Because they were... sisters.

And then Priscilla broke into a very un-Priscilla-like giggle and patted Belinda’s hand. “Give me a minute, okay? We’re almost done here and then we can...talk.” Detective Hanborn glanced at me. “Right?”

I grabbed my purse from the side of the chair and stood. “Actually, I think we’re all done now.”

“Really? But you had a question about an internship? For...yourself?”

Belinda was still bent over, her head now resting on Priscilla’s, eyeing me with beautiful, wide eyes.

“It can wait,” I told her. “Thank you for your time.”

“Anytime, Ms. Savage,” she said, not bothering to hide her happiness at my impending departure. “Thanks for the fritters. And Ms. Savage?”

I stopped in the doorway. “Yes?”

“Mind closing the door on your way out?” she asked, the eyebrow raised again. “My sister and I need to...chat.”

I pulled the door closed and didn’t ask any more questions.

TWENTY SIX

I spent the rest of my Sunday deliberately not thinking about Amanda Pendleton or the Bandersands or investigating. I retreated to the kitchen, turned on the oven, and baked up a storm of cookies and muffins and breads. I made a steak and potato dinner for Jake, Sophie and me and then woke up early the next morning to greet the other three kids when Thornton dropped them off before Emily had to get on the bus to school. Grace and Will passed out on the sofas as soon as they got home and Sophie slept in late. I made pancakes when they woke up and we had a nice, leisurely breakfast, getting caught up on how we all spent our weekend. Sophie told the other two about the movies she watched at her sleepover and Grace and Will relayed their escapades to the feed store to check out the acoustics for their dad’s upcoming gig. I stayed quiet about my visit to the Moose River police department.

Once they finished talking about their weekend, we went into schedule mode: what we had planned for the week and what was on the homeschool calendar. By the time breakfast was over, I was visibly more relaxed. This wasn’t a surprise. Because whenever I was down or frustrated or feeling like I was clueless, I had one go-to maneuver.

Be a mom.

And it worked every time. By mid-afternoon, I was feeling better and normal and didn’t even mind when Brenda called later and asked if I could grab Maddie from cheer practice again.

“Are your kids still sick?”

“No, thank goodness,” she said, breathing an audible sigh of relief. “And I somehow came through unscathed – me and Maddie both. Must have been our hand sanitizer baths that kept us healthy.”

If anyone would actually bathe his or her body in a tubful of hand sanitizer, it was Brenda.

“So we’re all fine,” she said. “Well, Johnny is suffering PTSD from the corn maze team builder. But no one is throwing up. Anyway, we took my car in to the shop this morning and it’s not done yet. And I’m pretty sure their free ride service doesn’t extend to picking my kid up from cheer practice.”

I chuckled. “Probably not. Yeah, no problem. I’ll get her.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I conned the neighbor into taking her but she’s not home. I tried my mom but she’s at the gym. Which is totally weird.”

“It’s no problem,” I said. “It’s ten minutes away.”

“I know. I just feel bad asking. I’ll owe you a plate of cookies or a jug of kombucha or something.”

“We’ll take the cookies,” I told her, not bothering to mention I had a counter full of desserts from my baking spree the previous day.

The kids declined riding along with me to the gym, so I headed over by myself, making sure not to wear the dreaded Moose River sweatshirt.

Greta Mathisen spotted me as soon as I entered the gym. She was dressed in exactly the same clothes as before, save for the red headband around her head. She tracked me to the spot on the bleachers and after she’d brought the girls together in the middle of the gym floor, she headed in my direction.

“Back for more, huh?” she asked.

“Just picking up Maddie again,” I told her.

She smiled as she looked me over. “Better fashion choices this time, I see.”

“I stripped myself of all Moose River references before driving over.”

“Good thinking,” she said, missing my sarcasm. “Will you be at the competition?”

“Uh, I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess we might come to watch Maddie. But my girls aren’t competing. Or in cheerleading of any kind.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Coach Mathisen said. “Because we are just going to blow the doors off of old Moose River this year.”

I nodded. “Yes. You told me that before.”

“And it doesn’t look like Amanda’s going to be making a reappearance before the competition,” she said, chomping hard on a piece of gum. She grinned. “So that pretty much seals it for us.”

“Might as well not even hold the competition, I guess.”

“Exactly,” she said, then caught herself. “Wait. That was a joke.”

“A small one.”

She made a noise, something between a sigh and a chuckle. “Well, I’m just saying that I don’t think there’s anyone in this part of the state that can beat us now,” she said, watching the girls on the floor. “With my coaching, we’ve really improved. And when your biggest rival is missing their most important cog, it’s almost inevitable.”

“Almost. Yes.”

She glanced at me. “You haven’t heard anything else about Amanda, have you?”

I thought about my conversation with Detective Hanborn. “Nope. Nothing.”

“She hasn’t shown up for your little play or whatever it was?”

I didn’t think the play was any littler than her regional cheer competition. “It’s a production of Snow White. And no. She hasn’t.”

“Good, good,” she said, then caught herself. “I mean, that’s too bad.” Her cheeks flushed. “You know what I mean.”

I waved at Maddie, making sure she saw me waiting. I didn’t want to stick around any longer than we needed to. “Sure.”

“I don’t think she’ll be back,” Coach Mathisen said.

“No?” I turned to look at her, frowning. “And why is that?”

Greta Mathisen’s entire face flooded with color. “Oh, I just mean that I think that if she was coming back, we’d have heard something from her by now. And I haven’t heard of anyone who’s heard from her. So I think she’s going to be well-hidden for the competition.”

“Hidden?” I asked.

Her face colored again. “Poor choice of words. Absent. Not present. Whatever. Anyway. I have to go. Nice to see you, Moose River.”

I watched her walk to the other end of the gym and start up another conversation with several moms waiting on their daughters.

Hidden. It was a strange choice of words. And it occurred to me that if Eleanor and Madison Bandersand had something to gain from Amanda’s disappearance, so did Greta Mathisen.

But I hadn’t mentioned her to Jake or to Detective Hanborn. She hadn’t made my suspect list.

I sighed and reminded myself that I didn’t need to be making a suspect list because no one was interested. Not even the detective assigned to the case. If there was a case. Which Hanborn had made clear there pretty much wasn’t.

“Hey,” Maddie said, smiling at me. Her face was flushed from exertion and her entire body was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. She pulled on her sweatshirt. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“No problem, kiddo,” I told her.

She bent down and retied her shoelaces. “I saw Coach Mathisen talking to you.”

“She was,” I said. “She’s...interesting.”

Maddie laughed. “My mom says she’s crazy.”

I glanced down the gym to wear Mathisen was chatting up the other moms. She was waving her hands, talking animatedly, her eyes wide.

I wondered just how crazy she actually was.

TWENTY SEVEN

“Daisy, I need a word with you,” Eleanor Bandersand said, lifting her chin and looking down her imperious nose at me.