Chapter Four
Ryan stared at her in surprise. "Amber, you spoke!" he exclaimed.
She ducked her head. "I understand what you're trying to tell me, I think," she said. She looked at him. "You don't want me to blame myself for Dad, because there was nothing I could have done. If I had come out, the bad man would have hurt me, too."
"Exactly," Ryan said, relieved. "You're a smart kid."
She smiled. "Thanks."
They didn't speak for a minute; Ryan didn't want to push her after making such great progress.
"Daddy and me used to leave secret messages for each other on the mirrors," she suddenly said.
Ryan smiled. "Oh, yeah?" he asked. "How'd you do that?"
"You just take your finger and write something on the glass," she explained, sounding more like a normal child every second. "Then to see it, you have to breathe on it like this."
She demonstrated, breathing out like someone trying to see their breath in cold air. Ryan chuckled.
"That's really cool," he said.
"You want to see something cool?" she said. "Look at this!"
She pointed to her open mouth and began wiggling a loose tooth with her tongue. Ryan smiled.
"That looks like it's ready to come out," he remarked.
"Yeah, but I'm not ripping it out," she told him. "I'm waiting till it falls out itself."
"I like your necklace," he said. "What is that?"
A flash of sadness crossed her face as she held up the delicate silver chain around her neck.
"They're angel wings," she said softly. "Daddy gave it to me. He said it would protect me."
Ryan smiled sadly. "It did."
She looked at him, blue eyes into hazel. Kindred spirits.
"Amber, I need to ask you some things about last night," he began gingerly. "Some of the questions might be hard, but if you ever want to stop, you just say so, okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay, here we go," he said. "Did you ever see or hear your dad fighting with anyone, either on the phone or in person?"
"Just my mom," she answered.
"Did you see the man that came into your house? Was it a man?"
She scrunched up her eyes to think. "It was a man, but I never saw him. I heard him talking, though."
"To who?"
"To my dad."
"What were they talking about?"
"Me, I think. The man wanted to know where I was."
"You heard this from under the bed?"
"Uh-huh."
"What were you doing under the bed?"
"I like to read under there with a flashlight," she explained. "It feels safe, like a cave. And Daddy can't see the light when I pull the box back in. I'm not supposed to stay up late."
"You said you heard the man from under the bed. Did you know who it was?"
"No, but Daddy did."
"What makes you say that?"
"He never said 'who are you' or 'what do you want.' He said 'what are you doing here.'"
Before Ryan could move on with his next question Amber suddenly interjected, "I know his voice from somewhere!"
"From where? Can you remember?"
She tried to think. "He talked funny. Like he was from another country or something. I think I've heard it before, though. I just can't remember where."
"That's great, Amber, keep thinking and try to remember."
{•}
When Shawna Roth strutted into the interrogation room, alarms began going off in both Horatio's and Natalia's minds. She did not look at all as if her husband had just been brutally murdered and her daughter had just been terrorized. Her eyes weren't red and weepy; they were perfectly made up with eyeliner and shadow. She didn't even seem sad. In fact, she seemed rather nervous about something.
Natalia and Horatio traded looks of bewilderment.
"Mrs. Roth," Natalia began, but the woman cut her off.
"It's Miss Peterson, please," she snapped.
"Right, sorry," Natalia amended, a bit peeved by the woman's waspish tone. "Miss Peterson, can you think of anyone who would want to hurt your family?"
"Martin did all kinds of shady business deals with people," Shawna retorted. "I'm sure half the city wanted to hurt him. Did you find Amber?"
"We did," Horatio said. "She was cowering under her bed, hiding from the man that slaughtered her father, whoever it was."
Shawna looked up at Horatio with dislike. He evenly returned her gaze.
"Good," she finally said. "When that officer came to my house looking for her I feared the worst. I thought someone had taken her."
"You didn't know about the sleepover at her friend's house?" Natalia asked.
Something that strangely resembled panic crossed Shawna's face. "No, I didn't," she said. "Can I see Amber?"
"She's being processed right now by our people upstairs," Horatio told her. "It may take a while, she's been through a lot."
{•}
"So, your mom's downstairs," Ryan said. "Would you like to see her?"
To his surprise, Amber began shaking her head fervently.
"Why not?" he asked, confused.
"I don't like her," Amber huffed. "She's a bad person."
Ryan didn't know what to say to that.
Something seemed to suddenly occur to Amber. "You're not going to make me go with her, are you?" she asked, pleading in her eyes.
"If you're not okay with something, we won't do it," Ryan assured her. "I don't want you to worry about anything."
Amber looked greatly relieved as she returned to her coloring. Ryan watched her, concerned.
Why did Amber fear her own mother?
{•}
"H, we can't let her take her!" Ryan exclaimed, trying to keep his voice down.
"Mr. Wolfe, we can't stop her from taking her child home," Horatio told him. "With Martin dead, she has rightful custody of Amber."
"Something is not right about that woman, H," Ryan said, a note of desperation in his voice. "Amber hates her!"
"I think your personal attachment to Amber may be compromising your professional view," Horatio pointed out, not unkindly.
Ryan sighed. "I know," he admitted. "But you would be compromised too if you spent as much time with that girl as I have. She's smart, sweet and scared out of her mind of going home with her mom."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wolfe, but we really don't have any options here."
{•}
Ryan watched as Shawna filled out the paperwork to take Amber home, his gut wrenching. The look Amber had given him when he told her haunted him. She had looked at him as if he had failed her… which he technically had. He couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes again.
Ryan looked down at the paperwork as he stood next to Shawna. His eyes froze at one section, her name. His heart began to race: he had seen that S before.
His mouth dropped open in disbelief. "Excuse me," he said, reaching for the paper. "I need to take this for a second."
Shawna glared at him exasperatedly. "Why?" she demanded.
"I, uh, need to make sure this is the right form," he lied quickly. "Wait here, please."
As he turned to leave he caught Tripp's eye. "Don't let them go anywhere," Ryan muttered to him under his breath.
Frank looked confused, but nodded all the same.
As Ryan hurried to the elevator, he caught Amber's eye. He winked. She grinned.
Ryan practically ran to fingerprinting. Walter was in there working on the little note Ryan had found in Amber's room.
"Walter, I need to see the note!"
"I'm done with it, you can have it."
"Were there any prints on it?"
"Just two stuck in the adhesive on the back. No matches in AFIS," Walter replied. "Why were you running?"
Ryan didn't answer, instead bent over the note with a magnifying glass, the paperwork he had taken laid next to it.
"What are you doing?" Walter asked.
Ryan looked up suddenly, his eyes wild. "They're the same!" he exclaimed.
"What's the same?"
"The S in 'Shawna' on this paperwork and the S in 'Second' on the note," Ryan explained hurriedly. "Amber's mom wrote both. She wrote the killer's directions!"