Hide & Seek - Nicole Edwards Page 0,60

house near the lake, her mother resided roughly thirty minutes north of her daughter.

The neighborhood they pulled into wasn’t anything fancy. In fact, it looked a bit run down, the houses older, the cars, too. It gave the impression it was a street occupied mostly by renters rather than owners.

“This is it,” he said, pointing to a single-story tan brick house with dark brown trim and an inset porch.

There were bushes lining the front of the house, covering all the windows. The grass had seen better days, withering but not only from the cold spells they’d had lately. The sidewalk was cracked and broken, as was the walkway leading up to the house.

At the door, Brantley took the lead, ringing the doorbell and taking a step back.

It didn’t take long for the door to be answered by a woman who was quite a bit younger than Brantley had expected. Debbie Struthers showed to be twenty-nine years old, and he figured her mother was barely over fifty. She was a tiny woman with dark skin and dark hair that she wore brushed into a bun at the back of her head. Her eyes were a little wide, her lips a little small, and she looked none too happy to see them.

Brantley held up his credentials and Reese followed suit, then they were let into the house, the door closing behind them.

It was a dark space, no light in the wide hallway.

The place was relatively clean. Not spotless and not cluttered but there were a couple of dishes sitting on various surfaces, some books stacked in the corner, the fireplace screen crooked where it sat on the hearth.

“We can talk in here,” Mrs. Struthers said.

Reese followed them into a dining room on the right. There was a table in the center of the space, two windows high up on the far wall, a door that appeared to lead into the kitchen on the left.

He was about to sit when he noticed a huge corkboard mounted on the other wall. Pinned to it were various pictures, the missing poster that had likely been distributed when Debbie first went missing.

“I’ve done quite a bit of work,” Mrs. Struthers noted. “Figured since the police won’t do anything, someone had to.”

Reese noticed the hostility in her tone, couldn’t really blame her.

“Do you mind?” he asked, motioning toward the board.

“Not at all.”

While Brantley and Mrs. Struthers sat down at the table, Reese took stock of what was on the board. There were pictures of the lake and the surrounding areas, one of what looked to be the crime scene photo showing Debbie’s cell phone and headphones.

“Mrs. Struthers, could you tell me when the last time you spoke to Detective John Collins was?”

“Please call me Alicia,” she said softly, then sighed. “It would’ve been probably a week after Debbie went missing. I called him. He must’ve been having an off day because he actually answered the phone.”

“Have you spoken to him in person? At the station, maybe?”

Reese glanced over to see her reaction.

Mrs. Struthers was frowning. “I tried. Three times. I was always told he was out and it would be best to reach him by telephone.”

Reese did not like the sound of that. Granted, he wasn’t a police officer, but he couldn’t imagine the detectives were never available to speak one on one with the families of the victims they were working for. He would have to ask Baz about that.

While Brantley began asking questions pertaining to the day Debbie disappeared, Reese turned back to the board on the wall. He noticed what looked to be red yarn was strung from one pin to another in a couple of places. If he was correct, Mrs. Struthers was noting that those two things connected somehow. As much as he admired all the work she had done, there really wasn’t much to go on.

He was about to turn around and take a seat when he noticed a piece of paper peeking out from beneath another one. He lifted the top one to read what it was.

Police report. Dated March fourth of this year.

“Ma’am?” Reese glanced back at her, tapped a finger on the paper. “Can you tell me what this is?”

“It’s the police report my daughter filed.”

“It says it was filed two weeks before her disappearance.”

Mrs. Struthers nodded but she appeared disappointed. “Can’t find that it’s relevant, but I figured it was worth noting.”

Reese read the complaint and he wasn’t so sure that was an accurate assessment.

“Would you mind