The Missing Place by Sophie Littlefield Page B

is covering up safety issues. I mean, that doesn’t even sound like a police thing, that’s got to be federal or OSHA—or, I don’t know, but if the boys got tangled up in something like that, the Lawton police aren’t going to be any help at all. But Shay—she knows her son. Knows him the way only a mother can.”
    She paused, trying to gauge the effect her words were having, desperately hoping Jennie’s mother wasn’t one of those women who turned their nearly grown children out into the world with indifference, who’d parented her with resentment or worse. “If there’s anything, any clue, to be found in his things, it’s Ms. Capparelli who will be able to figure it out, don’t you see? If there’s something out of the ordinary, something that showed he strayed from his habits or got into something new—if there’s names on his phone that she doesn’t recognize—things like that.”
    â€œBut . . .” Jennie wouldn’t look at her. “There could be DNA . . . all kinds of evidence. I don’t think you’re even supposed to touch stuff without gloves and, I don’t know. It’s supposed to be processed. ”
    Colleen nodded, wincing because the girl had a point. Maybeshe was making a mistake here, risking destroying clues that could lead to the truth.
    But Weyant had been very clear: no one was lighting a fire to process the things Taylor had left behind. Even if they had the lab, the equipment, they weren’t making an effort to examine a bunch of dirty laundry for clues. And they wouldn’t, unless the unthinkable happened . . . and then, what would it matter?
    And the other , the terrible little voice inside her nagged. The other reason. The one she would not give credence to, that she would not entertain for one second, because it meant a breach of faith in her son so wide and deep that she wasn’t sure she could ever come back from it.
    â€œSweetheart, I think that’s mostly on TV,” Colleen said shakily. And then she told a lie which, since it was a point of some honor with her to be as truthful as she could, always—a core family value, so to speak—surprised her with the ease with which it tripped off her lips. “I saw a documentary where they were saying that eighty percent of what we see on those shows is either impossible or police departments aren’t equipped to handle it. In most cases evidence ends up in lockers and is never even looked at unless a case goes to court, and even then it gets lost or damaged way more often than you’d think. And I just can’t—Taylor’s mom and I can’t take the risk of that happening. You understand . . . don’t you?”
    Jennie bit her lip, but she didn’t look away.
    â€œThere’s one more thing,” Colleen said, reaching for her purse. “Now I know you’ll try to say no, because I can tell you were raised the way I raised my own son. You want to help just out of decency, but I also know you’re a young woman starting out, and it’s so hard these days, isn’t it? I am going to give this to you whether you decide to help me get Taylor’s things or not. It, well, it means something tome, more than you can imagine, that you remember Paul and that you—”
    Her voice broke, and suddenly the line between lie and truth blurred, and she was speaking more deeply from her heart than she’d intended. “That you said he was a nice boy,” she finished in her broken voice. She took Jennie’s hand and pressed the folded bills into her palm, closing her fingers over the money and squeezing. It was three hundred dollars, everything she’d withdrawn from the ATM.
    â€œOh, ma’am . . . I couldn’t,” Jennie said.
    â€œYes. Yes, you can, sweetheart. Let me do this. Let me do a nice thing for you, it will help me ,