Page 97 of The Sleeping Girls

Get your mind focused on the case. Every second counts.“What time did you last see Bianca?”

“When we got home from the school about ten this morning,” she said.

“You picked her up?”

“Yes.” She wiped at her teary eyes. “The principal called us and s… said she was suspended.”

Ellie wasn’t surprised. “Then what happened?”

“We were all upset,” she continued. “She went to her room.” She licked her lips. “And my husband was going to look at boarding schools.”

“He told Bianca that?”

She nodded. “Bianca ran to her room and slammed the door. That… that’s the last time I saw her.”

“When did you discover she was gone?”

“I had to go out for a while then looked in on her when I got back about two and she was upstairs so I rested for a while. When I got up about four, I checked again and she was gone. At first, I thought she might be outside but I looked and then called her friends but they hadn’t heard from her.” Her voice cracked. “Then this picture came through, and my husband called the police.”

If the picture wasn’t a replica of how the other girls were posed, Ellie might suspect the couple, the father, had done something to Bianca out of anger that she’d gotten suspended. But they hadn’t shown the photograph to the press.

“Mrs. Copenhagen, can you please show me Bianca’s room? We’ll also need her phone and computer.”

She stood on wobbly legs and led the way to the staircase. Ellie held the rail as it spiraled up the two-story foyer, her feet slick on the marble floor. Wood floors gleamed on the second floor, and she surveyed Bianca’s room as she entered. Nice brass bed. Plush bedding. The room resembled a designer showroom and the mother’s taste, not a teen’s room. Expensive art on the wall. No posters, trophies or personal photographs. Except for the backpack on the floor, the room was neat and sparse.

Mrs. Copenhagen walked to the bed and smoothed a wrinkle in the comforter.

“Does anything look out of place?” Ellie asked. “Or is anything missing?”

The mother glanced around the room then walked to the closet and looked inside. “No, not that I can see.” She paused. “Wait, her raincoat is not here.”

Ellie considered the missing jacket. If Bianca had gone out on her own, she would have taken it. And if the killer had been stalking her, he could have snatched her then.

ONE HUNDRED EIGHT

Derrick studied Mr. Copenhagen’s body language as he relayed what had happened at school.

“Suspending Bianca was totally an overreaction and we will look into grounds for suing the school, but I’m sure they’ll argue that they were protecting their reputation.” He scoffed as if the school was subpar.

The temptation to put the man in his place bugged Derrick, but he bit back a retort. Kelsey and Ruby and their friends were working hard to earn scholarships and were excellent students who were total innocents in Bianca’s bullying.

Still, he didn’t want to see harm come to the girl. Although it might be too late.

He’d first sized the father up to being an arrogant rich prick who’d spoiled his daughter and shaped her into an entitled brat. The man’s gut reaction after the trouble she’d caused was to send her to a boarding school so she’d be someone else’s problem, or to rake her actions under the rug as if they hadn’t triggered harm to come to two other girls.

“I can’t believe some crazy person took her,” he said, his face beginning to sweat. “What kind of psycho kidnaps teenage girls?”

Now his own child was missing, Derrick heard true fatherly worry in his voice.

Didn’t matter. They had to find Bianca and stop this creep. Too many girls had already suffered. And Caitlin O’Connor, who fought to free innocents, was lying in the hospital fighting for her own life.

“Is it possible Bianca was angry and snuck out?” Derrick asked.

The man pressed his hands over his head. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe. She was really upset about that kid Mitch. She wanted them to go to Homecoming together and after being suspended, she may have called him.”

“That’s a good place to start,” Derrick said. They’d questioned Mitch about Kelsey. Although if the person who’d killed Anna Marie, taken Kelsey and Ruby and assaulted the O’Connor woman were one and the same, Mitch was too young to be the perpetrator.

“I need a list of all of Bianca’s friends so we can check in with them,” Derrick said.