Page 20 of Be A Detective, They Said. It’ll Be Fun, They Said

Rolling her tongue along the inside of her cheek, Nina asked. “We’re gonna need to talk to this dude Thad. You think he’ll cooperate?”

“I’m positive he will. He loves Tam. He’d do anything for her. I haven’t said anything to him yet because I don’t want the fae council to get wind of Neerie’s disappearance, but I know he’d help.”

That was another problem. “We’re getting to the point where we can’t keep this a secret, Naida. In order to conduct a proper investigation, we need to talk to the people she spent her time with, like the PTA mothers. You do realize, that’s a hotbed for gossip, but it can’t be avoided if you want to find your sister,” I pointed out.

Naida ran a hand over her hair, the gesture one of exhaustion. “I know that. I do. I realize not many people like Neerie. I know you have to do your jobs. I guess I’m not sure if I’m prepared to hear how many suspects you might find because of how awful she can be, but I don’t want Tamlin taken from her. She’s a good mother, despite her bossy, judgmental nature. Yet, what choice do we have if I don’t know whether she left herself or someone took her?” Her eyes began to fill with tears that, despite the sisters’ differences, felt genuine.

I reached over my desk and grabbed her hand. “I wish there was another way, Naida, I do. Are you sure you can’t think of anyone who might want to harm her? Anyone at all?”

Naida tightened her fingers around mine. “Believe me, I wish I could. I just don’t have any answers. She’s isolated herself for so long since her divorce from Thad, I can’t think of anyone who’d go to this extreme.”

Nina rose from her desk. “Did you bring the key to her house? We’re gonna go over there and sift through what we can, see if we can find a clue. Then we’ll set up a meeting with the PTA moms and see if they know anything.”

Naida frowned. “You didn’t find any texts between her and the PTA ladies?”

“Nuh-uh,” Marty said with a shake of her head. “Well, not ones that involved conspiracies, anyway. It was all just PTA-related stuff.”

Naida blew out a long breath. “She obviously doesn’t want anyone to know she’s been holed up in her house day and night, going down the rabbit hole of conspiracies. I hoped maybe she might have shared her concern about the school with one of them, but I guess she’s keeping her whacky on the inside.”

“She never mentioned anything to me about the school or any conspiracy.” Shaking my head and rubbing my eyes, I fought a yawn. “I think the next thing we need to do is construct a timeline of her whereabouts for the last few days before she went missing, at least. Do you know if she’d gone anywhere new, somewhere she normally wouldn’t go?”

“Neerie hardly ever left the house for anything other than Tamlin related stuff. She has her groceries delivered, and the only other reason she goes anywhere is to take Tamlin to ballet and twirling, her fae instructions, and of course, whatever she’s doing at the school.”

My cheeks puffed out. “Okay, then. We’ll work on figuring out where she’d been before going to the woods with the Bigfoot hunting club—because that was the last place anyone saw her. Maybe that’ll help us find her. Also, I’ll text the PTA moms and call an emergency meeting. I’m going to have to let the cat out of the bag, Naida.”

“I get it. I mean, if she disappeared, and it’s not her fault, surely the fae council will understand, right?” She put her face in her hands. “God, I don’t know what’s worse. Her being kidnapped, or that she might have run off on some bonkers whim.”

The sympathy I felt for Naida burned in my gut. She was trying to hold everything together and care for Tamlin. “We’ll go to Neerie’s house and go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Are you all right with that?”

She rose, digging in her jeans to pull out some keys and hand them to me. “I’m fine with whatever will help find her. Do what you have to do. She has a security code. She always said you can never be too careful. I’ll text it to you. She has security cameras, too. Maybe that’ll help? For now, I need to get Tamlin to her ballet class. I swear, this kid’s day is filled up from start to finish.”

I understood that well. We all did. It made me think about reconsidering how many activities my children were involved in and if it was pushing them too hard. “No one gets that better than we do.” I rose and moved to give her a quick hug. “Remember, if you think of anything, anything that might help us locate Neerie, text me, please?”

We sent Naida on her way and headed over to Neerie’s house. Set at the end of a quaint cul-de-sac, her small white-brick house with wood shutters and arched windows was lovely. It wasn’t the mansion she lived in with Thad, but it was plenty for only Neerie and Tamlin.

Her car was still in the driveway.

Huh.

“Her car’s still here. Why is that, if she was meeting the Facebook group?”

“Maybe she fucking flew? She is a fairy, Wanda. The meeting was at night. She could have easily stayed under cover.”

I turned toward the walkway, covered in the recent snowfall and dotted with pathway lights, glistening under the sun that led to a warm, French oak wood door that matched her shutters.

Marty eyeballed it, tucking her hands in her skirt pockets. “Cute place, huh?”

I nodded. “Very cute, but I expected nothing less from Neerie. I mean, look at the front porch. I love that swing with the pillows on it.”

Marty nodded and pointed at a little wrought-iron stand with a ceramic snowman. “She’s done like a little winter wonderland scene. Love it!”

Nina draped her arms around both of us. “Okay, Chip and Joanna. Could we skip the decorating digest and get a move on? We have a bunch of bitchy PTA moms to face in like two hours and it would be nice if we could find a damn clue.”

I squared my shoulders and gave Nina a curt nod. “You’re right. But we hit the basement first.”

As Nina punched in the security code and I unlocked the door, we pushed our way inside.

“I always wondered where the hell Strawberry Shortcake lived,” Nina joked.

---