9

Interviews for Dwayne’s case were very easy to set up because the people in his life were eager to help. I appreciated it, as they bent over backward to be accommodating.

Dwayne’s parents lived right outside Murfreesboro, so it wasn’t much of a drive to get to them. Abby went with us, and honestly, at this point? I didn’t think I could stop her. She was fully invested in proving Dwayne innocent.

We pulled up to a horse ranch—it had a large red barn and everything. It was a sprawling place, with old trees, a white farmhouse, and several dogs that greeted us with barks. Any kid would love growing up here.

Maybe this was what Donovan and I should do in our retirement years. Live in a farmhouse and raise dogs. Sounded like heaven to me.

The dogs were excellent doorbells for their owners, and people came out quickly to stand on the porch.

Getting out, I waved to them. “Hi? Mr. and Mrs. Evans? I’m Jonathan Bane.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Evans rushed off the porch, and for a woman in her sixties, she could sure give a track runner competition. She had her dark hair buzzed short, makeup on, and she clearly worked hard because this woman was all muscle. I wouldn’t take her on in a dark alley, that was for sure.

She latched onto my hand, looking me right in the eye, and I could tell I was a harbinger of hope for her. She glowed with it. “Thank you. Thank you so much. My husband and I will do everything in our power to help you.”

I gripped her hand firmly, smiling back. “I know you will. First, the person you must thank is Abby. She’s the one who spotted your son and sent up the alert. Abby’s a Reader like I am.”

Mrs. Evans immediately switched to Abby. “Girl, I want to give you a hug.”

Abby laughed and threw her arms open wide. She got hugged tightly, rocking back and forth, and the happiness in that moment was something I wished I could bottle and keep.

The father wasn’t far behind his wife, and he shook hands with me too. “Cassius, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, sir. This is Donovan, my anchor and fiancé.”

Cassius shook hands with him, too, getting his measure. Donovan was used to this; everyone did it upon first meeting him.

“You all call me Serena,” Mrs. Evans encouraged, ushering us into the house. “I’ve got iced tea and warm blueberry muffins waiting inside.”

If we were getting fed, we were definitely on this woman’s good side. I didn’t doubt that.

“We asked our daughter’s best friend to stop by,” Cassius informed me as we walked toward the house. “Nina and Tylesia had no secrets, so I think she’ll be more helpful to you than we will be.”

“I actually wanted to talk to her next, so that’s extremely helpful. Thank you.”

“We’ll do everything we can,” Cassius reiterated. “Anything to get our boy out of prison. We never believed he killed his sister.”

I could see that, the strong belief pulsing in him. In this case, it was warranted. “We’ll help you.”

He smiled, and I had a feeling such a smile was rusty, but then again, he hadn’t had anything to smile about in the past year.

The farmhouse looked very comfortable. It was country style, with the quilts hanging on the walls and the lived-in furniture. We were taken through the living room and to the outer patio area, where the tea and muffins were set out on a long glass table. Phew, I could relax here. I wasn’t sure if I could’ve stayed inside their house without nuking something.

We settled at the table, the branches overhead swaying in the light breeze, and it was so incredibly peaceful. Especially with a dog promptly using my foot as a pillow. My cats were not going to be happy about that later tonight.

“First.” Donovan pulled out paperwork and offered it to Cassius. “It’s hard for us to see Dwayne right now. He’s being transferred out of max security to another section of the prison—”

Serena interrupted, confused. “I thought he had to be in max because he’s a psychic.”

I winked. “Got a judge to sign off on that yesterday. He’ll be moved to another section and given a therapist.”

My words were too much for Serena and she came around the table to hug me. Woman was a hugger, apparently, but I didn’t mind. I hugged her back.

Donovan continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “You said over the phone you’d be willing to pay some of our fees, and I just need you to sign the contract. Also, we bring good news. The judge officially reopened his case.”

Cassius pulled the paperwork straight over and started reading through it.

I gave him a second while I drank some good iced tea and devoured an excellent blueberry muffin. Damn, these were amazing. I wondered if she’d share the recipe. Probably, in this frame of mind.

Serena finally sat with us, sitting right next to Abby. Her lines were full of tangerine orange curiosity, interwoven with shamrock green trust. “Abby, you’re high school age, aren’t you?”

“I am, yeah. I’ll be a junior. Right now, I’m an apprentice, with Jon teaching me. It’s why I was in the prison to begin with. I was learning alongside him during parole hearings, and while we were walking out of the prison, I spotted Dwayne. He glowed so brightly, and there wasn’t any sign of crime or guilt in his lines, so I told Jon.”

“That’s how it happened.” Serena sat back, satisfied with the story. “I’m glad you were there.”

“Me too.”

I felt like we were in a good spot to start an interview, although I kept it casual. People talked more and tended to remember more when they weren’t stressed out. “So, before everything went to hell, when did you last speak with your daughter?”

“Oh, I want to say it was two days before.” Serena frowned, casting her mind back. “Close to that time. She was wrapping up a training course for her job—she worked alongside Dwayne—and was celebrating the end of it. She was happy.”

Grief welled up. It had to be hard for a parent to lose a child. I didn’t want to give her false hope by telling her something was very awry with the way her daughter disappeared. It could be she was dead, but honestly? I didn’t know what to believe. I had some very conflicting signals on the matter. On the one hand, the bond was acting like it was severed. On the other hand, Grant said it had not. I had no idea which was right, and I didn’t want to be irresponsible with my words.

Cassius tapped something on the contract. “Why is this downpayment section marked out?”

“Dwayne said he’ll pay us once he’s out,” Donovan explained.

“The hell he will.” Cassius snorted, outraged over the idea. “I’m paying to free my son. You wait right here, I’ll grab my checkbook.”

Well, Sharon would be happy to hear that. Not to mention Jim. Getting paid was always a good thing for us.

While he left, Abby spoke with Serena. “Dwayne’s all right. He’s super excited that we met him and believe him. He looked healthy and everything, so you don’t need to worry about him.”

I could see in the parents’ lines they visited with Dwayne often, but I didn’t want to interfere with the assurance Abby wanted to give them. It was kind of Abby to reassure a mother her child was okay.

“Thank you, honey.” Serena hugged her around the shoulders. “I do feel better hearing that.”

Cassius came back with not only his checkbook in hand, but a girl whom I only knew from pictures—Nina, Tylesia’s best friend. Nina was slim, with copper skin, her hair in small braids that turned blue toward the end.

“Nina’s here,” Cassius announced, as pleased as if he’d manifested her himself. “Nina, this is Donovan, Jon, and Abby. They’re the ones working on setting Dwayne free.”

She shook all of our hands, her lines both vindicated and pleased. “About time someone believed he didn’t do it. Thanks for taking on the case.”

“Thanks for coming,” I said, encouraging her to sit across from me with a gesture of my hand. “I was going to contact you next, so this saves time. First, I understand you and Tylesia had no secrets?”

“None. We talked about everything. Even boys, although she wasn’t as interested.”

“Why’s that?”

“Tylesia is—was—asexual and aromantic. Had absolutely no interest in dating. But she was always up for being my wingwoman if I needed one.” Nina drooped a little, sadness etching into her lines. “If she wasn’t with Dwayne, we did everything together. I miss her like I’d miss a limb.”

I could see her pain, and my heart broke for her. “I’m so sorry. If it helps, we know Dwayne didn’t kill her. In fact, a judge has officially reopened the case for investigation.”

Nina punched the air. “YES! Wow, you really have worked a miracle already to get that done this fast.”

“What can I say? We’re motivated.”

Donovan, at my side, quickly corrected, “No, not that amount. We’re giving you a friends and family discount.”

“Eh?” Cassius paused in writing the check, looking confused. “Why?”

“Solomon.” Donovan huffed out an annoyed breath. “The detective who was in charge of your children’s case is the worst buffoon of a policeman the world has ever seen. We’ve undone many of his cases in the past. We feel like anyone victimized by him has joined the We Hate Solomon club.”

Serena’s voice screeched upward. “You mean this man’s well-known to be stupid and he was in charge of my child’s future?!”

“Believe me, no one’s happy about him still working as a detective.” As an aside, I said, “Although this case might be the one to break his career. Because it was so well televised, the fallout when he’s proven incompetent to the world will not be pretty. Let us all pray this happens.”

“Amen.” Cassius huffed, red anger pulsing through his lines. “But I’ll pay you the full amount. You’ve already done work to help my boy, after all.”

If he wanted to, I wouldn’t stop him.

I went back to the interview. “Nina, think hard. Was Tylesia at all disturbed the day before she disappeared? Anything troubling her?”

“No, nothing like that. In fact, we were planning a party at her and Dwayne’s place because she’d finally finished a course that nearly melted her brain. We were all going there so we could play video games, binge eat too much food, just have fun.”

So this came with no warning? Hmm.

Abby surprised me by asking a question. “If she was ace, she probably didn’t have an ex, right?”

“No ex,” Nina confirmed. “She never dated.”

“What about stalkers?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, she had guys who flirted with her and didn’t take it well when she wasn’t interested, but no one was pushy about it after she rejected them.”

I didn’t completely write off a stalker because people didn’t always realize they were being stalked. I could see why Solomon leapt to blame Dwayne for all this if there weren’t the obvious suspects to be had.

Which did beg the question: What happened to the daughter?

Serena grabbed my hand and stared at me earnestly. “I looked up your agency after Donovan called, and I saw you have a woman who specializes in finding people. Can you have her search for Tylesia?”

It was the obvious question and I hated to answer it. Again, such hope might bite us all in the ass later. “Carol already tried. I say ‘tried’ because there’s something unusually wonky in your daughter’s case.”

“Wonky?” Serena didn’t seem to like the sound of that.

I didn’t blame her. “It wasn’t just her. I asked a favor of Grant Walker—you know who he is, he’s the one who finds most of the missing kids in Tennessee, you see him on the news all the time—and he tried searching for Tylesia as well. He said he couldn’t trace her, but he could almost get a lock on her. Ma’am, I’ll be honest, I have no idea what that means. Neither did Grant, nor Carol. It was a first for both of them. Whatever happened to Tylesia is very, very weird.”

“Then is she…alive?”

“I don’t know.” It was the truth. “I don’t know that she’s dead, either. Right now, everything is a question mark. What I do know is that we’re all very invested in finding an answer to this.”

Serena looked hopeful again. “You can’t blame a mother for hoping her little girl is alive.”

“No, ma’am, that I can’t. I will say, don’t put all your faith in the possibility until we can prove it one way or another. Solomon did such a shitty job investigating, right now we’re having to redo all of his work.”

“I understand, and thank you for the candor.” Serena looked toward her husband and got a nod, as if they’d had a full-on conversation. “We’ll do whatever we can to help you.”

“Appreciated. Focus now on keeping Dwayne’s spirits up. You’ll be able to see him much easier than before.”

“We’ll do that.”

I wasn’t the only one at the table hoping that, against all odds, Tylesia was alive. Whether such hope became reality was yet to be seen.