Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

that her parents might disapprove of? Someone secret.”

    Jen rolled her eyes. “No one means no one.”

    “And you’re sure that Kristy left rehearsal at six-fifteen?” Archie asked.

    Maria stopped fidgeting with her hair and looked at Archie, certainty flashing in her dark eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Why?”

    “Someone saw Kristy a few blocks away almost forty minutes later,” Archie explained. “Any idea what she might have been doing?”

    Jen lifted her arm from Maria’s calf, sat up, and shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

    “But you didn’t see her ride off, right?” asked Claire. “You just saw her leave the auditorium.”

    “Right,” Maria said. “They finished blocking all her scenes. Ms. Sanders let her go.”

    “And no one left with her?” Archie asked.

    Maria shook her head. “Like we said. All the actors got to go once their scenes were blocked. Kristy went first. Most of us had to stay until seven-thirty. But you talked to all them, right?”

    “No one saw her,” Archie said.

    “So what was she doing all that time?” asked Jen, staring hard at the yellow wall. “It doesn’t make sense.”

    “Does she smoke?” asked Claire.

    “No,” Maria said. “She hates it.”

    Jen examined the plastic eyes of the stuffed alligator, scratching at an invisible imperfection on the hard black plastic of its pupil. “Maybe she had trouble with her bike.” She shrugged, not looking up.

    Archie leaned forward. “Why do you say that, Jen?”

    Jen smoothed the matted green fur of the alligator. “She’d been having trouble with the chain coming off. It was a shitty bike. She had to drag it home a couple of times.” A single tear rolled down her brown cheek. She wiped it away with her sleeve and shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s probably a stupid answer.”

    Archie reached out and gently put his hand on Jen’s. She looked up. And he saw, in her hard eyes, a fissure, and, behind it, a tiny bit of hope. “I think it’s a really smart guess,” he said. He squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

     

    “So her bike is broken,” Claire said when they were back in the car. It was dark and the windows were glassy with rain. “She tries to fix it for a while, then gives up and decides to walk it home. Our guy stops, offers her a ride, or to help fix the bike, and he grabs her.”

    “But that’s a crime of opportunity,” Henry said from the driver’s seat of the unmarked Crown Vic. Henry hated Crown Vics. And yet somehow he always ended up with one. “She fits his profile. You think he just drives around looking for high school girls who look right enough to snatch? That he just got lucky?”

    “He broke the bike,” Archie said quietly from the backseat. He pulled the pillbox out his pocket and absentmindedly rotated it between his thumb and forefinger.

    “He broke the bike,” Henry agreed emphatically, nodding. “Which means he had her picked out. Knew she had the bike. Knew which bike was hers. Maybe even knew it was crappy. That she’d drag the thing home like usual. He’s watching them.”

    “Still leaves us with some missing time,” Claire said. “Next kid left rehearsal at six-thirty. Didn’t see her. The bike rack is right by the door.”

    Archie’s head throbbed. “We’ll do the roadblock again tomorrow. Maybe someone else saw her.” He extracted three pills from the pillbox and put them in his mouth one by one.

    “You okay, boss?” Henry asked, glancing back at Archie in the rearview mirror.

    “Zantac,” Archie lied. “For my stomach.” He leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. If the killer had stalked Kristy, then he’d probably start looking for another girl soon. “You sure the other high schools are secure?” Archie asked, eyes still closed.

    “Fort Knox,” Claire confirmed.

    “Set up surveillance at all four tomorrow,” Archie told them. “Run the plates of every car that goes by Jefferson