The first team came out, a hurricane of green and white outfits, bouncing around the gym like pinballs as a heavy bass thrummed through the walls of the arena. They launched right into their routine, screaming and dancing and tumbling. They punched the air and exploded with happiness when they finished their routine. A group of fans launched out of their seats, hooting and hollering. They were dressed in the same green and white, some with their faces painted with matching stripes.

Nothing says commitment like adults painting their faces.

“Were they good?” I asked Brenda. “They looked good to me.”

Brenda nodded. She had a board book in her hand and Mary was yanking on one of the paper lift-the-flaps. “They were pretty good, but they made some mistakes. Wait until Moose River Fusion comes out. You’ll see the difference, even without Amanda.”

Two groups later, Moose River charged out into the gym, clad in their red and black uniforms, making all of these weird hand gestures and air punches and jumps. But Brenda was right. When the music started, they were clearly better than everyone else. They jumped higher, they cheered louder and their tumbling passes were incredible. They looked more like Olympic gymnasts than kids from my town. There were no bobbles, no missteps, no trips. They were like a well-oiled machine.

“And I’m not kidding you when I tell you that Amanda Pendleton made them even better,” Brenda yelled into my ear when the crowd exploded with applause at their finish.

I couldn’t imagine what more she could bring to an already phenomenal team, but I took her word for it.

We watched six more teams go before Maddie and the Cheerlicious Cheetahs came sprinting out to the middle of the venue. At first, they seemed just like the other groups. Full of energy, big smiles, snazzy uniforms, jumping around like they had ants in their pants. But they seemed more nervous and their smiles tended to flicker as they looked for Greta Mathisen, who was perched down in the front row, sitting ramrod straight, her hands balled into fists on her thighs.

The lights dimmed and the music began. I recognized it immediately. Michael Jackson’s Thriller. They began their routine and that was when I realized what Brenda meant by...interesting.

It was a weird song choice. It didn’t have the same upbeat rhythms and cadences of the songs we’d already heard, and I didn’t think it really lended itself to creating lots of energy in the arena, energy for the cheerleaders to feed off of.

I wasn’t wrong.

The routine was this weird blend of dance and cheer, some girls doing tumbling passes while others did the famous zombie dance behind them. It was all out of sync and the audience wasn’t entirely sure how to take it. There was some clapping, some nervous laughter and some confusion. The girls were admirably trying to hold the routine together, but even they didn’t even seem sure as to what they were trying to accomplish.

Greta Mathisen was still rigid on the bleacher bench, but I could see her eyes were flitting around, gauging the reaction of everyone in the stands. I wasn’t an expert, but I knew she couldn’t have been pleased. The energy that had permeated the gym during the earlier performances had dissipated. Slowly, her plastered-on smile flattened out. Her lips clamped together as she realized that her team – and the routine she was responsible for – wasn’t going over the way she’d probably hoped.

The finale to their act was a basket toss – Brenda was helping me with the lingo – and when the girl in the basket got tossed, she did another zombie pose high up in the air. I’m sure at some point, Greta Mathisen thought it might look different or unique, but to me, all it looked like was that she’d lost her composure and was flailing in the air.

When the music stopped and the zombies froze, the gym was quiet for a moment. Painfully so. And then a few hands clapped together and the applause started. But the genuine screaming and hooting and hollering that I’d witnessed from the bleachers with the other teams was not there.

“Told you,” Brenda whispered in my ear. “Interesting.”

“Uh...yeah.”

I watched Greta Mathisen rise stiffly from the bleachers and follow her kids out of the gym. She may have been slightly off her rocker, but I was sure even she had felt what everyone else in the gym did.

The routine hadn’t worked.

And by the way she walked, her shoulders slumped, a look of resignation on her face, she’d probably known it coming into the competition. Despite her boasts and predictions about winning and finally taking home the trophy, there was no way she could have thought that routine was going to trump all of the others, even if Moose River had been weakened by Amanda’s absence.

As the last team came out to perform, decked out in purple and yellow cheer outfits, bouncing around on the gym floor, it occurred to me that I could eliminate another suspect from my list.

If Greta Mathisen knew her team genuinely had no shot, there was no way she would’ve risked taking Amanda Pendleton.

THIRTY FOUR

Detective Hanborn was right.

That’s what kept running through my head as we drove home from the cheer competition. We’d stayed for the awards. Moose River Fusion came in second. Greta Mathisen, Maddie and their Cheerlicious Cheetahs came in next to last. Which, in retrospect, seemed like somewhat of a victory in itself. But as we drove home, I just couldn’t shake the idea that all of my conjecture about Amanda having been kidnapped was probably all wrong and Hanborn had been right to smirk at me and dismiss me like I had no clue what I was doing.

“Mom, can we get pizza?” Will asked.

“No. I’m making dinner.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“How about French fries?”

“Oh, fries sound good,” Sophie chimed in.

“And a shake,” Grace said. “No, wait. A smoothie. Mom, can we get smoothies?”

“You all act like I haven’t fed you today,” I said.

“Lunch was hours ago,” Will said. “And we already had to buy our own snacks…”

“Yeah, my candy cost a whole dollar,” Grace said. “And Sophie’s charging incense so I really own her a dollar and ten cents.”

“Interest,” Will corrected her.

I wondered if someone had stuck a sign on me, indicating what buttons to push to get what they wanted. Guilt always worked wonders. And all of these kids knew it.

I pulled into the first fast food restaurant I saw and got into the drive-thru lane. All three kids cheered loudly and, for a split second, it sounded like I’d been transported back to the arena and the cheer competition.

“Shh,” I said, eyeing them in the rearview mirror. “If they can’t hear me, I can’t order.”

They piped down immediately and I ordered them fries and smoothies. Not the best of dinners, but at least there was fruit in their drinks. I hoped.

As we sat idling in the line waiting for our food, I couldn’t fight off the feeling of dejection. I’d been wrong about Madison and Eleanor Bandersand. I’d been wrong about Greta Mathisen. I’d been wrong about everything.

I’d started to warm to Jake’s idea of getting my private investigator’s license. But if I’d missed so badly on this, if my guesses had been completely wrong, I didn’t feel very confident about people eventually paying me money to solve their mysteries. Being curious was far different than being a detective. I was good at being curious, but I wasn’t sure I would be any good at being a detective.

We reached the window and I handed cash out the window to the disinterested clerk. She took it, handed me my change back and told me it would be just another minute.

“Why do they call it fast food if it’s not fast?” Grace asked.

“Because it’s supposed to be fast,” Will answered.

“But it’s not. It’s slow.”

“Yeah, it’s not you like you just drive up and its ready and we can reach in the window and grab it,” Sophie said.