to lean on one another for comfort. A nice mother-and-daughter moment. She also realized that they were the last two standing in the Johnson family.

  “You say Rebecca was found in Donna’s car? Dead? How? Why?” Carolyn croaked out. She still couldn’t grasp the fact that Rebecca was dead. Rebecca had worked for the Johnsons since before Junior was born. The fact that Rebecca was dead was all Carolyn had heard when the detectives first arrived. It was enough. Rebecca was like a member of their family. Carolyn felt sick in the pit of her stomach.

  Both detectives shook their heads in the affirmative.

  “We were so worried about Donna. We didn’t even think about Rebecca,” Carolyn sobbed. “I sent her out there. This is my fault. I should’ve called the police when I couldn’t get ahold of Donna. But . . . but she does this type of thing all the time, and Rebecca usually knew where to find her. Rebecca was more of a mother to my children than I could’ve ever been.”

  Carolyn and Desiree had been worried when they did not hear from Donna for a couple of days, but they had assumed she was staying with friends in the city and didn’t want to be bothered with them until she was able to sort things out. They had thought that Rebecca would find Donna quickly, that she would come back with the news that Donna was safe, and that things would go along.

  Detective Dietrich let out a long sigh. She never found it easy to deliver death notifications to the family of a homicide victim. “That is correct, Mrs. Johnson. The patrol cops found Donna’s car abandoned in a parking lot on the West Side, and when they inspected further, they found Rebecca inside, dead from a gunshot wound to her temple,” Dietrich said, breaking the news. She tried to sound as official yet sympathetic as she could.

  “Oh my God! A gunshot wound?” Carolyn blurted, shaking her head left to right. “Rebecca wouldn’t harm a fly! Why would someone kill her? And Donna? Where is my Donna!” It was all too much to hear.

  “Where is my sister? What do you know about her? You said Rebecca was dead in her car, but what about Donna? What information do you have about her?” Desiree asked, her voice cracking, like she was on the brink. She had asked the questions, but she didn’t know if she really wanted to know the answers.

  “That’s why we are here, Ms. Johnson. Your sister was not in the car. We found her pocketbook in the backseat, but no signs of her. We are guessing that whoever murdered Rebecca might have your sister. We have patrol cars out scouring the city for her. We’ve put out a missing persons alert, but there have been no leads yet,” Sharky interjected. He wanted to be honest with the Johnsons. Things didn’t look too good for their missing sister/ daughter. Especially because Rebecca’s murder seemed senseless. And there was nothing missing from the car or from Rebecca’s purse. Donna’s purse was also in the car. The detectives had already ruled out robbery as a motive.

  “It’s not looking like a robbery or a carjacking. Everything your daughter had—meaning her purse, money, credit cards—was still in the car. Rebecca still had money on her person and jewelry as well,” Dietrich added. “We think that whoever did this might have other motives. It might be someone that knows Donna or Rebecca. That’s why we are here talking to you. We’re going to need all the help we can get if we have any hopes of finding your daughter.” Dietrich paused for a moment to let those words sink in. “As you all might know, we are the detectives investigating a murder that occurred recently on the West Side. Your daughter was there at the scene, and so was her relative, who we have in custody. We don’t know if there is a connection, but your daughter is a potential witness, and there seems to be no other leads right now.”

  Those words seemed to hit Carolyn and Desiree like an anvil dropped from the side of a tall building onto their heads.

  “Oh God!” Desiree screeched, seeming to come alive. “If it wasn’t a robbery by a stranger or a carjacking, and it has to be someone Donna knows, then it has to be him . . . the boyfriend! It has to be him! Oh God! It has to be him. He wanted Donna hurt . . . maybe even dead! He probably wanted to get rid of Donna! He committed the murder of that girl, pinned it on my son, and wants to get rid of my sister as a witness against him! I’m sure it’s him!” Desiree roared, spewing wild accusations.

  A sickening hush fell over the entire room. All eyes were on Desiree as she moved her hands wildly. Everyone was hanging on her every word. Carolyn was the first to break the silence.

  “Desi! Stop! We don’t know anything like that!” she barked.

  Dietrich and Sharky both looked at the two Johnson women with raised eyebrows. Dietrich immediately pulled out her writing pad and a pen. She started taking notes furiously. She knew just who Desiree was talking about, but she wanted to hear it.

  “Who? Who would want to get rid of whom? Who is this he you are referring to? Who wants your sister gone? What are you talking about, Ms. Johnson?” Dietrich asked, a bit too much excitement in her voice for Desiree’s and Carolyn’s liking. “We need to know everything.”

  Carolyn cleared her throat with a loud ahem, signaling to her eldest daughter to keep her mouth shut. But Carolyn knew Desiree had already said too much. There was no turning back now. Carolyn would have to explain everything to the detectives. Every embarrassing detail of her daughter’s recent relapse.

  “Detectives, you have to excuse us,” Carolyn said, trying to sound lighthearted. “My daughter here is just upset. She is speculating right now. When she is upset, she tends to get a little crazy.” Carolyn patted the air with her hands, as if to say, “Calm down and back up.”

  Desiree shot her mother an evil look. She was tired of hiding and acting like they had the perfect life, even under these circumstances. Donna was missing, and Desiree wanted to find her, but she also wanted them to know that the boyfriend had a motive. She wasn’t about to act as if nothing was going on. Her son’s life and now her sister’s life were on the line.

  “No! I’m not crazy! I know exactly what I’m saying!” Desiree blurted out, causing her mother to back down. Carolyn’s eyebrows came together, and she flexed her jaw. Desiree didn’t care. She turned toward Dietrich and Sharky and spoke to them directly, her voice stern.

  “My sister has a no-good boyfriend that lives up on the West Side. She took my son to his house, and a girl ended up murdered there. They want to pin the murder on my son, and the boyfriend has been lying from the beginning. He didn’t want my sister to be a witness, to tell about all the times he beat the victim and choked her until she passed out. We have hired a private investigator, and he’s told us that the girl’s cell phone is missing. We don’t know what information could be on it, and we don’t know who has it. This whole situation has been a lot for us to swallow, but I saw the look in that no-good boyfriend’s eyes. I know when he wanted my sister out of the picture, like he wanted my sister dead! He wants my son to go down forever for something he didn’t do, and without Donna to testify to everything that happened that night, he just might!”

  The two detectives looked at one another. They had to be thinking about the absurdity of all this. Sharky moved to the edge of his seat. He had his palms on his knees and his eyebrows furrowed, in deep concentration. It was like Desiree was teasing them with the information she had. Dietrich’s eyes were pleading with her to tell them more, so they could run it down too.

  Sharky finally asked the questions that they all knew were coming next. “Who is this boyfriend? Who is it that you think wants your sister dead?”

  Desiree swallowed hard. It had been hard enough for her to wrap her mind around what was happening to her family. She curled her hands into fists, just thinking about it all. If she could just get her hands on that scrawny-ass boyfriend now, there was no telling what Desiree would do. The tops of Desiree’s hands ached, she had them balled so tight in anger.

  “Oh, I’ll tell you exactly who he is,” Desiree said. “Tommy is the man my sister was with. He’s a two-bit, murdering drug dealer. He stole money from my sister for years, convincing her to manipulate our father for cash. He is the one who murdered Lee Briggs, the same murder that they’re holding my son for. Now, the only witness that can help my poor baby out of this, my sister, is missing! He has something to do with my sister’s disappearance. I’d bet my life on it, since there’s no one else that has it out for us like him!” Now it was like Desiree was dropping bombs of her own.

  Sharky scrubbed his hands over his face and let out an involuntary groan. He closed his eyes and let the information he’d just heard sink in for a minute. Dietrich stopped writing; the pieces were coming together for her, and she needed a second to process everything. It was like they always said: It’s best to follow the money. More eerie silence settled over the room.

  Carolyn and Desiree watched both detectives’ reactions to the information. It was clear that they knew something that the Johnsons didn’t know.

  “What is it? What is going on?” Desiree asked, dabbing at her face. She hadn’t realized that she was crying in frustration. “What do you know?” she said, her voice forceful and her tone to the point.

  Dietrich looked at Sharky. He looked back at her. With her eyes, Dietrich let her partner know that she wasn’t going to be the one to answer the question. Dietrich’s mind was too muddled to think straight. Sharky knew what he had to do. He was just afraid of the reaction Carolyn and Desiree might have.

  “Detectives? What do you know?” Desiree repeated. She was growing a bit impatient with the waiting game.

  “Well—” Sharky began, but Desiree cut him off.

  “Well what!” she yelled.

  “Tommy is not the only one who has something to gain from hurting Donna,” Sharky said bluntly. There was no way they could beat around the bush anymore.

  Desiree and Carolyn looked confused.

  “When your father, and your husband, was arrested by the feds two days ago for running one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, and your son, his grandson, was arrested almost two weeks ago for the murder of a rock star’s daughter, we didn’t think that the two cases were connected, and up until now they weren’t. However, as I sit and listen and string things together in my mind, it is clear to me that one of your father’s enemies might be a suspect in your sister’s disappearance,” Sharky announced. He had to inhale after letting out that mouthful. The hunch had sounded ludicrous even to him as he recited it the Johnsons.

  Desiree and Carolyn exchanged stunned glances.

  “There could be some very dangerous people after you all,” Shark informed them. “They may have snatched your daughter, Mrs. Johnson. And they may be coming after you two next.”

  Desiree and Carolyn looked at the detective like they weren’t hearing him correctly. Carolyn’s mouth was open, and Desiree’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates. Detective Dietrich became very still for a few seconds. It was like something had hit her all of a sudden. She didn’t even give the Johnsons more than a moment to react to what they had just learned.

  “Ms. Johnson, does your daughter still have a bedroom here? Or do you have keys to wherever she was staying prior to her disappearance?” Dietrich asked, her mind racing in a million different directions. There had to be something about Donna’s disappearance that was linked to Ernest Johnson’s recent fate.

  “She has a bedroom, but I don’t know the last time she was here. But she’s been staying God knows where since everything with Tyree blew up,” Carolyn whimpered. The tears were back. “But I don’t have keys to the new place my husband foolishly got her when she came home this last time. The keys might be in her purse. You said you recovered her purse, right?” The word recovered made Carolyn think of a disaster, and she lost it again. She began sobbing uncontrollably.

  Desiree moved close to her mother and pulled her to her. She held Carolyn close, comforting her.

  “How could your father have been so selfish? How did I miss the signs that things were going so badly?” Carolyn sobbed.

  “Can we take a look around? We want to be sure we cover all our bases. There are just too many loose ends here,” Detective Sharky said, taking the baton from Dietrich.

  Desiree gently released her mother and looked over at her. Her mother nodded her approval. She wanted to do whatever it took to bring their Donna back home safely.

  “I’ll show you around,” Desiree said, standing up and waving at the detectives to indicate that they should follow her.

  Dietrich and Sharky looked at each other and exchanged a knowing glance. They stood and fell in line silently behind Desiree, hoping like hell they would find something that would verify that their hunch was right and they hadn’t embarked on a wild-goose chase.

  Detective Dietrich stepped into Donna’s bedroom and looked around, amazed. The room was huge, its square footage greater than that of Dietrich’s entire apartment. It was lavishly decorated in pink, black, and white. Beautiful silk curtains hung from the windows. Custom made for sure. Detective Dietrich knew expensive when she saw it. A pink-and-black zebra-print duvet covered the oversize king bed. Posters of boy bands hung on the walls, and fluffy pillows with Donna’s initials on them covered the head of the bed. Detective Dietrich looked around for a few minutes, examining every inch of the room and picking up framed pictures of Donna and Carolyn and some of Donna alone. Before now she hadn’t thought about how young Donna was.

  She really is a beautiful girl, Detective Dietrich had to admit to herself.

  She walked over to the vanity in the far left corner of the expansive room. All sorts of designer fragrances sat atop the beautiful white tabletop. Dietrich picked up several of the little bottles. She sniffed a couple. “Hmm. Expensive. Everything is expensive,” she whispered to herself, placing the last bottle back down. She was preparing to step away from the vanity when something inside the garbage can caught her eye. It was a plastic drugstore bag. Dietrich grabbed the handles of the bag and pulled it up out of the can. She peered inside, and her heart immediately sped up. She turned around to where Sharky and Desiree were standing, talking about some of Donna’s high school accomplishments.

  “Hey, Shark. C’mere for one minute,” Dietrich called, summoning him.

  Sharky excused himself and walked over to Dietrich. “What’s up?” he asked.

  Detective Dietrich held the bag open and didn’t say a word. Sharky looked inside the bag. He scrubbed his hands over his face.

  “Dammit!” he grumbled.

  “Who’s going to tell them? You or me?” Dietrich asked.

  Sharky shook his head from left to right. “I really don’t think it matters at this point. Even flipping a coin to choose won’t make a difference in how difficult this one is going to be,” he replied.

  They both looked over at Desiree. She was standing in Donna’s old bedroom doorway, and Carolyn had joined her. Neither one of the detectives wanting to be the one to tell them that their missing and possibly dead sister/ daughter might be carrying a baby of her own.

  Chapter 18

  Favors

  Tommy’s hands shook as he fished around in his pocket for the keys to his house. He was finally able to return to his West Side apartment after being banned while the police conducted their investigation. His return was bittersweet. Tommy thought about the fact that his girlfriend had died right in the loft, and he was immediately unnerved. Finally able to get the key in the lock, he inhaled and exhaled. After he turned the key and pushed open the door, he stood at the threshold, with his jaw slack and his eyebrows raised into arches. He blinked a couple of times, thinking that his eyes were deceiving him for sure.