The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,80

glimpse of his daughters. Susan had a dentist appointment, so Gil was picking up the girls. He thought he spotted Therese’s dark head in the crowd, but it went into a Honda in front of him.

There. He saw Joy. Talking to a boy. Therese was at her side, tugging on her sister’s coat. Gil tried to get a better look at the boy through the crowd of children. Gil got out of the car to try a different angle, but by then the boy was gone and Joy and Therese were on their way to the car. Gil waved at them and the girls smiled back. He watched them buckle up in the backseat before he started to move through the after-school traffic.

He wanted to ask who the boy was. “How was school?”

He got a, “Great, Daddy,” from Therese and a strange, “Wonderful,” from Joy that wasn’t sarcastic. What had happened to the preteen hostility?

“What did you guys do?”

Therese gave a list of things, starting with homeroom, while Joy stared out the window. When Therese was finished, he said, “What about you, Joy? Anything interesting happen?”

“Nothing really special.” Still that strange lilt to her voice.

“Who was that boy I saw you talking to?” Gil tried to say it casually.

“Oh, come on, Dad. Please,” she said, back in her usual annoyed tone.

“I was just wondering.”

He watched in the rearview mirror as Joy shook her head. But she was smiling slightly. Gil gave up and asked Therese about her classroom’s pet newt.

Susan was waiting for them when they got home. She kissed his cheek as he tried to brush the hair out of her eyes, but she beat him to it, pushing the dark strands behind her ear.

Gil watched the girls jabber at Susan, telling her things that they hadn’t told him. Joy laughed as she told Susan about band recital, in which the tuba player, on a dare, had gotten his hand stuck in his instrument.

Gil checked his watch. He needed to get back to the office.

In all the years they’d been married, Susan had never asked him about his work. He sometimes wondered if the girls even knew what he did for a living. But that was all right. The least he could do was to save them from the horrors he saw every day. His job as husband and dad was to keep them safe not only physically but from the knowledge of what human beings were capable of doing to one another. But somehow the Melissa Baca case was different. Gil realized that he wanted Susan to ask him about it; he couldn’t discuss it with any of the other officers, since Manny Cordova was involved.

“The Melissa Baca case is really interesting,” he said to Susan. He was careful not to saying killing in front of the girls.

“Oh, really?” Susan said as she mixed up some chocolate milk for Joy.

“Yeah, I’m working with the state police on it, so it makes it even more complicated.”

“I didn’t know that.” Susan handed the glass to Joy and started one for Therese.

Gil felt awkward. He was forcing the conversation. He sighed and gave up.

Ten minutes later, he was back at work.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Friday Night

Gil tried to call Lacey Gould when he got back to the police station, but she was at a slumber party for the night. He was hanging up the phone when he felt someone standing next to him. It was a police secretary who Gil thought had a crush on Manny Cordova. She shifted her stance when Gil asked if he could help her, then she walked into one of the empty offices, expecting Gil to follow.

They stood there, both waiting for something, until Gil repeated, “Can I help you?”

“I heard you were questioning Manny and I thought I should tell you that he didn’t do anything.” It came out in a rush.

“You mean Officer Cordova?” Gil asked. She turned pink. Gil hadn’t said it to embarrass her, just to clarify her feelings.

“I’m sorry, yes, Officer Cordova. He didn’t do anything.”

Gil thought that her name was Cindy. He didn’t know her last name. “What makes you think he wasn’t involved?”

“He just couldn’t have been.” Her voice was desperate. “He’s not like that. You know him.”

“You know I can’t really talk about this …” Gil said.

“Well, you should be talking to the brother of that dead girl.”

“What makes you say that?”

She was smug. This was her ace in the hole. “Because I saw him talking to his sister the day