Killer Image (An Allison Campbell Mystery) by Wendy Tyson Page A

the clothes, the hair, the piercings, were all designed to hide an insecure teenage girl from scrutiny. A mask of sorts, hiding the real Maggie. But Allison couldn’t get a sense of what, exactly, Maggie was most afraid of—changing or not changing. Success or failure. She realized she couldn’t really relate to Maggie’s plight and the thought made her angry. How could someone who could have it all, especially the freedom and acceptance that go hand-in-hand with power and money, so blatantly throw it all away?
    Don’t be silly, Al, she thought. You’ve seen enough to know that money cannot buy happiness. The saying was cliché for a reason.
    Allison stood up, walked to the small window over the desk, and looked outside. The sun shone. The oak trees that lined the street remained bare, but Allison could make out tiny nubs of green. Harbingers of spring. Hope and rebirth. She took a deep breath and turned to face Maggie.
    “Get your coat,” Allison said. “We’re leaving.”

    “Where are we going?” Maggie asked. They were outside by Allison’s car, and Maggie’s ungloved fingers twirled a pentagram necklace around at the hollow of her throat.
    “Get in and I’ll explain.”
    Maggie climbed in, sat back, and said, “Tell me where you’re taking me.”
    “The mall.”
    “I don’t want to go to the mall.”
    “Please put your seatbelt on.”
    “I don’t want to wear my seatbelt.”
    Lord . Allison rubbed her temple and wondered, yet again, about the wisdom of agreeing to this task. Maggie was a nightmare of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Allison felt more like a babysitter than an image consultant. And she had no idea what she was going to do once she got Maggie to the mall. But nearly three long hours stretched before her and she needed to think of something.
    She waited for Maggie to buckle her seatbelt. And while she waited, she thought of Violet.
    A sense of futility weighed down on Allison.
    As it had at the Meadows.
    To a younger Allison, the name the Meadows had initially conjured up pictures of peaceful plains, resort-like rooms with clean corners and cheerful staff. Somewhere mildly neurotic children went to find comfort and understanding and the emotional space to heal.
    She couldn’t have been further from reality.
    The building that housed the Meadows treatment facility was tall and imposing, a plain brick box with barred windows and a steel-door entryway. Instead of the rolling meadows the name suggested, a depressing mixture of scrubby lawn and low-trimmed hedges, plain and browning and uninspired, surrounded the building within the confines of a six-foot chain-link fence. A single-lane driveway led through the hedges to and around the front of the building and then disappeared around back, ending at the facility’s parking lot.
    The reception area had been carefully planned to give off an air of homey welcome. Plants surrounded a large oak reception desk. An oriental rug sat beneath chairs and a low round table, on which a carefully selected array of magazines— Cricket, Good Housekeeping, Parent, Car and Driver —had been arranged in a semi-circle. The walls were beige; the light fixtures illuminated the room in a soft glow and kept the corners dark.
    But if you looked closely, and Allison had, you’d see that beyond the reception desk, on the other end of a beige hallway, stood another metal door. Beyond that door, the homey atmosphere ended. Beyond that door were gray corridors and metal bars and stained furniture bolted to the floors. Beyond that door you could hear the shrieks and moans of girls who missed their mothers or their boyfriends or their crack. You could see the care-worn faces of staff burned out from too little pay and too much responsibility. You could smell the hopelessness.
    Allison came to learn that, for many, the Meadows was the last stop, a residential treatment program where Pennsylvania counties sent their worst female offenders–and their most horribly