The Darkness Gathers by Lisa Unger

handwriting, Mrs. Quinn?” the detective pressed, impervious to her growing agitation.
    “No,” she said, not looking at the note again.
    “I’d like to look at Tatiana’s room,” Lydia said.
    “Unless you have a warrant, absolutely not. Detective, do I need to call my lawyer?”
    “Ms. Strong and Mr. Mark are trying to help you, Mrs. Quinn. They came here of their own accord to help us solve this case. They are trying to find your daughter.”
    “Tatiana doesn’t want to be found, Detective. No one has hurt or abducted her. She has run away and destroyed us both, even though we did everything for her, gave her everything a child could need or ask for.” She turned from them and gazed at the ceiling, tracing the bottom of her eyes with a tissue, careful not to smear her eyeliner. Lydia smelled a whiff of self-dramatization.
    “Well, Mr. Quinn is not inclined to give up. And neither am I,” said the detective. Jenna Quinn did not respond for a moment. She sat small and rigid behind the desk, her eyes staring at a point on the ceiling. Then she rose.
    “Perhaps you would do better to bring this matter to Mr. Quinn, then. If there’s nothing else, I have an appointment.”
    With that, she walked out of the library and across the marble foyer and opened the front door. She stood and waited there as the three of them rose and followed her path.
    “Mrs. Quinn, if you change your mind about cooperating with Ms. Strong and Mr. Mark, give me a call.”
    “Or me,” said Lydia, handing her a card.
    “Thank you,” she said, chillingly polite.
    She slammed the door behind them.
    “That went well,” said Jeffrey, speaking up for the first time.
    The detective smiled. “In all of this, I’ve never seen her get so upset. I’ve never seen that side of her before.”
    “What do you think it means?”
    “I think it means we’re onto something.”

chapter ten
     
    L ydia, Jeffrey, and Detective Ignacio sat in a Cuban restaurant about five minutes from the residence of Valentina Fitore, sipping café con leche and eating pungent ropa vieja , yellow rice, and black beans. The tiny, plain restaurant, which had been barely noticeable from the street, was made glorious by the rich aromas of coffee and seasoned pork. A woman with a bright, toothless smile, her hair in a net, had greeted the detective at the door with an enthusiastic hug and, with an expansive sweep of her arm, invited them in. “Venga, venga. Siéntate,” she said happily. They took their choice of the three bright red wooden tables with four matching chairs at each and sat by the window. The detective ordered in Spanish for the three of them, and the woman limped into the kitchen, visible through an open doorway, and cooked the food herself. Though the tender strips of flank steak looked and smelled delectable and Lydia had been starving just awhile ago, she pushed the food around on her plate. She’d lost her appetite and didn’t speak as the detective recounted for them the story of the missing Greyhound bus driver. She knew she should be listening to the details, but she couldn’t concentrate.
    The ghosts that had rested were stirring within Lydia now. A dark feeling had crept over her after leaving the Quinn residence, and though she tried to shake it, she felt it settling into her bones like a chill that portends the flu. She had grown quiet as she tried to put words to what she had felt in the Quinn home, as she tried to make sense of the malevolence and fear she had felt radiating from the walls. Jenna Quinn had confused Lydia. Usually, a person’s essence was clear to her within seconds of the first greeting. People emitted an energy that either meshed or clashed, that attracted or repelled. But Jenna Quinn was either so guarded or so practiced in the art of deception that Lydia had no clear idea who she was or what her real agenda might be. She knew who Jenna wanted everyone to think she was—Mrs. Quinn, the immaculately groomed, grieving,