head back and forth. “I’d hoped you were wrong. I told Evie you were wrong. But . . . we don’t know where Daniel is. We can’t find him anywhere and it’s not like him to just . . . We’ve looked everywhere. The library, the Student Learning Center, his friends, parks, the movies, the mall.”
Izzy Wallace put his head in his hands. Diane felt sick at heart. Hers and Archie’s gazes met, and she could see he felt the same helpless sick feeling. Izzy raised his head.
“Daniel’s a good student. He’s a good boy. He’s going places, not like me. He’s smart, always gets As in school. He’s not a drug user. I’d know. I can tell a drug user.”
“I know,” said Diane. “I doubt if many of the kids there were.”
“This is killing Evie. I don’t know what we are going to do. Daniel is our only child.”
Diane wanted to cry. She could see Archie did, too. How was Rosewood ever going to heal from this?
“Why couldn’t they get out?” said Izzy.
“What?” said Diane.
“Of the house. Why couldn’t they get out? Why didn’t more of them get out?”
“I’m not sure,” said Diane. “I think that the explosion . . .” She trailed off. “I’m not sure.”
Izzy uncapped the water and took a sip. The three of them sat there for several minutes, saying nothing. Diane wished she could make this go away. It seemed like an eternity since she was awakened in the middle of the night to the sight of the fire reflected in her photograph of the chambered nautilus.
“Thanks for seeing me. I just . . .” He fidgeted with his hat. “I just wanted . . .” His lower lip trembled. “I just wanted you to tell me you made a mistake.” He put his head in his hands again and sobbed.
“Did he suffer?” he said at last.
“No,” said Diane. She laid a hand on his. “But Izzy, until the DNA comes back . . . We aren’t a hundred percent certain it’s Daniel.”
“I know. But where is he? Why can’t we find him?”
When Izzy and Archie left, Diane wanted to sit down and have a good cry. Instead, she took a deep breath and walked to her office to see how Juliet Price was. This ought to have set her back, thought Diane. If she wasn’t already having nightmares, this day should surely bring them on.
Juliet, drinking from a bottle of orange juice, was sitting on the stuffed red sofa in Diane’s office. The guard was sitting in the easy chair. He looked up, relief evident in his face. Diane guessed he had been trying to engage Juliet in conversation. Diane thanked him. He eagerly got up, nodded a good-bye to Juliet, and left.
Juliet set down her drink, looked at her hands a moment, and twisted her ring, an aquamarine in a gold setting. “I—I’m sorry. I disappeared on you when we were in real trouble. I’m sorry.”
What an odd way of putting it, thought Diane as she pulled up a chair and sat across from Juliet.
“There was nothing you could have done. We were lucky the police and my security came when they did. This was not your fault.”
She looked up at Diane, her ice blue eyes swimming in tears. “I’m useless. I just disappear when things get hard.”
Diane noticed blood seeping through the fabric on the arm of Juliet’s shirt.
Chapter 18
“Were you hurt?” Diane reached over to look at her arm.
Juliet pulled it back. “It’s nothing.”
“Did you cut yourself?” asked Diane. Juliet was silent. “Dr. Price.” Diane used her title and a firm voice. “Let me help you. It looks like you need it.”
“There is no help,” she whispered. “I’ve tried.”
“What if there is help to be had? Isn’t it worth it to try again?”
“I’m sorry I deserted you.”
“You didn’t desert me. You were faced with maniacs with bats. Half the people in the museum would have collapsed in the face of that. I’m concerned about your cutting yourself. That is what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
Diane saw that the door to the bathroom was open. She usually left it closed. She guessed that Juliet had cut herself when she came in from the episode in the parking lot. Some kind of strange coping strategy that Diane didn’t understand.
Juliet was rubbing her hands, as if washing them, almost wringing them. Her face looked panicked.
“I know that seems strange, but I have to.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?” asked Diane.
“Now it does. That’s the point. It doesn’t