The address listed on the Edwards girl’s missing report had told them the home would scream money before they got to the front steps. The meticulously manicured lawn and pricey cars in the driveway confirmed it.

“Mr. and Mrs. Edwards? May we come in?” Zach had only just gotten the words out when the woman standing before him seemed to crumple.

“No! No, no, no.” Her face pleaded with them to let her have hope a little longer.

Zach knew it wouldn’t help. Straight forward and direct was going to be the best way to break this news. They would be compassionate. They would give the family time to absorb it. But, they wouldn’t drag out the notification. They wouldn’t give hope where there was none.

Two men came forward, one wrapping his arms around the woman, the other letting Zach and Ronan in and shutting the door.

“I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards. We believe we’ve found your daughter’s body.” Being straightforward didn’t make it easier for Zach to get the words out.

The man who held the woman in his arms looked at Zach. “Can you give us a minute, officers? My brother can show you into the living room.”

Zach and Ronan nodded and followed the brother into a room that looked as though it had been professionally designed. The furniture was pure white, setting Zach on edge. How did people live with white furniture? And were those rugs cut for the room? They had to be. The area rugs stretched nearly to the edge of the room, leaving only about a foot between the wall and the carpet edge. That edge traced the exact shape of the mantle in front of the fireplace and each of the columns that framed a large doorway leading into a dining room.

“I’m Geoff Edwards,” the man offered as he sat across from Zach and Ronan on the couch. He looked toward the doorway Mr. and Mrs. Edwards had gone through and shook his head. “They’re going to blame themselves for this. They don’t usually stay out late, but they went to an anniversary party for some old friends of ours last night. Didn’t come home until after midnight.”

“They called in the report on Adrienne last night?” Zach knew the answer to the question. He simply wanted to direct the witness to the start of Adrienne’s disappearance and get him talking.

A nod came with the response. “That’s right. Adrienne’s mom has been blaming herself all night because she didn’t check on Adrienne before they left for the party. The girl’s door was shut and they’ve been trying to give her more privacy lately. When they came home last night, Adrienne wasn’t in her bed.”

“We’ll need to talk to them later, but can you tell us when was the last time anyone saw Adrienne?” Ronan asked.

“As far as I know, it was at school. We’ve contacted all of her friends, we’ve been to the school to check the grounds.” His voice trailed off and he seemed lost for a minute, before looking back to them. “How did she die?”

“The preliminary cause of death is strangulation.” Straight forward, Zach reminded himself. “We don’t have an exact time of death, but it’s possible discovering she was missing earlier wouldn’t have changed things.” He hoped so. Maybe it would bring some small measure of peace to the Edwards.

“Do you know who did this? Is it connected to Carrie’s disappearance?”

Zach and Ronan both sat forward. “Did Adrienne and Carrie know each other?”

“Yes.” Geoff Edwards rubbed his forehead. “They were good friends. They went to school together.”

“To Elmhurst Academy?” Zach asked.

Geoff nodded.

“Do you have kids there, too?” Ronan asked.

Adrienne’s uncle frowned and shook his head. “No. My wife and I never had any kids.” There was something in his eyes when he said it, but Adrienne’s mother and father chose that moment to walk in. Camden and Isabelle Edwards looked drained of life.

It took moments to fill them in on what they’d already covered with the uncle. Isabelle held herself together this time, only barely.

“Did you find Carrie?” Isabelle almost asked the question as if she couldn’t bear to hear the answer. “Is she—?”

Zach shook his head. “We haven’t located her. We’re not sure yet if the two cases are related.”

“Everyone’s been saying Carrie ran away since there wasn’t any ransom demand,” Camden Edwards said.

“It’s possible.” Zach wished they had answers for the family.

They went through the usual questions after that. Anyone who might want to hurt the family or Adrienne? Anything suspicious in recent weeks or days? Any information they had on their daughter’s whereabouts beginning at breakfast and going through the day yesterday?

“She was supposed to come home after school. We’d been fighting lately,” Mrs. Edwards said, and her voice held the heaviness of a parent who would do anything to undo the last fight they’d had with a child. “I told her she had to come home and work on her homework instead of hanging out with her friends. Her grades had been slipping.”

“What would ‘hanging out’ have been for her?” Ronan asked.

“Oh, they might go to one of the other girls’ houses or to get ice cream. They weren’t troublemakers. They hung out at the library a lot.” Mrs. Edwards offered.

Zach knew “hanging out at the library” could mean ditching your books there and leaving, only to come back just before your parents were due to pick you up. “Did she have her own car?”

“Yes, but she only drove it on the weekends. We didn’t want her having too much freedom during the week. We drove her to school and our housekeeper would pick her up on days she didn’t go to a friend’s house or out with friends.”

“Did the housekeeper pick her up yesterday?” Zach asked.

“No. We called her last night when we realized Adrienne wasn’t here.” This was delivered with a sob and Adrienne’s father took over.

“She said Adrienne had texted her that she would get a ride home with a friend later. Eva left at four o’clock, so she assumed Adrienne would be home shortly after that.” Edwards rubbed his wife’s back as he spoke.

When Zach confirmed that Eva was the housekeeper, he continued. “And no one saw her in the afternoon?” Zach asked.

The look on the man’s face was pained as he shook his head. “We came home to get ready quickly that afternoon. Her door was shut, and we just...” Shoulders slumped and his head hung, as though he couldn’t help but blame himself for his daughter’s death.

Zach suspected that would always be the case, even if Adrienne did turn out to have been dead long before the parents came home that afternoon. He would guess they would spend the rest of their lives in the company of too many what-ifs and if-only-scenarios.

Edwards spread his hands, palms up, helpless to change what had happened. “She always listened to her music with her headphones on in her room. You hear about kids blasting their music, but that isn’t the way they are nowadays. In truth, they put those earbuds in and shut themselves into their own world.”

Zach and Ronan stood. They’d need to talk to a lot more people to try to piece together where Adrienne had gone when she was killed. Right now, they needed to get to the school and retrace this girl’s steps. Because right now, it was looking for all the world like Adrienne Edwards might have walked right into the hands of her killer.

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