Heartsick by Chelsea Cain Page B

between them. He gave her a quick lopsided smile. She smiled back. He went back to scanning the audience. His body remained perfectly still.

    “And on that note, I’d like to introduce my good friend Detective Archie Sheridan,” the mayor announced. Archie looked up, mildly startled, recovered, and walked to the podium. He took his hands out of his pockets and rested them lightly on the surface of the podium. He adjusted a microphone. He ran his hand through his hair.

    “Can I answer any questions?” he asked.

     

    Kristy Mathers had been missing for almost twenty-one hours. Archie had spent the day interviewing the people who had seen her last at Jefferson, her friends, her teachers, her parents. He’d walked the route she would have taken home. He’d met with the crime-scene team that had searched the area the night before and found nothing. He’d approved flyers to distribute at the schools and in the neighborhoods around the schools. He’d met with the chief of police and the mayor. He’d conferred with Highway Patrols in Washington and Idaho and California, conducted a conference call with both the American and Canadian border patrol, consulted with the private security firm brought in to secure the city’s high schools, and he’d personally gone through the four hundred–plus tips that had already been called in to the hot line. And there was still a lot more he could be doing that would be more productive than appearing at a press conference.

    But he was determined to make the best of it.

    He had led hundreds of press conferences in his tenure as lead detective on the Beauty Killer Task Force, but this was the first since Gretchen. He surveyed the anxious faces in the audience. Many had changed in two years, but there were familiar ones, too. He searched the crowd for the person who would ask him the question he wanted, the one he needed for the sound bite on the evening news. Their hands strained to be highest, their faces pinched with determination. He willed his stomach to unclench and called on a young Asian woman who sat in the front row with a notebook poised.

    “Detective, do you think you’re mentally and physically fit to run the After School Strangler Task Force?” she asked.

    “The After School Strangler?”

    “That’s what the Herald is calling the killer on their Web site.”

    Archie winced. “Right.” That didn’t take long. “I’ve never felt better,” he lied.

    “Do you have any lasting physical effects from your captivity?”

    “Some stomach problems. Probably on par with the mayor’s ulcer.” There were some appreciative smiles in the audience.

    He chose another hand. “Do you think that the DA should have sought the death penalty for Gretchen Lowell?”

    Archie sighed and went on autopilot. “The plea bargain stipulated that she take responsibility for all the people she killed, not just the eleven we had enough evidence to take her to court on. Her victims’ families deserve some closure.” He tried to look relaxed. In control. “How about we talk about the current case? One serial killer at a time, ladies and gentleman.”

    He called on Quentin Parker. “Do you think that Kristy Mathers is still alive?”

    “We remain hopeful that she is, yes.”

    Another hand. “How many detectives will you have on the task force?”

    “Full-time? Nine investigators, plus support staff. Seven of them worked on the Beauty Killer Task Force. In addition, we will work closely with other agencies, and pull in other personnel as needed.”

    The mayor took an almost unperceivable step toward the podium. Archie tensed. He still hadn’t gotten the question he wanted. He scanned the audience. Come on. One of you ask it. It’s obvious. It’s the one you’re all thinking. I need one of you to ask it. His eyes came to rest on Susan Ward. She had wasted no time getting started on the story. Ambition—that was a good sign. Archie had picked her out of the crowd right