Her First Mistake by Carey Baldwin (books for 10th graders txt) 📕

He held up his hand. “You know I never promised any such thing. I said I’d try to look into it.”

“And?”

“There’s nothing to report.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I’ll be straight with you. Right now, there are around forty thousand unsolved murders in the United States, and that’s not counting missing person cases like your mother’s. We don’t have the resources to reopen dead-end cold cases.”

“So you did or did not look into it?”

“I looked. Like I told you I would. But the news isn’t good. Most of the time, Mia, when I pull a cold case, I’ve got boxes and boxes of evidence, hundreds, often times thousands, of pieces of paper to go through.” He shook his head. “Your mother’s case was different. I found one evidence box.”

She scooted to the edge of her chair. “So there was something. What was in the box?”

“You’re missing the point. It was only the one box. The officers on the scene took photos and lifted prints from the cabin and from the shed you dug yourself out of.” He paused, like he was waiting for a reaction.

If he thought she was going to break down and cry just because he brought up the shed, he was in for a disappointment. “Go on.”

“Cell phones were uncommon back then. There were no Facebook accounts to check out. The detectives took statements from your aunt, from a couple of waitresses who’d worked with your mother, and the hunter who found you in the woods. But there was no one else to question. The only person who might have known anything of value was you, and child services had you locked down tight. The detectives got one shot at you with a social worker present. You said you didn’t remember anything—not even digging your way out of that shed. It seemed likely your mother had run away and abandoned you. And that was that.”

“So, you’re telling me no one even tried. They didn’t conduct a real investigation. That should be reason enough to reopen the case.”

“Just the opposite. I’ve got no cause to delve into a twenty-year-old crime with no clues. Unless you’ve got something new to say, unless you suddenly remember key facts that will generate more leads, there’s nothing I can do.” He lowered his voice. “I am sorry.”

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking, or if you mean what you say.”

“I do mean it. Nothing sticks in my craw like lazy police work. But let me say this…”

She braced for the worst.

“Now that I know how much you suffered as a child, I can’t help seeing you in a different light. Especially after the way you’ve had me chasing my tail these past couple of days.”

“I’m not asking for your pity.”

“Good, because I’m not offering any up. I’ve got a job to do, and I can’t let my emotions get in the way. I’m looking at you, Mia, and I’m thinking that your baggage makes you interesting.”

“I take it you don’t mean interesting in a good way.”

“Correct. The last thing you want is to pique the interest of a major crimes detective. But that’s what you keep doing. First, you faint, or pretend to faint, in the park in front of Angelica Cooper and get her to take you to Celeste’s house and let you borrow Celeste’s clothes. Then, you come up with this story about a matchbook—”

“I did faint. And going to the house, borrowing Celeste’s clothes, none of that was my idea. I didn’t come up with a story. I found the matches, and I gave them to you. They’re real. You put them in an evidence bag.”

“You could’ve gotten them from the club yourself.”

“Shoshanna, the dancer, told your guys she saw Celeste.”

“Shoshanna doesn’t know who she saw. You went to the club looking for Celeste and that made Shoshanna think perhaps someone who looked a little like Celeste might have been there at some point in the past. That’s not the same as seeing her.”

“I’m not lying about the matches.”

“You made up a story about applying for a waitress job at the club, so who knows what else you’ve invented. As for your snooping around, I might find it humorous if this were a game, but it’s not.”

“No. It isn’t. Celeste’s life is at stake.”

His brow rose. “I’m well aware. You did say you want to know what I’m thinking. Shall I continue?”

Please don’t. “Yes.”

“The list goes on. After fainting and bringing up the matches, you find a mysteriously vague, yet threatening, note on your car.”

“I’m not the one who told you about the note.”

“And why not? But my point, really, is that such a mysterious note exists.”

She wanted to ask if the handwriting analysis had come back, but his upheld hand warned her not to interrupt.

“Next, you summon me to the school to investigate a set of keys that look like Celeste’s but turn out not to be, and now you say you remember some gossip about Celeste having an unwanted admirer, which, if true, should’ve been the first thing out of your mouth when Celeste went missing. If there’s really a rumor going around the school, I wonder why no one else has mentioned it.”

His implication wasn’t lost on her. “I don’t know why no one else said anything. You should absolutely ask the other teachers. I’m only trying to help.”

“But see, Mia, I wonder if you are. You’re a complicated young lady with a tragic past. A woman who has been largely overlooked, and, I’m thinking, underestimated by her peers. It would be a mistake for me to do the same. I wonder if all these things you’re bringing to my attention are real, or if you’re engineering drama in order to shift the spotlight away from Celeste Cooper and onto Mia Thornton. I can see how a young woman, starved for attention, might do such a thing. I can understand it.