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Holly moaned. “I didn’t want to get Liv into that much trouble. Poor kid. If I talked to Catherine, would she change her mind?”
    “I doubt it. She fell asleep twice over dinner, which means she’s really upset. And when she starts citing ‘The Smallwood Way’, she’s pretty much made up her mind. My mother can be the queen of stubborn.”
    Holly leaned on her hand, trying to think of how to fix the situation. She didn’t want Liv despondent. The girl had been through a lot already. “But, really, running off today wasn’t so bad. She thought she was helping her friend. I need to be smarter about her motives, learn to read her better. It didn’t occur to me she’d have a plan and allies. Yesterday, it was spontaneous.”
    “Yesterday?” Mike asked. “What happened yesterday?”
    Oh, God, now I’ve done it. “She was, uh, a little reluctant to leave school. It took some fancy footwork and bargaining on my part.”
    “Such as…?”
    “I promised my brother would star in her video. It’s all right,” Holly said quickly. “He’s agreed to take part. I just thought Liv would keep her deal.”
    “She learned deceit from her mother,” Mike muttered, looking away.
    “About Liv’s mother,” Holly began, but then her phone buzzed.
    It was Dan. “Sorry. We’ll have to reschedule dinner. There’s been a development in the kidnapping case.”
    “You’ve found them? Oh, please say you’ve found them alive.”
    “No.” Dan’s voice went flat. “We’ve found something else.”

CHAPTER NINE
    Day 6—Thursday
    Holly clutched her phone. She told Dan, “You can’t just say you found ‘something’ and leave it at that!”
    “It’s police business.”
    “Not good enough. You want me to tell you if Liv remembers anything about Ariel Kelly’s kidnapping, don’t you?”
    Silence. Then, “Do you have a police-band scanner?”
    “No.”
    “Well, if you did, you’d hear something’s going on at the Fens.”
    “Fens?” Holly asked. “Where’s that?”
    “In the Back Bay. Off Agassiz.” Dan added, “Look, I hate to stand you up for dinner. Another time?”
    “Sure.”
    Dan clicked off, and Holly turned to Mike. “You heard what he said?”
    “Hard not to when you’re sitting a foot away. So?”
    “So you have a car outside.” Holly plucked at Mike’s sleeve. “You can drive us there.”
    “No way!” He shook off her grip. “I’ll lose my parking spot. What’s wrong with your motorcycle?”
    Holly pretended to consider that option. “After you help me move an eight-hundred pound bike from the corridor up the steps to the street, I’ll be on my way.”
    “Ah. Hadn’t thought of that. Still, why go? It isn’t our business.”
    “Yes, it is.” Holly crossed her arms. “If they found—God forbid—a body, then Liv will be affected. It could be one of her friends. She shouldn’t get the news from the Internet. She should be told gently, by someone she trusts. She’s mad at me, so it has to be you or her grandmother. Either way, we need to know what’s up.”
    Mike sighed. “All right. I’ll get my coat.”
    Holly climbed into his black BMW. She guessed it was one of the more upscale models because the instrument panel looked like a starship. Mike used the video monitor to squeeze out of the tight parking space while Holly enjoyed the leathery-good smell and the subtle luxury of gleaming wood on doors, console and dash. She saw no personal items, not even Kleenex or mints. Holly marveled at Mike’s neatness; both her brothers were slobs, and she couldn’t claim to be better. Her car was a rolling purse.
    Apparently feeling chatty, Mike gave Holly a history lesson while he drove. The Fens, he said, were the remnants of wetlands that once occupied the entire Back Bay. “After The Hill filled up, people wanted space to expand. They cleared most of the land for building but left some open for drainage. The Fens are parks and gardens surrounding the Muddy River.”
    They