Free The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle Page A

Associates. Still business, just smaller, more informal. Like the party scheduled for tonight.” Was this about money? Some kind of corporate scandal involving Mark? Sarah couldn’t get a grasp on the questions.
    Kramble leaned forward. “Did you stay for those parties?”
    “No, I’d just drop off the food, or cook it here, and then leave. That’s what most of my jobs are.”
    Kramble looked at the other cops, and Sarah sensed an excitement. “We’re very interested in these smaller parties. You said these parties were for Mark’s associates?”
    Sarah shrugged. What did this matter? “Sometimes. Once Courtney was sort of ‘wooing’ another physician they were trying to get to come to the hospital. They both have to schmooze a lot.” Courtney had complained about it. She got tired of being “on,” but it was the reality of their livelihoods.
    “Did you know any of the guests at the smaller parties?”
    “I never really met any of them. Usually I was gone before the guests arrived. Once or twice I crossed paths with people arriving, but I didn’t know them.”
    “Were there ever any children with those guests you saw?”
    Sarah blinked. What the hell was going on? She couldn’t follow where this questioning was going, didn’t like the expression that had been on Rodney’s face, didn’t like the red blush she felt crawling up her neck. “I . . .” She saw a skinny little blond girl on the periphery of her memory. Mark had been standing outside the kitchen door smoking a cigar with another guy when Sarah pulled up. The other guy went inside, but Mark smiled his Ken-doll smile and helped Sarah unload. When they went inside the kitchen, hadn’t there been a girl? A girl talking to the man? The girl had left the room when Sarah entered. But other than how embarrassingly schoolgirl-giddy Sarah became in Mark’s presence, she mostly remembered the cigars—how the man had taken his cigar inside and had stunk up the kitchen.
    “I do remember a little girl.” She saw the officers exchange a glance. “I saw her in the kitchen, and later she was upstairs with Jordan in Jordan’s room.”
    “Why were you in Jordan’s room, Mrs. Laden?”
    The tone of the question caused goose bumps to tiptoe up her spine, followed by prickling heat. “Courtney took me upstairs to see this new Jacuzzi; they’d had Jordan’s bathroom remodeled. But . . . mostly she took me upstairs, I think, to complain about this guy, this guest, who was smoking a cigar.”
    “What did the little girl look like?”
    “She had blond hair—almost white-blond—in two pigtails with ribbons. She was skinny, leggy. I’d guess she was nine or ten, maybe.”
    “Could you identify her in a photo if asked?”
    The question caused real fear to fill her mouth with the tang of metal. “ Why? What does this girl have to do with you searching this house?” Was someone dead? Had they found the girl’s body here?
    “Did you see anything unusual in Jordan’s room? Or in his bathroom? Any signs of illness or injury?”
    Sarah sensed that they were all holding their breath, that they were finally to the point. “Is . . . is this about Jordan?”
    Kramble leaned toward her. “What do you mean?”
    “Jordan and his drug use?”
    “Did you think he used drugs?”
    “Well, no, not before yesterday I didn’t, but”—Sarah lowered her voice, not knowing if Jordan might be able to hear her—“looking back now, there were signs I guess we all missed. He’s always in a trance, it seems. Lost in his head. It makes him seem almost . . . slow.”
    “He was considered gifted at school,” the woman officer snapped, as if Sarah had insulted the woman’s own child.
    “Yes, I know,” Sarah said. “He’s gifted academically, but socially he has problems. He doesn’t get along with other kids. They say he’s stuck up. I think he’s just painfully shy, but it can come across as sullen or aloof. He’s always alone and never looks happy.” She