Free Kill You Last by Todd Strasser

diploma.”
    Whit paused as if he knew I needed a moment to digest what he’d said. Then he added, “That’s going to be my next story.”
    “But won’t that imply that my dad’s somehow involved?” I asked.
    His eyebrows dipped as if he didn’t see the connection. “I don’t even plan to mention him in the article. All I’m going to say is that, based on the interviews I’ve done, it appears unlikely that the girls ran away.”
    I felt myself getting upset. “Everyone already thinks my father’s the number one suspect, and now you’re going to write a story that says they weren’t the kind of girls who’d run away. So that implies that something bad must have happened to them. It’s just going to make it worse for my dad.” I almost added, Especially after this morning’s news from that girl claiming Dad was running a scam, but I decided against it.
    “I honestly don’t think people will see it that way,” Whit said.
    “Oh, come off it,” I snapped angrily. “You and I both know that’s exactly the way they’ll see it!”
    Whit didn’t reply. He just stood there like a big dumb galoot. I got into my car, slammed the door, and peeled out of the parking lot.

    Mom wasn’t home when I got there, so I went online to check the latest developments. There was nothing new in the local news, and I was secretly glad to see that the papers in Scranton and Trenton had beaten Whit to the story about the girls not being the type to want to run away. Good, maybe he’d give up on becoming a journalist and go away.
    When I heard the back door open downstairs, I went down to the kitchen. Mom was sitting at the table, reading the Soundview Gazette . I glanced at the oven and realized there was a frozen pizza inside. It was hard to remember the last time she hadn’t prepared dinner herself.
    “Hey, what’s up?” I asked.
    “How was your day?” she asked back.
    “Difficult.” I told her how I’d gone to the studio at lunch and had seen the detectives going through Dad’s files. And how Dad had admitted that Janet looked for modeling prospects at the malls and sometimes picked girls who didn’t really have a chance at a career. “Dad said he did it for us.”
    “What?” Mom’s voice shook with consternation.
    “He was trying to make enough money so that we could live the way we do,” I said. “That’s true, isn’t it? I mean, about his not being able to make enough money from the work he gets in the studio? Two days ago, he was doing a Chinese food menu.”
    Mom made an odd motion with her head. “I suppose.”
    “I just wish he’d said something to us. I don’t have to have my own car. I could have done with less. I guess men are funny that way. If he couldn’t make enough to support us, it was like admitting he was a failure.”
    Mom sighed mysteriously. I wished she’d tell me what she was thinking. It wasn’t like she was protecting me from some terrible truth by not sharing her feelings.
    The kitchen phone rang. Mom studied the readout, then picked up the receiver. “Yes? Uh-huh. Okay.” She hung up and turned to gaze out the kitchen window. By now it was dark, and all I imagined she could see were the streetlights.
    “Mom? What was it?” I asked.
    Without turning she said, “Your father. They’re taking him to the police station…for questioning.”

Chapter 18
    THE NEWS WAS jolting. “Questioning? But yesterday, Chief Jenkins said he wasn’t a suspect. He said they had no evidence….”
    Mom didn’t answer. It was understandable, since she probably knew no more than I did. But I had to believe that something about the investigation had changed. With all those police departments and media people involved, new information must have been turning up all the time. Just because Dad hadn’t been a suspect yesterday was no reason to think he couldn’t be one today. Once again, I felt my eyes grow watery.
    “I don’t understand,” I said anxiously. “I mean, Dad might have