Page 31 of The Trap by Catherine
“That’s a good idea,” Lucy said. “I’m sure that’d be fine.” She knew it would be, because when Jack said he wanted all of them, they both knew who was the most important one. “And what about you, Margaret?”
“No,” she said, folding her arms. “Not for him.”
Sarah frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It shouldn’t matter who is doing the interview,” Lucy said. “It’s all publicity. And he saidthisis going to be on the six o’clock news.”
“He’s not serious,” Margaret said. “Hisviewersaren’t serious. They want drama and blood and salaciousness. So if we go on, that’s what they’ll want fromus. What Jack Keane will. Haven’t you seen what kind of programs he makes? They’re horrendous. Sorry, but I will not get my Jennifer involved in something like that. Not all publicity is good publicity.” She paused. “And actually, I’ve decided to take a break from interviews. I’ve been doing so many of them lately...”
Lucy closed her eyes and began counting to ten, lest she stand up, grab the plate of biscuits, and hurl them directly at the head of this woman whose daughter was missing.
“Why can’t you do it yourself?” Margaret asked her. “If you’re so keen?”
“Because they want all of us,” Lucy said. She’d only made it to four.
“Well, some of us will just have to do.”
Margaret stood up then, preparing to leave.
Caroline stood up too.
“Margaret,” she said, “that’s not really fair. You know things are different for you. And Lucy is asking you to do this. If you asked her to do something that would help Jennifer, you know she would in a heartbeat.”
Tense, awkward silence.
Margaret fixed Caroline with the kind of stare super-villains display right before their eyes glow red and murderous laser-beams shoot out of them.
“You,” she said through clenched teeth, “shouldn’t even be here. What’s any of this got to do with you? We’ve lost daughters and a sister. What have you lost? Someone you used to know when you were in school that you hadn’t talked to in years? This isn’t even any of your business. How bloodydareyou.”
Caroline paled, and her bottom lip began to tremble.
Tommy said, “There’s no need for that language,” and everyone startled and turned toward the sound of his voice because they heard it so infrequently.
Lucy stood up too.
“Look,” she said, “I think we could all do with taking a breather here. Calm down a bit. Let me make more coffee and we can just have a think about this, OK?”
She needed a breather herself. She was going to go out the back and find something that would muffle a scream. She couldn’t stay in this room of broken people a moment longer, or she’d break herself.
She didn’t have the energy to remain afloat in this ocean whose surface was littered with the debris of these poor people’s lives, and her own.
“I can’t stay,” Margaret said, going to the door. “And my answer is no. You do whatever you have to do, but I won’t be a part of it.”
OFFICIAL SECRETS
An hour closer to Dublin, Denise pulled off the M11 and straight into a McDonald’s drive-thru.
It crossed Angela’s mind that since she’d answered that call from reception this morning, her PCT prep had completely fallen by the wayside, and yet spending time doing what felt like actual police work with Detective Denise Pope made her want to become a fully-fledged member of An Garda Síochána more than ever.
She opted for a chicken salad and a pineapple stick, then watched as Denise demolished a Big Mac in what seemed like the qualifying time for advancing to the next round in a competitive eating event.
How on earth did she look the way she did, eating like that?
After the case of why Denise was so interested in a three-and-a-half-year-old low-risk missing person report, that was the next mystery Angela wanted to solve.
“So,” Denise said, crumpling her empty McDonald’s bag into a ball. “Tell me. What do you know about Operation Tide?”
Angela happily abandoned her salad. She’d already eaten all the chicken pieces out of it anyway.
