At seven-thirty kids in the neighborhood began drifting out of their homes and wandering past me toward the school bus stop at the end of the block. Molly emerged from the Seabright house pulling a wheeled book bag behind her, looking like a miniature corporate exec on her way to catch a plane. I got out of my car and leaned back against it with my arms crossed. She spotted me from twenty feet away.

"I've reconsidered," I said as she stopped in front of me. "I'll help you find your sister." She didn't smile. She didn't jump for joy. She stared up at me and said, "Why?" "Because I don't like the people your sister was mixed up with." "Do you think something bad has happened to her?" "We know something has happened to her," I said. "She was here and now she isn't. Whether or not it's something bad remains to be seen." Molly nodded at that, apparently pleased I hadn't tried to falsely rea.s.sure her. Most adults speak tochildren as if they're stupid simply because they haven't lived as many years. Molly Seabright wasn't stupid. She was smart and she was brave. I wasn't going to talk down to her. I had even decided not tolie to her if I could help myself. "But if you're not a private investigator, what good are you?" she asked. I shrugged. "How hard can it be? Ask a few questions, make a few phone calls. It's not brain surgery." She considered my answer. Or maybe she was considering whether or not to say what she said next.

"You were a sheriff's detective once." I might have been that stunned if she had reached up and hit me in the head with a hammer. I whowouldn't talk down to a child. It hadn't occurred to me Molly Seabright would run home and do her own detective work online. I felt suddenly naked, exposed in that way I had earlier convinced myself wasunlikely to happen. Blindsided by a twelve-year-old. I glanced away. "Is that your bus?" A school bus had pulled up to the curb and the children gathered there were clambering aboard. "I walk," she said primly. "I found a story about you in the computer archives of the Post."

"Only one? I'm offended." "More than one." "Okay, so my dirty secret is exposed. I was a detective for Palm Beach County. Now I'm not." She understood to leave it at that. Wiser than most people I've known three times her age. "We need to discuss your fee," she said. Ms. Business. "I'll take the hundred you offered and we'll see what happens." "I appreciate that you're not trying to patronize me." "I just said I'd take a hundred dollars from a kid. Sounds pretty low to me." "No," she said, those too-serious eyes staring at me through the magnifying lenses of the Harry Potter gla.s.ses. "I don't think so." She put her hand out. "Thank you for accepting my case."

"Jesus. You make me feel like we should sign a contract," I said, shaking her hand.

"Technically, we should. But I trust you."

"Why would you trust me?"

I had the feeling she had an answer, but that she thought it might be too much for me to comprehend and

so thought better of sharing it with me. I began to wonder if she was really from this planet. "Just because," she said. A child's pat answer to people who aren't really paying attention. I let it go. "I'll need some information from you. A photograph of Erin, her address, make and model of her car, that sort of thing."

As I was asking, she bent down, unzipped a compartment of her book bag, and withdrew a manilaenvelope, which she handed to me. "You'll find everything in there." "Of course." I shouldn't have been surprised. "And when you went to the sheriff's department, who did you speak with?"

"Detective Landry. Do you know him?"

"I know who he is."

"He was very rude and condescending."

"So was I."

"You weren't condescending."

A black Jag backed out of the Seabright garage, a suit at the wheel. Bruce Seabright, I a.s.sumed. He

turned away from us and drove down the street. "Is your mother home?" I asked. "I'll need to speak with her." The prospect didn't thrill her. She looked a little nauseated. "She goes to work at nine. She's a real estate agent."

"I'll have to speak with her, Molly. And with your stepfather, too. I'll leave you out of it. I'll tell them I'm an insurance investigator."

She nodded, still looking grim.

"You should leave for school now. I don't want to be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor."

"No," she said, heading back toward the house, head up, her little book case rattling along on the sidewalk behind her. We should all have so much character.

K rystal Seabright was on a cordless phone when Molly and I walked into the house. She was leaning over a hall table, peering into an ornate rococo mirror, trying to stick down a false eyelash with a long pink fingernail while she chattered to someone about an absolutely fabulous town house in Sag Harbor Court. No one would have picked her out of a lineup as Molly's mother. Having met Molly first, I might have pictured her mother as a b.u.t.toned-up attorney or a doctor or a nuclear physicist. I might have, except that I knew firsthand children and parents didn't always match.

Krystal was a bottle blonde who'd used one too many bottles in her thirty-some years. Her hair was nearly white and looked as fragile as cotton candy. She wore just a little too much makeup. Her pink suit was a little too tight and a little too bright, her sandals a little too tall in the spike heel. She glanced at us out of the corner of her eye.

". . . I can fax you all the details as soon as I get to my office, Joan. But you really need to see it to appreciate it. Places like this just aren't available now during the season. You're so lucky this just came up."

She turned away from the mirror and looked at me, then at Molly with a what now? expression, but continued her conversation with the invisible Joan, setting up an appointment at eleven, scribbling it into a messy daybook. Finally she set the phone aside.

"Molly? What's going on?" she asked, looking at me, not her daughter.

"This is Ms. Estes," Molly said. "She's an investigator."

Krystal looked at me like I might have beamed down from Mars. "A what?"

"She wants to talk to you about Erin."

Fury swept up Krystal's face like a flash fire burning into the roots of her hair. "Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Molly! I can't believe you did this! What is the matter with you?"

The hurt in Molly's eyes was sharp enough that I felt it myself.

"I told you something bad's happened," Molly insisted.

"I can't believe you do these things!" Krystal ranted, her frustration with her younger daughter clearly nothing new. "Thank G.o.d Bruce isn't here."

"Mrs. Seabright," I said, "I'm looking into a case at the equestrian center which might involve your daughter Erin. I'd like to speak with you in private, if possible."

She looked at me, wild-eyed, still angry. "There's nothing to discuss. We don't know anything about what goes on over there."

"But Mom-" Molly started, desperately wanting her mother to care. Her mother turned a withering, bitter look on her. "If you've told this woman some ridiculous story, you're going to be in such hot water, young lady. I can't believe the trouble you're making. You don't haveany consideration for anyone but yourself."

Two red dots colored Molly's otherwise paste-pale cheeks. I thought she might start to cry. "I'm

worried about Erin," she said in a small voice. "Erin is the last person anyone needs to worry about," Krystal said. "Go to school. Go. Get out of thishouse. I'm so angry with you right now . . . If you're late for school you can just sit in detention thisafternoon. Don't bother calling me."

I wanted to grab a handful of Krystal Seabright's overprocessed hair and shake her until the hair broke

off in my fist.

Molly turned and went outside, leaving the front door wide open. The sight of her wheeling away her little book bag made my heart ache.

"You can leave right behind her," Krystal Seabright said to me. "Or I can call the police."

I turned back to face her and said nothing for a moment while I tried to wrestle my temper into submission. I was reminded of the fact that I had been a terrible patrol officer when I'd first gone on the job because I lacked the requisite diplomatic skills for domestic situations. I have always been of the

opinion that some people really do just need to be b.i.t.c.h-slapped. Molly's mother was one of thosepeople. Krystal was trembling like a Chihuahua, having some control issues of her own. "Mrs. Seabright, for what it's worth, Molly has nothing to do with this," I lied. "Oh? She hasn't tried to tell you her sister has vanished and that we should be calling the police and the FBI and America's Most Wanted?" "I know that Erin hasn't been seen since Sunday afternoon. Doesn't that concern you?" "Are you implying I don't care about my children?" Again with the bug-eyes and the practiced affront- always a sign of low self-esteem. "I'm not implying anything." "Erin is an adult. At least in her own mind. She wanted to live on her own, take care of herself." "So you're not aware that she was working for a man who's been involved in schemes to defraud insurance agencies?" She looked confused. "She works for a horse trainer. That's what Molly said." "You haven't spoken with Erin?" "When she left she made it very clear she wanted nothing more to do with me. Living a decent life in a lovely home was just all too boring for her. After everything I've done for her and her sister . . ."

She went to the hall table, glanced at herself in the mirror, and dug her hand into a big pink and orange Kate Spade purse. She came out of the bag with a cigarette and a slim lighter, and moved toward the open front door.

"I've worked so hard, made so many sacrifices . . ." she said, more or less to herself, as if it comforted her to portray herself as the heroine of the story. She lit the cigarette and blew the smoke outside. "She's done nothing but give me grief since the night she was conceived."

"Does Erin's father live in the vicinity? Might she have gone to spend time with him?"

Krystal burst out laughing, but not with humor. She didn't look at me. "No. She wouldn't have donethat." "Where is her father?" "I wouldn't know. I haven't heard from him in fifteen years." "Do you know who Erin's friends are?" "What do you want with her?" she asked. "What's she done now?" "Nothing I'm aware of. She may have some information. I'd just like to ask her some questions about the man she's been working for. Has Erin been in trouble in the past?"

She leaned way out the door, took another hard drag on the cigarette, and exhaled the smoke at ahibiscus shrub. "I don't see that my family is any business of yours." "Has she ever been involved with drugs?" She snapped a look at me. "Is that what this is about? Is she mixed up with drug people? G.o.d. That's all I need."

"I'm concerned about where she's gone," I said. "Erin's disappearance happened to coincide with thedeath of a very expensive horse." "You think she killed a horse?" I thought my head might split in two. Krystal's concern seemed to be about everyone except her daughter. "I just want to ask her some questions about her boss. Do you have any idea where she might

have gone?"

She stepped outside, tapped her ash into a plant pot, and hopped back into the house. "Responsibility isn 't Erin's thing. She thinks being an adult means doing whatever you d.a.m.n well please. She's probably run off to South Beach with some boy."

"Does she have a boyfriend?"

She scowled and looked down at the tiled floor. Down and to the right: a lie. "How would I know? Shedoesn't check in with me." "Molly said she hasn't been able to reach Erin on her cell phone." "Molly." She puffed on the cigarette and tried to wave the smoke out toward the street. "Molly is twelve.

Molly thinks Erin is cool. Molly reads too many mystery novels and watches too much A&E. What kind of child watches A&E? Law and Order, Investigative Reports. When I was twelve I was watching Brady Bunch reruns."

"I think Molly has reason to be concerned, Mrs. Seabright. I think you might want to speak with the Sheriff's Office about filing a missing person's report."

Krystal Seabright looked horrified. Not at the prospect that her daughter might have been the victim of

foul play, but at the idea of someone from Binks Forest having to file a police report. What would the neighbors say? They might put two and two together and figure out her last house was a double-wide.

"Erin is not missing," she insisted. "She's just . . . gone somewhere, that's all." A teenage boy emerged through a door into the upstairs hall and came thudding down the stairs. Helooked maybe seventeen or eighteen and hungover. Gray-faced and glum, with platinum-tipped dark hairthat stood up in dirty tufts. His T-shirt looked slept in and worse. He didn't resemble Krystal or herdaughters. I made the a.s.sumption he belonged to Bruce Seabright, and wondered why Molly had madeno mention of him to me.

Krystal swore under her breath and surrept.i.tiously tossed her cigarette out the door. The boy's eyes

followed it, then went back to her. Busted.

"Chad? What are you doing home?" she asked. A whole new tone of voice. Nervous. Obsequious.

"Aren't you feeling well, honey? I thought you'd gone to school."

"I'm sick," he said.

"Oh. Oh. Uh . . . Would you like me to make you some toast?" she asked brightly. "I have to get to the office, but I could make you some toast."

"No, thank you."

"You were out awfully late last night," Krystal said sweetly. "You probably just need your sleep."

"Probably." Chad glanced at me, and slouched away.

Krystal scowled at me and spoke in a low voice. "Look: we don't need you. Just go away. Erin will turn

up when Erin needs something."

"What about Erin?" Chad asked. He had come back into the hall, a two-liter bottle of c.o.ke in one hand.

Breakfast of champions.

Krystal Seabright closed her eyes and huffed. "Nothing. Just- Nothing. Go back to bed, honey."

"I need to ask her some questions about the guy she works for," I said to the boy. "Do you happen to

know where I can find her?"

He shrugged and scratched his chest. "Sorry, I haven't seen her."

As he said it, the black Jag rolled back into the driveway. Krystal looked stricken. Chad disappeared