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“Now we wait for the DNA results.”
Melissa drew a shaky breath. She looked like she hadn’t slept. Her blond hair was tied back in a messy ponytail. Dark circles ringed her eyes. Whether those dark circles were due to the stress, or the fussy baby, or Will Faulkner, he didn’t know.
“This is a nightmare,” she said, mostly to herself.
“Why don’t we all sit down?” Will suggested, the genial host. “Do you want me to take the baby, Miss?”
“No. I’ve got her.” She hefted the little one up on her hip.
“How old is she?” Nick asked as they moved into a family room where the television over the fireplace was silently showing news coverage of the outside of the house.
“Six months.”
“Teething?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s not letting you get much sleep, then, is she?”
Melissa settled into the corner of a thick tufted love seat the color of caramel with the baby on her lap. “I wouldn’t have gotten any last night anyway. That wind! I thought someone was trying to break into the house. And then I got this creepy phone call…”
“What was the call?”
“Well, it was nothing,” she said. “No one said anything. I don’t normally answer if I don’t recognize the number, but it was the middle of the night. Who calls in the middle of the night? Emergencies, right? I thought maybe it was something to do with Marc. But I answered and no one said anything. It sounds stupid now, but it scared me. I already thought someone was watching me, and thenthat. I kept saying hello, but nobody answered, and I thought I could hear the wind and the trees over the phone. It freaked me out. I called Will and asked him to come over.”
“You live nearby?” Nick asked.
“Yes. I’m just a few blocks away,” Will said, perching a hip on the arm of the love seat beside Melissa. They looked like they were posing for a casual family photo. “I came right over. I looked around the yard, but I didn’t see anyone. There was a loose shutter. That was probably the banging noise that woke her.”
“Did you recognize the phone number?” Nick asked.
“No. It was a local number, though,” Will said. “I called it back on Miss’s phone. The call went straight to voicemail. Automated voicemail, you know. There was no name or anything.”
“I’ll need that number.”
“Of course. Where’d you leave your phone, Miss? I’ll go get it.”
“In the kitchen,” Melissa said.
“I was so rattled,” she said to Nick. “I didn’t want to be alone. Kiki had called about a hundred times last night, drunk, accusing me of everything from adultery to murder. I wouldn’t have put it past her to come creeping around. I’m sure it sounds crazy, but I kept thinking she might come in and try to take Madeline. She’s obsessed. It’s unhealthy.”
“More than the average grandmother?” Nick asked.
“If you’ve been around her for more than ten minutes, you know how she is about Marc. Marc this, Marc that. Maddie is an extension of Marc. You’d think he hatched her and I had nothing to do with it at all. That would certainly make Kiki happy if it were true.” She laughed. “What am I saying? She’s delusional and irrational. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“We think Kiki might have given this address to the media,” Will said, returning from the kitchen with Melissa’s cell phone. “Marc and Miss are unlisted. They rent the house from me. How’d they find this address without someone telling them?”
“Can’t you do anything about those people?” Melissa asked. “They’ve been out there since this morning.”
“I called the police,” Will said. “But they’re out there doing nothing.”
“If the reporters don’t come on your property and they aren’t making a public nuisance, there’s not much we can do,” Nick said. “The sheriff is giving a press briefing in a couple of hours. They’ll decamp for that. In the meantime, don’t engage them. Their airtime is money, so if they’re not getting anything for their trouble, they’ll have to move on. Right now, they’re mostly interested in you, Will.”
“In me?”
“Mrs. Mercier’s husband is missing, and another man spent the night in his house. Whatever your relationship may be in fact, the optics are not good.”
“We’re not sleeping together,” Will said, looking him dead in the eyes.
