Free Hold Back the Dark by Eileen Carr

couldn’t tell if Elise wanted to smack the girl as much as he did. She had a knack for looking all concerned and sympathetic; then when you least expected it, POW ! The tough broad inside nailed you. It was damn effective.
    Jenna looked up at her dad, who stood behind her at the kitchen table. “It’s just that Taylor and I have been friends for years. Absolute years,” Jenna wailed, which was pretty much the way she talked about everything. She wailed. She shrieked. Josh had a distaste for drama.
    “They went to kindergarten together,” Charles Norchester said. “They walked to school together when they were old enough to cross the street by themselves.”
    “But lately…” Jenna’s voice trailed off and she started with the lower lip quiver again.
    Josh was sure that the quiver thing melted her daddy’s heart, but it had been tried on him too many times by too many perps and too many girlfriends for it to affect him anymore. “Lately what?” he asked.
    “She started hanging with a different group of kids. She never wants to come over and hang out anymore. I had like this whole O.C. party where we wore bikinis and everything and watched the DVDs, and she wouldn’t even come. She said it was lame. All she wants to do is lie around and talk about…”
    Josh wanted to bang his head on the table when Jenna trailed off again.
    “Talk about what?” he asked, apparently a shade too quickly or a touch too sharply, since Elise kicked the back of his chair.
    Mr. Norchester crouched down next to Jenna’s chair. “It’s okay, honey. I know you want to honor the promise that you made your friend, but sometimes breaking your word is the right thing to do. I know it’s confusing and hard.”
    Josh wanted to gag. What was this, a freakin’ after-school special?
    “But she’ll never ever talk to me again. She said she wouldn’t if I told, and I don’t think she really cares if she does or not, anyway.” Jenna was crying now.
    “So you and Taylor had a falling-out?” Elise asked. “What was it about?”
    Jenna took a deep, quavery breath. “It wasn’t really about anything. Taylor just…changed.”
    Oh, great, Josh thought. Another discourse on Taylor’s mood changes.
    Elise put her hand on his shoulder and kept talking. “But she came over the other night. To study, right?” Her voice was a soft melody of concern and understanding.
    Jenna Norchester burst into tears again. Josh rolled his eyes and shoved the tissue box across the kitchen table. How could someone possibly think a promise made to a friend was more important than a homicide investigation?
    “We just said that—about the studying. We weren’t, really. I mean, there really was a test in World Civ and I studied for it. Really, Dad, I did.” She looked up at her father, who patted her again and assured her that he knew she had.
    “But Taylor didn’t study for the World Civ exam,” Elise said.
    Jenna shook her head. “No, she didn’t.”
    “What did Taylor do instead?” Josh asked.
    “She snuck out to see him. She made me promise not to tell,” Jenna whispered.
    Elise and Josh exchanged looks. So Taylor had not been here the entire evening, and she’d been with someone. Things were starting to get interesting. “Who did she sneak out to see, Jenna?” Elise asked.
    “Flick,” she mumbled.
    “Flick? Is that someone’s real name?” Josh had met enough Rainbows and Cedars and Sunshines to know how deeply the hippie movement had sent down its roots here, but Flick?
    “I don’t know his real name. Everybody calls him Flick,” Jenna said.
    “You don’t know it, or won’t tell it?” Josh asked.
    Jenna lifted her head high. “I don’t know it. I’m telling you, everybody calls him Flick.”
    Josh rose out of his seat. He’d had enough. If he had to take this little brat down to the station and lock her up for a while to get the information he needed, that was precisely what he was going to do.
    Elise put a hand on his arm.