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Advance Reader’s e-proof

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This is an advance reader’s e-proof made from digital files of the uncorrected proofs. Readers are reminded that changes may be made prior to publication, including to the type, design, layout, or content, that are not reflected in this e-proof, and that this e-pub may not reflect the final edition. Any material to be quoted or excerpted in a review should be checked against the final published edition. Dates, prices, and manufacturing details are subject to change or cancellation without notice.

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UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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The next thrilling mystery from Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls and the Will Trent Series

WELCOME TO NORTH FALLS—a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think.

Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites.

For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend’s daughter needed help—and now she must bring her home.

But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did.

Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?

Dedication

for Kate and Kitty Sunshine, who’ve been

through some things

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Epigraph

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

—Orson Welles,

The Big Brass Ring, 1982

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Chapter One

Madison Dalrymple leaned her shoulder against the giant oak tree and tried not to panic. Cheyenne was late. Later than late. This wasn’t how the plan was supposed to go down. They had agreed to meet at the park under the oak tree by eight o’clock at the latest. But it was twenty past, and Cheyenne hadn’t shown up or called or texted and she wasn’t answering Madison’s calls or texts, and the combination of heat and anxiety had put Madison into a full-on sweat. Her shirt was glued to her back. Her shorts were bunching up in the middle. The bag of weed she’d bought off the old Perv was practically baking in her front pocket.

Maybe meeting at the park had been a bad idea, but Madison’s dad hadn’t given them much of a choice. He’d sprung it on her yesterday that the whole family was spending her birthday together at the fireworks show like it was a surprise she would actually be happy with. Turning fifteen wasn’t as big a deal as sixteen, but being dragged to the park with her dad and her stepmom and her whiny half-brother felt more like a punishment than a celebration. Gnats and mosquitos were everywhere. The food was disgusting. The punch was like cough syrup. There were at least two hundred people sprawled across the field and splashing in the lake as they waited for the fireworks to start, and Madison hated every single one of them.

“Cheyenne,” she mumbled, her eyes skimming mullets and poodle perms. “Where are you?”

At least the sun was finally setting. By ten this morning, the temperature had soared past one hundred. The lake felt warmer than bath water. Her sunscreen had sweated off hours ago. Her skin was broiling. Madison watched heat waves shimmering across the parking lot at the top of the hill. Cars were packed tightly into the spaces. Bikes were abandoned along the sidewalk and down the stairs. Someone had turned off the overhead lights. The fireworks show was going to start soon. The whole town was acting like the Fourth of July was hugely important, when nobody knew the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and they had to hum most of the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner” when the school band played.

It was just an excuse to eat too much and drink too much so they could all forget they were trapped inside this stinking wet turd of a town.

She gripped her phone in her hand. Her stepmom had already called twice looking for her, pretending that she wanted to be one big happy family, but Madison knew Hannah was trying to put on a show. Like, pretend that she was Madison’s real mother. Like, pretend that she didn’t secretly hate Madison. Worse, Madison’s dad kept acting as if Madison was the problem. Her actual mother, his wife, had only been dead for eight years, and he wanted to play it like she’d never even existed.

“Shit,” Madison cursed.

She wasn’t going to let Hannah ruin things for her. Not this time. She checked the time on her phone again. Cheyenne was officially twenty-six minutes late. Madison took a deep breath, told herself that twenty-six minutes was nothing. Once, Cheyenne was an hour late, and a strange car had dropped her off outside Madison’s house. Not even a Mustang or a Corvette, but a station wagon with those little cartoon characters on the back for a mom, a dad, two kids and a dog. Hannah hadn’t seen the car, but she’d turned all judgmental stepmother over the fresh hickey on Cheyenne’s neck, narrowing her eyes like what a whore.

“Madison?”

“What!” Madison yelped out the word. She started to sweat for real when she realized the woman who’d said her name was Hannah’s best friend since forever. That Emmy Clifton-Lang also happened to be a police officer brought out an extra layer of panic.

“You’re a little jumpy,” Emmy said. “What’s up, birthday girl?”

“Nothing.” Madison caught herself before she clamped her hand over the bag of weed in her pocket. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. Are you drinking enough water?” Emmy took off her hat. She had naturally curly hair, but she kept it up in a bun like an old lady, even though she and Hannah had both turned thirty years old last month. “It’s hotter out here than people think.”

“I know,” Madison said, because did she think Madison was stupid? “That’s why I’m standing under a tree. In the shade. Alone.”

Emmy didn’t take the hint. She rested her hand on the tree. “You know that saying—don’t miss the forest for the trees?”

Madison rolled her eyes. All people did lately was give her advice she didn’t ask for. “What?”

“Sometimes you think you know who you’re dealing with, and you ignore the signs that maybe they’re not the best thing in the world for you.” Emmy shrugged. “Sometimes, you miss the big picture because you’re too focused on the little stuff like having fun and sneaking out of the house and doing things you know you’re not supposed to do. Then suddenly, one day, you’re hit with the consequences of your actions.”

“God,” Madison groaned. She knew exactly where this Cheyenne Baker Is a Bad Influence lecture was coming from. “Tell Hannah to get a life, okay? She can stop sending people to talk to me. I’m leaving this stupid town as soon as I can.”

“I hear you,” Emmy said. “College is a long way off, though. A lot can happen in three years.”

“Sure.” Madison wasn’t going to tell her the truth, that if the plan worked, all she and Cheyenne had to do was wait out the next two months, then they would move to Atlanta and never have to deal with people telling them what to do ever again.

Emmy offered, “I could show you around Mercer if you want. The campus is beautiful. I loved it there. Met some really cool people.”

Madison rolled her eyes again. “I don’t care about college, okay?”

“Maybe not now, but listen, you’re supposed to babysit Cole next weekend. Why don’t you come early and we can talk about—”

“I’m late.” Madison made her voice dead cold. “I told Cheyenne I’d meet her at the SnoBall stand ten minutes ago.”

“Okay, but give me just one more second, please.” Emmy held onto her hand, which was weird. Then she squeezed Madison’s fingers. “I want you to know—you should already know—that Hannah really loves you.”

Madison’s heart suddenly got jumpy. She felt the warmth of Emmy’s hand wrapped around hers. Inexplicably, she wanted to cry.

“She watched you grow up.” Emmy smiled. “We both did. We both love you.”

Madison swallowed the lump in her throat. “Whatever.”

She slipped her hand free, leaving Emmy alone with her old lady bun and her stupid smile and her stupid son who still watched baby cartoons even though he was eleven years old.

Madison waited until she’d reached the bleachers to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. She looked at the time on her phone again. The panic flooded back in. Cheyenne was officially thirty-one minutes late. Had Madison gotten something wrong? Were they supposed to meet at the house?

She shook her head, because that wasn’t right. She hadn’t gotten anything wrong. They had gone over the plan dozens of times, even walked the route with a stopwatch, then taken their bikes because it felt safer to cut across the backroads instead of going through downtown where some busybody could spot Cheyenne and screw up her alibi.

Madison couldn’t wait to tell Cheyenne about lying straight to Emmy’s face. They weren’t meeting at the SnoBall stand. They were going to meet under the oak tree, then ride their bikes back to Cheyenne’s house, then they were going to borrow Cheyenne’s dad’s car and boost some of his scotch, then they were going to go joyriding around town while all the stupid people watched the fireworks. She had thought about it so many times that it felt like it had already happened: Mr. Baker’s brand-new Jetta zooming over a hundred miles an hour down the stretch past Main Street, Madison sticking up from the sunroof, arms wide, the air whipping her hair around while Rihanna blasted through the speakers.

Two months. That was what Madison really needed to think about. The plan was going to work. They were really going to get away from here. It was actually going to happen. All they had to do was hold on until September. They were going to hitch a ride to Atlanta and stay in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton and get VIP tickets to Music Midtown and meet some older guys who could get them into clubs and they’d probably end up married to football players and living in mansions.

That was Cheyenne’s prediction, at least, and just like when they were in middle school, she was bringing Madison along for the ride. Which was great for Madison. She had never been popular, never fit in, always been too nerdy or too weird. Then Cheyenne’s dad had moved the family to Clifton to take a job at the factory, and Madison’s life had changed completely. Before then, she’d never been in trouble, never attracted attention, never talked back, never worn make-up, never even been kissed by a boy.

She might as well have been dead.

Only Cheyenne had been able to bring her to life. She knew how to have fun and, despite what Emmy Old Lady Bun was blabbing on about, how to get away with it. Cheyenne had shown Madison how to purse her lips, turn on her little girl voice, pretend like she was stupid so that men felt like they were big, strong protectors, and then they gave you whatever you wanted.

That was Cheyenne’s secret trick—to go after men.

The boys closer to their own age were freaks and idiots. They didn’t know what they wanted or how to get it. Men were different. They listened to you. They paid attention to what you wanted, bought you things, made you feel special, told you that you were pretty all the time, were grateful when you showed up, never complained if you were late or in a bad mood. Cheyenne said even the sex was better, but Madison wasn’t so sure about that. She’d never had actual sex, only done some hand stuff, but it was mostly boring and sticky and not as exciting as Cheyenne made it out to be.

“Come on, Shy,” Madison whispered. “Where the hell are you?”

Someone jostled up against her. A bunch of kids in wet bathing suits were heading toward the food tables. She looked up into the sky. The light had dimmed like someone had turned down the sun, and suddenly, it was dusk. Smoke wafted off the grills where hot dogs and hamburgers had been cooked for the crowd. The church ladies were setting out cupcakes with sparklers and packing away gooey potato salad and green bean casserole. Madison walked to the front of the bleachers and looked out at the sea of people that stretched from here to the lake, searching for Cheyenne’s dark, spiky hair.

All she saw was ancient Sheriff Gerald Clifton taking up too much space on a bunch of blankets his wife had spread out at the crack of dawn so they’d have the best seats in the house. Right in the middle of the field. Not too close to the lake, not too far from the Porta Potties. Everybody was coming up to the sheriff like he was royalty, which was maybe true since the entire county had been named after his great-great—however many greats—grandfather. Emmy was one of his deputies. His wife taught at the middle school. His son taught at the high school. His brother ran the factory. His 200-year-old sister played the organ at the Second Baptist. There were tons of Cliftons all over the county, cousins and great-uncles and too many aunts. Madison’s dad joked that everybody who wasn’t a Clifton either worked for the Cliftons or had been arrested by the Cliftons.

A sudden, dark thought made Madison feel sick to her stomach.

Maybe Emmy’s stupid forest/trees lecture had been about something specific.

Maybe Cheyenne had been arrested. Maybe they were holding her in jail.

Madison frantically went back over the crowd, spotting Emmy talking to her husband. It looked more like she was yelling. Emmy was jabbing her finger at Jonah’s chest as if she wanted to stab him. There was a second cop around here somewhere. Madison spun in a circle, desperate to find the other deputy. She heaved a sigh when she spotted Brett Temple standing near the long line to the Porta Potties. Even she could tell he wasn’t doing much of a good job. He was playing with his wide-brimmed hat instead of watching out for problems. Madison could see a slash of bright red across the back of his neck where he’d gotten sunburned.

She let out another slow breath to try to calm herself. She studied the mass of people again, this time for Cheyenne. Still no sign, but Hannah popped up from the crowd like a prairie dog. She was scoping out the group of kids eating cupcakes, probably searching for Madison so they could take a perfect family photo she could post on Facebook.

Madison felt her lips twist into a smirk as she hid behind old Mr. Singh from the hardware store. Hannah was wearing a striped halter top that was soaked through with sweat. Her nipples stuck out like pencil erasers, which would’ve been hilarious to Cheyenne because Hannah was always saying Cheyenne showed off too much of her body.

She looked down at her phone. Thirty-nine minutes late. This was taking way too long. Cheyenne had said the plan wasn’t dangerous, but the truth was it was very dangerous. You didn’t mess with people and expect them to just take it. Especially the kind of people they’d been messing with.

Without thinking, Madison searched out Emmy again. She wasn’t hard to miss in her shit-brown uniform. The fight with Jonah was over. Emmy was walking up the hill toward the bleachers. Her head was down. The wide brim of her hat hid her face. Her fists were clenched. People were staring at her, whispering about the fight with Jonah.

That was how things worked in North Falls, everybody up in your business. There wasn’t a person within spitting distance who didn’t know the entire story of Emmy’s life, from being born to being stuck with her sad-sack older brother to representing the school at the state spelling bee to going to college to getting married to her middle school sweetheart to giving birth to a son to taking the job at the sheriff’s office to really believing her loser husband was going to be a famous musician one day when everybody knew he spent most of his time smoking weed on their couch in the house Emmy paid for.

Cheyenne always said that Emmy was too pretty to waste her looks on being a cop, but the thing was, she was good at her job. She wasn’t like her father, who would call your parents at work if he saw you somewhere he thought you shouldn’t be. Or Brett Temple, who took a real kind of pleasure in being a dick. Emmy had caught Madison smoking a cigarette once and told her to put it out, and that was that. She hadn’t ratted her out to Hannah or dropped by her dad’s shop for a talk, which would’ve been easy because it was right across the street from the sheriff’s station.

Which meant that Emmy could be trusted.

Madison clutched her hands together as she waited for Emmy to reach her at the top of the hill. She tried to think of a story in her head. Something like the truth, but not exactly the truth. Something that would get them out of trouble, because she thought that maybe, probably, they were in a lot of trouble. Or at least Cheyenne was, because she could be late to a lot of things, but there was no way she would be late to this. They had practiced. They had planned for all contingencies. The only explanation was that something bad had happened.

Emmy looked up just as Madison was about to open her mouth.

“Not now.” Emmy’s tone was clipped. She had tears in her eyes. Her nose was red, but not from the sun.

Madison had no choice but to step out of her way. She trailed Emmy behind the bleachers, watched her cut in line to one of the Porta Potties, then go inside and shut the door.

“Shit,” Madison mumbled.

Now what?

She could see Deputy Temple still playing with his hat. He was the last person she would ask for help. He wasn’t just a dick. He was mean as hell.

Madison looked up at the sky again, as if she could find the answer there. The sun had dimmed another few watts. The stars were faint points of light. She looked toward the old oak. No one was there. She let her gaze bounce over the crowd again, down to the lake. Swimmers were getting out, toweling off, heading toward their spots on the hill. It would be pitch dark soon. A feeling of excited anticipation filled the air. Everybody was ready for the fireworks to start.

She looked at the time. Forty-seven minutes late. Cheyenne wasn’t coming. Something must’ve really gone wrong.

Madison had to go find her.

She felt a sense of purpose as she walked up the stairs toward the parking lot. There was just enough light to help her find her bicycle. She bumped the tires up the rest of the way, then rolled the bike along the sidewalk, scanning the lot in case Cheyenne had run into a guy who had a bottle or a bong. The cars were parked so close she couldn’t get between them with her bike, so she had to follow the sidewalk parallel to the first row.

Madison needed her own plan.

She would lift her bike over the yellow caution tape that was meant to keep people from driving onto the practice field beside the parking lot. She would go down the hill, hit Long Street, then take a left onto Carver, then cut across the big yard with the pond to get to the backroads. This was exactly the reverse of the route Cheyenne was supposed to be taking. Maybe her bike had gotten a flat tire. Maybe she’d taken something and been too high to do anything but lay on her back and stare up at the sky.

Madison was about to get on her bike when she heard the first crackling flare. The fireworks show was finally starting. They had set up on the opposite side of the lake, far from the crowd. Madison heard a low whistle, saw a single line of bright white burning upwards into the night sky, then watched it explode into a thousand pinpoints. She heard clapping and shouting as the sparklers sizzled and hissed like tiny snakes, then slowly flamed out.

There was a brief interlude. Then another crackle. Another low whistle. Another line of fire bursting into a sphere of swirling blues and whites, the school’s mascot colors. The crowd cheered as a third firework went off, this one letting out a loud whir as it spun into the shape of a smiley face.

Madison momentarily forgot her worries. She couldn’t help but feel a sense of wonder. When she was little, back when her mother was still alive, back before Hannah had forced herself into their lives, the family would spend every Fourth watching the fireworks together, just the three of them. Her mother would pack a small cake and chocolate ice cream for Madison’s birthday. Her father would take her swimming in the lake. When the fireworks started, he would put his arm around Madison so she wouldn’t be scared. Then he’d call out each type of firework: the crossette, where stars broke into fours and crisscrossed each other. The diadem, with its stationary stars at the center. The ring, with its halo shape and smiley faces. The long cylinder of a Roman candle, or the nearly 1,000-shot cake that was half a dozen Roman candles combined. Then there were the flowers—the willow and peony, and her favorite, the chrysanthemum—all colorful explosions that could take your breath away.

They still took her breath away.

Madison wiped her eyes, mad at herself for crying. She had told Hannah that she was too old for fireworks, but the truth was, she missed the way she felt when her father put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close to his side, made her feel safe. Every ooh and ahh from the crowd, every boom so loud that it shook in the back of her throat, reminded Madison of everything that had been lost.

She was so caught up in her sadness that she barely registered the car turning into the parking lot. Her eyes took their time adjusting. The headlights were off. She couldn’t see the driver as the car rolled down the first row. He wasn’t stopping. The brake lights stayed dark when the front end bumped over the curb and nosed through the yellow caution tape. It wasn’t until another explosion of light illuminated the field in all its green glory that she realized what she was looking at.

Cheyenne!

Finally, thank God, she was here.

Madison’s cry of relief turned into a startled laugh. Cheyenne was going to drive her dad’s precious, brand-new Jetta across the soccer field. She’d wedged her distinctive neon blue bicycle into the trunk. The hot pink sparklers swayed from the handlebar grips. The snap-glows on the spokes sparkled like Christmas tree lights. She hadn’t tied down the lid tight enough. It popped open when the back tire hit the curb, then slammed down onto the bike so hard that Madison could hear the sound of metal crunching over the sizzles of a yellow peony firework burning itself out.

“Shy!” Madison sprinted alongside her bike, hunkered down over the handlebars, racing after the car. She saw the brake lights glow as Cheyenne neared the center of the soccer field. Madison couldn’t bring herself to put another break in the caution tape. She jogged down and went through the spot Cheyenne had already broken apart. Her teeth clattered when she bumped the bike over the curb. She accidentally bit the inside of her cheek. She was so elated that she barely registered the pain.

Typical Cheyenne. She’d obviously changed the plan without letting Madison know. She’d decided to get the Jetta and the scotch and then meet up at the park. Which made so much more sense. They should’ve thought of this earlier. Why double back when Cheyenne could swing by her house on the way to the park?

The car stopped on the edge of the field, pointing toward a bunch of trees. Madison could hear the engine idling. She started crying again, this time from relief. Only now could she admit how truly terrified she’d been. Cheyenne had said the plan was going to be easy, but nothing was ever easy. Especially when Cheyenne was involved. She could push people too far. Madison had seen it happen more times than she could count. Mouthing off to a teacher, pissing off the principal, yelling at a store clerk, screaming at her mother her father her little sister so loud that one time, probably not the only time, her mother had swung back her hand and slapped Cheyenne into silence.

“Shy!” Madison called again, but her voice was lost to the pop-pop-pop of a chrysanthemum firework flowering open in bright purples, greens and whites.

She let her bike drop to the ground and ran the last few yards. The rapid pops were so loud she felt them crackling in her teeth. The strobe of light made every move look stuttered. She reached out her hand. Found purchase on the back tire of Cheyenne’s bicycle. The chain had slipped. She could see it draped across the spokes like a discarded bracelet.

The night went black.

The chrysanthemum had flared out. In the silence, Madison could hear her own sharp breaths—one, then another, then another, before the next low whistle drowned it out, the whir so loud that it shook her eardrums. She turned toward the lake, watching two trails of light zip up into the blackness, their dual reflections mirrored in the surface of the water. Then she heard the cascade of booms. Then she saw the bursts of large tendrils dropping into the shape of two massive palm trees.

The roar of the crowd drained away. The pop and sizzle, the hiss and crackle.

There was another sound. Faint, but definitely there. Much closer than the crowd. Almost closer than the sharp intake of her own breaths.

A whimper.

Madison looked down into the trunk of the car. The bright light from the palms picked out every detail in front of her. The neon blue frame of the bike. The bent rear wheel. The broken chain. The blue tarp lining the trunk. The stretched clothesline hanging from the lid.

The look of terror in Cheyenne’s eyes.

“Oh,” Madison whispered.

This wasn’t Mr. Baker’s Jetta.

The sky went dark. Another interlude.

Madison was momentarily blind, but she could still see Cheyenne in the trunk. Trapped under the bike. Eyes wide. Terrified. There was no time to think, only to act. Madison wrenched out the bike, tossed it onto the ground, grabbed Cheyenne’s arm, tried to help her out.

Another low whistle. Another trail of fire. Another explosion of stunning light.

Madison froze, her hand still wrapped around Cheyenne’s arm, as the truth revealed itself in terrifying color. Bright red slash marks. Rusty dried blood. Pink pinpricks peppering the whites of Cheyenne’s eyes. Her mouth was taped shut. Her nose looked broken. Her shirt was torn. More blood streaked down her chest, pooled into the top of her bra. Her wrists were tied together. Her legs were drawn up. Her ankles were tied. She was screaming behind the tape, wriggling to get out, urging Madison to hurry, to please help.

It was in this moment—not an interlude so much as an echo—when Madison remembered what Emmy had told her before.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees.

Don’t worry about Cheyenne being tied up in the trunk.

Worry about the man who put her there.

The next explosion was so loud that Madison’s teeth ached. She felt a tightening of her jaw, a contraction of her muscles, a sense of fear coursing through her body. The burning bright flares of a chrysanthemum set the sky on fire.

Madison turned. She saw the man’s face, then—

Darkness.

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Chapter Two

Emmy pushed open the door to the Porta Potty and sucked in a mouthful of hot, humid air. Her ears were still ringing. The fireworks display had ended with enough explosions to fill a war zone. She could smell the gunpowder and sulfur mingling with the stench of acrid sweat and stale alcohol as the revelers began the slow process of gathering blankets and coolers and searching for toddlers and trying to remember where they’d parked. Flashlights came out. The overhead lights started popping on. First at the parking lots down by the ballfields. Then the parking lot at the top of the hill. Then the lights behind the bleachers. Then down by the lake. Then the mood shifted as people realized that the Fourth of July falling on a Wednesday meant they all had to get up and go to work tomorrow morning.

“’Night, Emmy,” someone called.

“You take care,” another said.

Emmy forced herself to smile as she snapped the door closed behind her. In retrospect, hiding out in a piss- and shit-filled plastic box that had baked under a hateful sun for twelve hours hadn’t been one of her better ideas. It was still better than her idea to trust Jonah Lang to do something as simple as watch their eleven-year-old child.

“I know that look.” Brett Temple was grinning as he twirled his hat between his hands. The back of his neck had pinked up into a classic redneck tan. “What’d he do now?”

“Said he wasn’t gonna babysit Cole.” Brett looked clueless, so she clarified, “It’s not babysitting when it’s your own kid.”

“Seriously.” Vanna, Brett’s smugly pregnant wife, inserted herself into the conversation. Her sweat-stained purple dress sagged across her belly like a fitted sheet at a whorehouse. “You won’t be like that, will you baby?”

Brett looked down at Vanna and lied through his teeth. “’Course not, honey.”

Emmy had to look away while they kissed. She studied the crowd. She felt a niggling guilt for blowing off Madison earlier. The girl had clearly wanted to talk. “Have either of you seen Madison Dalrymple?”

Brett asked, “Which one is she?”

Vanna supplied, “The fat one.”

Emmy felt her jaw set. “She’s not fat.”

“Well, nobody would call her skinny.” Vanna laughed as she ogled Brett like a lovestruck basset hound. “Madison runs around with that filthy-mouthed little hellion, Cheyenne Baker. Remember, you dragged her into the station last week.”

“Cheyenne Baker.” Brett started nodding. “Stole a bag of Hershey’s Kisses from the Good Dollar. She ditched ’em before I got to her, though.”

“Little psychopath was probably lacing them with fentanyl,” Vanna said with great authority. “Might as well send her to prison now. She’s gonna end up there anyway.”

“Hey.” Emmy tried to keep her tone even. “She’s still a kid.”

“A kid with the evil already baked in,” Vanna said. “I’ll tell you another thing, Hannah’s a saint for putting up with Madison. She oughtta send her to one of those schools where they snatch the kid in the middle of the night and drop them in a desert somewhere in Utah. Get her out from under the sphere of dark influences.”

Emmy was stunned by the casual cruelty. “Hannah loves Madison like a daughter.”

“Which is why she should do it. Tough love.” Vanna rubbed her round belly like her child would never cause trouble. “Lord, I’m about to pop. Emmy, were Cole’s last few weeks this trying for you?”

“Not really. I felt great.” Emmy figured the insomnia, back pain, four cavities in her teeth, and having to carry around an extra pair of pants for when she inevitably pissed herself were a walk in the park compared to dislocating her pelvis, losing two liters of blood and projectile vomiting from the pain during delivery. “I barely even remember it.”

Vanna gave an annoyingly beatific smile. “Babies are a miracle from God.”

“They’re something.”

Brett asked Emmy, “Where’d you see this Madison last? I can help you look for her.”

“No need.” Emmy assumed whatever urgent event had made Madison desperate enough to actually talk had likely passed by now. “I’ll catch up with her later.”

Brett gave her a careful look. Emmy shrugged him off, mostly because they didn’t have the time or resources to handle a fifteenyear-old in a fit of pique. Hundreds of people were trying to leave at the same time and there was only one road in and out of the park. The cars up on the hill were squeezed in like sardines. The two small lots by the baseball diamonds were double parked. Add to that the heat and alcohol, and the odds were high that someone was going to need a ride to the hospital before their shifts ended. The time for standing around and talking was over.

She asked Brett, “Which one do you want: traffic cop or referee?”

Brett groaned out a thinking noise. “Traffic. Got punched in the face last time I refereed.”

Vanna pinched his cheek. “You got him back good, didn’t you, baby?”

Emmy ignored the way Vanna cooed at him in a silly, breathy voice. The woman was only five years younger than Emmy, but she still acted like a teenager. That would change in a few months when she was operating on zero sleep and Brett was taking double shifts because the risk of being shot during a traffic stop was still better than dealing with a screaming baby.

Emmy told him, “Radio if you need me.”

She stuck her hat back on her head as she walked into the lurching mass of people, heading down the hill while everybody else was trying to go up. Emmy studied the faces, tried to figure out who’d had too much to drink, who would cause trouble, who needed an escort back to their car, and who was just irritated that it was taking too long to get to the parking lot.

This predictive part of policing was something they couldn’t teach at the academy. Emmy had been on the job six years and had finally developed a cop’s instinct. Sometimes it was triggered by a sudden burst of sound or even absolute silence, but most times it was nothing more than a subtle change in the air, a sort of static charge she felt on the surface of her skin that told her something terrible was about to happen. Her father called it the tickle, and Emmy figured a man who’d served in the sheriff’s office since Eisenhower was in the White House could call it whatever he wanted. If Emmy knew the town like the back of her hand, her father knew it like the arteries inside of his heart.

Clifton County was in the south-western part of Georgia, with a population of nearly 20,000 people. Fewer than a thousand of them lived in the county seat of North Falls. The largest of the four cities was Verona, where the auto parts factory was located. Ocmulgee was known for its outlet stores along US 19, and Clayville had one of the biggest vocational schools in the state, mainly because it fed skilled labor into the factory. Both North Falls and Verona were bordered by the Flint River, which started below the Atlanta airport, then flowed through the bottom part of the state into the Florida panhandle, where it eventually drained into the Gulf.

The three larger cities were big enough to have their own police services, but the sixteen-person sheriff’s office serviced North Falls, which made sense. The courthouse was downtown. Deputies were in charge of the jail and prisoner transport. They also placed resource officers in the schools, performed patrol duties, assisted with investigations throughout the county, and did crowd control during public events, which was why Emmy and Brett were at the park.

There was a much bigger Fourth celebration on the banks of the Flint, but North Falls had always done its own thing. The money was here. The people who ran the county were here. In a region where outsiders were suspect, North Falls had a particular distrust for anything that wasn’t born and bred within the 190-acre city limits of North Falls.

Which was why most of the faces Emmy saw in the crowd were familiar. From the grocery store from downtown from the gym from the diner from the hair salon in Peggy Ingram’s basement. Some of them smiled when they saw her. Others scowled. Then there were the busybodies who stared openly because they’d seen the fight with Jonah and they wanted more gossip.

Emmy looked down at her phone as if she’d just gotten a very important message. The stupid thing had been vibrating in her pocket for the last hour, but she’d been blissfully ignorant of the goings on. There were six missed calls from her crazy aunt, most likely complaining about winos swimming in her pond or hobos stealing wild blackberries off her fencerow.

Her cousin Taybee had sent all the girl-cousins a text suggesting a Sunday potluck hosted at her sprawling family farm. She had written no boys allowed, which had resulted in one cousin immediately accusing her of reverse sexism. Three cousins had bypassed the potential spat and asked what to bring. A fourth had privately texted Emmy to say she wasn’t going because she still wasn’t talking to Taybee. Another cousin had texted privately to suggest an alternative dinner at a restaurant where people waited on you, and nobody had to cook. And then Taybee had privately texted Emmy to ask if she’d heard about this alternative dinner.

A fat drop of sweat rolled off the tip of her nose and hit the screen.

No way she was weighing in on the cousin drama, especially with Taybee, a shittifyingly wealthy lawyer who tackled every dispute like she was cross-examining an ax murderer. Emmy thumbed down the list to find a text from Jonah. He’d sent a kind of peace-offering photo of Cole biting down on a chocolate-covered ice cream cone, which was great because every elevenyear-old should freebase a pound of sugar before bedtime.

Emmy heaved out a heavy sigh. She couldn’t bring herself to break Jonah’s balls again, so she texted back a smiley face, then stuck her phone back in her pocket. She was supposed to be working, not worrying about her marriage. She adjusted her duty belt, which between her gun, extra ammo, pepper spray, radio, flashlight, Taser, baton, multi-tool, and keys weighed approximately 6,000 pounds. She took off her hat and wiped her forehead with her arm.

Good Lord God it was hot.

Her skin was sticky. Her hair felt spray-painted onto her skull. The Kevlar vest under her uniform had turned into the world’s heaviest sandpaper, and her bra’s underwire was stabbing into her ribs. And to top it off, she had a pounding headache. She’d told Madison to drink some water, but hadn’t taken her own advice.

Madison.

There was no SnoBall stand. There was no sign of Cheyenne, either. Emmy had picked up a kind of low-key worry over both girls from Hannah. The two were the subject of many late-night phone calls and drinking sessions at the Clifton Biergarten. Madison had always been so easily led. Cheyenne was the kind of teenager who made life interesting and exciting. God knew Emmy understood the allure. She had been bored to tears with every person, place and thing at that age. It was one of the many reasons she had fallen so hard for Jonah.

And look where that had gotten her.

“Em?” Hannah was coming up the hill. Like everybody else, she looked hot and sweaty and ready to get the hell out of here. “So, Jonah.”

Emmy rolled her eyes so hard she almost glimpsed an alternate dimension. Hannah wasn’t asking for details. She was sharing in the existential angst of being married to a disappointing man.

“Sorry.” Hannah squeezed her arm in solidarity but didn’t hold on because it was too hot. “Did you talk to Madison?”

“It went exactly like you said it would.” Emmy couldn’t say she hadn’t been warned. Hannah had been walking the tightrope between caring adult and stepmonster for five years. “Sorry, I gave it a good try.”

“I appreciate it,” Hannah said. “God it’s weird. The meaner she is to me, the more I love her.”

Emmy couldn’t help but feel the same way. She had been best friends with Hannah since kindergarten. They had either seen or talked to each other practically every day since. Her love for Hannah had easily transferred onto the complicated girl that Hannah loved. “We were never like that, right?”

“’Course not, we were fucking perfect.” Hannah nodded up toward the bleachers. “What did Tinky-Winky have to say?”

Emmy snorted a laugh. Vanna looked a hell of a lot like a Teletubby in her purple dress. “Babies are a miracle from God.”

“She’s gonna shit all over herself when that thing rips out of her.”

Emmy pressed together her lips to keep from laughing again.

“Ten years from now, she’s gonna be at the Walmart and sneeze real hard and her uterus is gonna drop down between her legs like the clapper on a bell.”

“That’s very specific.”

“Happened to my aunt Barb’s friend.”

“The one with the mole?”

“Shit, I gotta go.”

Emmy watched Hannah run after her husband. Paul had been drinking off and on all day, consoling himself about Madison’s refusal to celebrate her birthday with the family. The poor guy could barely walk a straight line, especially with their two-year-old in tow. Emmy’s own checks burned with sympathy when she caught the embarrassed look on Hannah’s face.

“Emmy Lou?”

Her father’s deep baritone cut through the white noise of the crowd. She slipped her hat back on and walked in his direction.

Emmy tried not to think too hard about the new scratchiness in his voice. Gerald Clifton had turned seventy-four in January and suddenly, shockingly, her strong, capable father was wearing out. Bad knees. Bad back. Bad arthritis in his hands. Even the way he coughed had changed from a quick, short burst to a raggedy-sounding grumble.

Her mother wasn’t much better off. Myrna had been rushed to Atlanta four years ago for open heart surgery. She was constantly forgetting where she’d put her keys, who she needed to call, what had happened last week on her favorite TV show. Emmy’s brother had started showing his age, too. At fifty-one, Tommy spent nearly every weekend on the couch watching the golf channel and buying vintage hats off eBay.

Which left Emmy on her own as usual. She had been what was euphemistically called a surprise baby. Tommy was already in college when she was born, and her parents had buried two more children, first Henry, then Martha a year later, in between. Gerald had been too old to chase Emmy around the soccer pitch, and Myrna too set in her ways to change her schedule for game days and trips to the outlet mall. They were the only parents in Emmy’s grade who’d had to balance college loan applications against deciding when to start drawing social security.

Obviously, Emmy had always been aware of the age difference, but only now was the impact of the math occurring to her. She was hitting the prime of her life around the same time they were all sliding in the other direction. Even Tommy’s quirky wife, Celia, had started to slow down. She was a badass vice principal who ran half the high school, but she’d told Emmy last week that her idea of heaven was wearing pajamas all day and only leaving the house to swing by the Dairy Queen drive-thru.

“Emmy Lou.” Myrna appeared out of nowhere. Her expression was filled with disapproval as she handed Emmy the corner of a blanket to help fold. “Did you hear your father calling you?”

“I had no idea, Mother. I was just walking toward him for no particular reason.”

“That’s a very interesting tone you’re using. Do you mean to imply the opposite?”

“You could infer it that way.” Emmy finished folding the blanket. She knew exactly why her mother was giving her shit right now. “Go ahead and say it. I know you saw what happened with me and Jonah.”

“Saw it. Heard about it. Then heard about it again. And again.” Myrna gathered up another blanket and slapped the dirt off the back. “I’m not going to say I told you so.”

“That’s a very interesting tone you’re using.”

“From which you are welcome to infer my meaning.”

Emmy reflexively took up for Jonah. “His gig over in Macon ran late last night. He had to chase down the owner to get paid. He’s exhausted.”

“I believe you are capable of juggling full-time employment with child duties.” Myrna matched the edges of the blanket. “Meanwhile, Jonah couldn’t be assed to stick around long enough for his son to see the fireworks.”

The chocolate-covered ice cream cone. Jonah had bought it in town. Emmy was going to kill him. “He said he was going to drive Cole up to the Falls to get a better look.”

“Did he now?”

Emmy couldn’t lie anymore. “Mom.”

Myrna’s chest rose and fell as she sighed. She stacked the blankets on top of the rolling cooler. When she looked up, her expression was more neutral. “I told Jonah to bring Cole by the house later. I’ll make sure he gets tucked in.”

“Thank you.”

“‘Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.’”

Emmy gave her a blank look.

“Edgar Allan Poe,” her mother the English teacher said. “Now, where did your brother go? I can’t lug this cooler up the hill by myself and God knows Celia won’t lift a finger.”

Emmy didn’t look for Tommy. She looked for her father. She easily spotted Gerald. He was standing about ten yards away, his head meerkatting above the crowd. Someone was talking to him. Or at least trying to. Gerald Clifton didn’t speak unless he felt something was worth saying. Even at home, he preferred to let Myrna fill the silence.

She took off her hat again, hoping to feel the slightest breeze coming off the lake. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Probably another cousin asking for a third secret dinner or her crazy aunt reporting a raccoon for vagrancy.

As Emmy got closer to her father, she realized that he wasn’t paying attention to the man standing right in front of him. He was looking at Emmy. Their eyes locked. Something was wrong. His cop radar was so much better than hers, but she felt it now, that electrical current in the air that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

The tickle.

Emmy called it a bad feeling. She’d heard other cops refer to it as a hunch or, instinct or, if the officer was a woman, intuition. No matter the name, what it meant was that either something really bad had happened or something really bad was about to happen.

She cut through a group of stragglers, clicking the radio mic on her shoulder. “Brett, check in?”

“Check.” Brett’s voice crackled through the static. “I’m on Long Street. Truck rear-ended a Prius. Prius smacked into a telephone pole. Road’s blocked both ways. Tow’s twenty minutes out. ’Sup?”

Emmy didn’t think a traffic accident a quarter mile away was responsible for her bad feeling. She started to ask, “Can you—”

Gerald gently took the mic out of her hand. He held it to his mouth, pressed the button. “Call in backup for the accident. Meet us on the upper lot. Eyes peeled. Right?”

There was a hiss of static, then Brett responded, “Yes, boss.”

Gerald handed Emmy back the mic. They didn’t need a big discussion because you didn’t talk about a bad feeling, you checked it out, and if you were wrong, you were relieved, but if you were right, the feeling put you where you needed to be.

Emmy clipped the mic back onto her shoulder and followed Gerald up the hill. People moved out of his way, but not only because he was the sheriff. Her father was a big man, six feet two inches, and carrying more weight than he should around his middle. His breathing was labored by the time they passed the empty bleachers and climbed the concrete stairs. Emmy had to look down so that she didn’t step on the back of his shoes. He wasn’t on duty, but he still had the bearing of a cop, even in a pair of old Keds with black ankle socks, gray nylon coach’s shorts, and a faded black T-shirt from a 2005 Reba McEntire concert.

Gerald didn’t stop to catch his breath until they’d reached the top of the stairs. Emmy scanned the parking lot, her head swiveling in tandem with her father’s. Cars were angled like toothpicks thrown onto the asphalt. She could see brake lights glowing, people hanging out of car windows, hands being thrown up in the air. The tension was so tight that she felt it in her back teeth.

Gerald looked down at her. “DFR?”

Emmy nodded. “Yep.”

Don’t Feel Right.

Gerald left the sidewalk. Emmy followed him down the first row, which was like an obstacle course packed with stopped cars and irritated drivers. She silently checked in with her body, tried to keep her heartbeat steady and her mind clear. Policing was about weighing the odds, and the odds of something horrific like a mass shooting were very low. They were more likely to come up on another fender bender or a squabble over who got to merge first.

“Sheriff?” Sylvia Wrigley, the editor of the local paper, was standing with her car door open. “What’s going on?”

Gerald held up his finger, telling her to give him a minute, as he threaded his way between vehicles. They spotted the problem soon enough.

Emmy felt the tension leave her body like water swirling down a drain.

Last month, the fence around the soccer pitch had been taken down so that the field could be sodded with fresh grass. Several rows of yellow caution tape had been strung up to keep people off the new sod until the roots took hold, but apparently, the driver of a red Miata had decided to ignore the warning. Or tried to, at least. The low-slung sports car had wound up stuck mid-teeter-totter on the steep concrete curb. The front end jutted into the air like the bow of the Titanic.

“Jackass,” Emmy mumbled. She recognized Lance Culpepper’s car. He worked as a clerk at the courthouse. He should’ve known better.

Emmy looked up at her father, but Gerald wasn’t interested in the Miata. He was staring out into the field. Emmy squinted, trying to force her eyes to adjust. Lance hadn’t been the first genius looking for a shortcut to the main road. A white Chevy Equinox was stopped in the middle of the pitch, sidelong to the parking lot, all four doors closed, windows up, lights off.

The tension swirled back up. Her cop brain spun through with worst-case scenarios—

Mass shooter, domestic violence, road rage, murder-suicide.

Emmy unsnapped the safety strap over her Glock. She slipped the heavy flashlight off her belt and rested it on her shoulder. The reach of the parking lot lights stopped shy of the penalty line. Her police-issue Maglite had four D-cell batteries that put out 800 lumens, enough to show them the path to midfield. The glass in the SUV was tinted dark. From this distance, there was no way to tell who was inside.

Gerald silently pointed out a large pool of oil courtesy of the Miata before he stepped onto the curb. Lance Culpepper gave Emmy a wide shrug when she looked into the car. She could tell by the way Dervla, his wife, was sitting with her arms crossed that she’d told him this was a bad idea.

Emmy asked them, “You see anybody else on the pitch?”

Lance shook his head.

Dervla volunteered, “He was too busy wrecking the car.”

Emmy told them both, “Stay here.”

She tilted down the flashlight as she walked onto the field. The broken caution tape had been pressed into the ground by a tire with heavy treads. There was an area of rough before her feet sank into the thick, new grass. The panels of turf were still growing together. The field looked like a patched-together quilt. The grass blades were about three inches tall. She saw a few stray pieces of garbage: gum wrappers, a plastic fork. Except for the giant, white SUV, the pitch was mostly unspoiled.

She walked several paces behind and to the right of her father, reminding herself yet again to breathe. The driver could be sitting behind the wheel thinking through his poor decision-making. Or gripping a gun in his hand as he waited for the two cops to approach.

Emmy remembered to calm herself. She took in a deep breath, holding it in her lungs for a second, then slowly letting it go. As she drew closer, she could hear the engine running. The license plate was from Clifton County. A North Falls Elementary sticker was on the bumper. She strained her ears. Voices. A man and a woman on the other side of the vehicle. Harsh whispers. Tension. Anger.

Gerald called, “Show yourself.”

Emmy forgot about breathing. Her hand tightened on the grip of her Glock as she waited.

The couple walked around the rear of the vehicle.

Emmy exhaled. She pointed her flashlight toward the two adults standing at the rear of the Chevy. Their hands were empty, faces tense. Hugo and Angela Sanders had clearly been engaged in a heated discussion before Gerald had interrupted them. Emmy could see Tyler, their six-year-old, was asleep in his car seat inside the back. They’d left the engine running for the air conditioning. A long scratch had gouged paint off the side of the vehicle. Part of the front bumper was hanging off. The left fender was cracked. Emmy’s first thought was that this was a strange place to have a hit-and-run. Then she let the flashlight travel along the ground.

“I didn’t see it,” Hugo told Gerald. “It’s not my fault.”

Emmy’s heart shivered to a stop. A bicycle was trapped under the back right tire of the SUV. She dropped to her knees, frantically searching for a body under the vehicle.

In front. Behind it. Beside it.

She didn’t find a body, but she recognized the bike. Cartoonish pink and yellow daisies were painted on the light turquoise frame. Glow-in-the-dark beads had been snapped onto the spokes. There was a pastel yellow basket on the front. More daisies were stitched onto the white leather saddle seat. Emmy had seen the bike countless times before, abandoned in Hannah’s front yard, blocking her driveway, scuffing the paint off her porch railing. It belonged to Madison Dalrymple. The same Madison Emmy had tried to talk to under the oak tree. The same Madison she had blown off almost an hour ago.

“Hugo.” Emmy’s knees felt shaky as she stood back up. Her DFR had turned into a flashing red siren. “Do you know Madison Dalrymple?”

“No.” Hugo shrugged. “Maybe. What does that have to—”

“Is that her bike?” Angela asked. “Where are her parents? We’ve only had this car for a week. You better believe Paul can afford to fix this more than we can.”

“Seriously?” Lance Culpepper had decided to ignore Emmy’s order to stay put. “How is this Paul’s fault? You’re the one who drove onto the middle of the soccer field.”

“So did you.” Hugo scowled at the Miata. “Barely.”

“I was following you,” Lance said. “Did you not see the yellow caution tape?”

“It was already broken,” Hugo said. “Are you saying I should see things that you couldn’t even see?”

“Jesus, Lance,” Angela snapped. “Why don’t you go back to your little toy car?”

“Why don’t you stop taking the Lord’s name in vain?”

“Don’t tell my wife what to do.”

“Enough!” Emmy yelled loud enough to silence them. “Lance, get back in your car and stay there. Hugo, you want a ticket for leaving a marked pathway? Angela, check on Tyler.”

Emmy made sure they dispersed before she looked at her father again. Gerald had tuned them out completely. He was staring down at the bike. There was a hard expression on his face. When Emmy was a child, she’d mistaken her father’s stony silence for disapproval. Now she understood it meant that he was working a problem in his mind.

She told him, “That bike is Madison’s freedom. She’s fifteen. She can’t drive. She wouldn’t leave it in the middle of a field.”

He turned back toward the parking lot, his gaze on the ground.

Emmy followed his line of sight. He was tracking the path the SUV had taken out onto the field. With the turf so new, the tires might as well have driven through clay. She could read the tire impressions like a road map.

“Dad?” she asked.

Gerald started walking toward the parking lot. Emmy followed, keeping well clear of the impressions. They’d only gone a few yards when her father asked, “What else are we missing?”

Emmy turned back toward the SUV. In the distance, she could see a wrecker was pulling up to the accident. The line of cars was backed up on Long Street. Had Madison tried to cut across the field to go home, then dropped her bike for some reason?

She told her father, “The Chevy hit the front wheel of the bike first, so it was facing west.”

“Too big. Think smaller.”

She felt her thoughts start to race again. Emmy had to remind herself that Gerald wasn’t testing her. He was teaching her. If there was one thing her father excelled at, it was listening. She mentally backtracked to when they had first walked up to the SUV. The pissy little argument between Lance, Hugo, and Angela. The answer hit her like a lightning bolt. “Hugo said the caution tape was already broken before he drove onto the field.”

“Yep.”

“If he was telling the truth, that means a different vehicle drove onto the pitch before Hugo did, probably during the fireworks display, because neither Hugo nor Lance volunteered that someone drove onto the field before they did.”

“Yep.”

Emmy pointed her flashlight back at the Miata, easily locating the deep set of impressions made by the wide tires of Hugo’s SUV. This was what she had missed. There was a shadow tracing along the impressions, a second set of prints from a smaller set of tires.

“Hugo was telling the truth,” Emmy said. “Another car broke the caution tape first.”

“Sedan,” Gerald said. “Lighter weight.”

The sedan’s shadow tire impressions branched out on their own about twenty yards from where they stood, taking a right toward a stand of pine trees that overlooked the hill. Emmy walked carefully across the field, keeping herself parallel to the path of the sedan. She willed her heart to stop shaking in her chest. There could be all kinds of explanations for Madison abandoning her bike in the middle of the pitch, not just the bad ones. Emmy kept trying to spin up her hope until she reached the edge of the pitch. The tracks ended. The sedan had come to a stop. She raised the flashlight toward the trees.

Emmy felt another lurch in her heart, this time like a knife had stabbed her straight through. There was a second bicycle. Vivid blue. Multicolored beads on the spokes. Pink streamers hanging from the handlebar grips. Matching blue basket on the front. She had seen the bike countless times, abandoned in Hannah’s front yard, blocking her driveway, scuffing the paint off her porch railing, resting a few feet away from Madison’s light turquoise bike with the yellow basket because the two girls were practically attached at the hip.

She told her father, “That’s Cheyenne Baker’s bike.”

Gerald looked down at her. He’d heard the tremble in her voice. He’d felt the same shift in the air. The tickle. The bad feeling. The Don’t Feel Right. The good explanations were gone.

He tried, “These girls the types to run away?”

Emmy was shaking her head before he’d finished the question. She didn’t know Cheyenne that well, but Madison was too smart to abandon her bike on a soccer field and run away at ten in the evening when her parents were expecting to see her at home.

“She might run away, but not like this.”

“You got her number?”

Emmy took out her phone and tapped through to Madison’s cell. She fought the tears that sprang into her eyes as she listened to the single ring before the call was sent to voicemail. The mailbox was full. Emmy shook her head again. She ended the call. Her hands had started to tremble. This was bad. This was really bad.

“Emmy?” Hannah called from across the field.

Emmy quickly turned the flashlight away from Cheyenne’s bike. Hannah had clearly heard about Hugo’s accident. She was bouncing Davey on her hip as she jogged toward them. His eyelids were droopy as he fought off the urge to fall asleep.

“What’s going on?” Hannah asked. “I heard Hugo ran over Madison’s bicycle.”

Gerald asked, “Do you know where she is?”

“We told her to be home by eleven, but—” Hannah looked at Emmy. The color quickly drained from her face. They had been best friends since kindergarten. They knew each other’s darkest secrets and wildest dreams. There wasn’t a lot that Emmy could hide from her.

“Is she—” Hannah’s voice caught again. “What happened?”

“We don’t know,” Emmy said, because that was the God’s honest truth. “When I saw Madison, she was holding her phone. Can Paul track it?”

“What?”

“You told me that Paul had a tracker or something on her phone, right? That he wouldn’t let you use it?”

“Y-yes,” Hannah stuttered. She knew this was bad. “He can—maybe he can—”

Hannah didn’t finish the sentence. She ran back toward the parking lot. Davey looked at Emmy over his mother’s shoulder. His eyes were wide. He’d absorbed Hannah’s panic.

So had Emmy.

“Steady.” Gerald pressed his hand to the small of her back. “The way you help her is to keep your head down and do your job.”

Emmy nodded, but it was so hard.

“Tell me about Madison’s phone.”

Emmy made herself look away from Hannah. She closed her eyes, trying to summon the memory of the phone Madison had been holding. The sweltering heat. The stink of sweat and beer. Spotting Madison under the tree. Getting the idea that now was the time to make Hannah’s case.

Madison was in pink ballet flats that were scuffed green from the grass. Lips pursed in thought. White shorts too tight. Light blue North Falls Choral Club T-shirt stuck to her chest. Antsy, irritated. Had she looked worried? Her skin was bright pink. Emmy had walked toward the girl, silently lecturing herself not to start out with a negative about getting sunburned, then she’d stupidly told Madison to drink more water.

“Okay,” she told her father, “It was an iPhone. White case with flower stickers on the back. The same one she always has.”

“What time was it?”

“I saw her twice. The first time was around eight fifteen, eight thirty. She was standing under the oak tree. I went to find her because I thought I could help with—” Emmy knew her father wasn’t asking about the strained relationship. “Madison seemed annoyed that I was talking to her. Not the usual annoyed, more like she had somewhere else to be. She said that she’d told Cheyenne that she’d meet her at the SnoBall stand ten minutes ago. But there’s no SnoBall stand.”

“And no Cheyenne?”

“No. I haven’t seen her all day. She’s usually with Madison.”

“And the second time?” Gerald asked.

“It was about ten minutes before the fireworks started. I was walking up the hill and saw Madison standing by the bleachers. I think she wanted to talk to me. I brushed her off. I went to the bathroom. I looked for her after the fireworks, but I couldn’t find her.”

Gerald studied her with his piercing blue eyes. “Did she have anything else on her? Sunglasses? A purse?”

“Nothing,” Emmy said. “Hannah told me she only carries a purse when she’s on her period. But there was a bulge in the front pocket of her shorts. Not a tampon or lip gloss. It was bigger. Maybe a Ziploc bag with snacks or something.”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s look at the bike.”

Gerald took the flashlight. He kept his hand on her back as they walked the longest distance of Emmy’s life. Her heart felt like it was churning inside of her chest. She fought to keep the tears from falling. Her body was registering the horribleness of the situation before her mind would let her go there.

Cheyenne’s bike had been thrown instead of dropped. The handlebars had turned backward. One of the grips dug into the earth. The bike had slid several feet before hitting the trunk of a tree. The pine straw was furrowed, the soil gouged. The bike had been thrown with force. Some of the bark had chipped off the base of the pine.

An adult had done this. Probably a man.

Emmy held her breath as Gerald trailed the light along the vivid blue frame, the colorful spokes, the pedals, the handlebars. The chain was broken. The back wheel was bent. The tire was flat. He let the flashlight beam crawl across the area. To the right. To the left. Her heart flinched at the sight of a phone approximately five feet from the bike’s rear tire. White case. Flower stickers on the back. iPhone. The screen was fractured into pieces.

Gerald pivoted the light a few feet past the phone. “See?”

Emmy saw. The earth was saturated, dark liquid pooling the same way oil had pooled under Lance Culpepper’s Miata.

Except this was not oil.

It was blood.

“Okay,” Gerald said. “We’ve got a kidnapping.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Chapter Three

Emmy sat in the passenger seat of her cruiser as her father sped down the road. They were on the way to deliver Cheyenne Baker’s parents the worst news they had ever heard in their lives. Their vulnerable fifteen-year-old daughter and her best friend were missing. Their bikes had been found abandoned. A phone had been deliberately destroyed. There was blood at the scene—not just a spot or two, but a pool of blood that had soaked the ground. This wasn’t a trick the girls were playing, or even an accident. The sheer volume of blood changed everything. It told them that whoever had taken the girls was not afraid of hurting them.

It was only a matter of time before their kidnapper hurt them even more.

Emmy was painfully aware of the clock they were running up against. At Mercer, she had written her graduate thesis on the steady increase of child kidnappings in the United States. She could recite the statistics in her sleep.

In nearly half of missing children cases, a parent or family member is the perpetrator. The victim is usually under the age of six. Typically, there is a bitter divorce or custody dispute involved, but there is sometimes a sexual assault component.

Cheyenne and Madison were teenagers. Both sets of parents were still married. And it didn’t make sense that a family member of one girl would kidnap them both.

Twenty-seven percent of cases are acquaintance abductions, and in most instances involve a juvenile offender. The victims tend to be teenage females. The motivation is almost always sexual assault and often involves a component of physical assault.

But as with a family member, an acquaintance would have much better opportunities to kidnap two girls than hoping they both showed up in the middle of a freshly planted soccer pitch with half of North Falls sitting 300 yards away.

That left a random stranger. Someone looking to take a child. Someone seeing two young girls isolated and alone. Someone who couldn’t control himself.

Fewer than one percent of child abductions were committed by predatory kidnappers. The victims tended to be almost exclusively females with the aggregate age of fourteen. They were more likely to be taken in an outdoor setting and to be coerced with a firearm. The kidnapper was more often than not driving a car. In forty-four percent of cases, the victim is murdered within the first hour. Seventy-eight percent die within the first three hours. Within twenty-four hours, virtually all of the victims are dead.

Emmy noted the time on her watch—10:58 p.m. They had officially been searching for the girls for less than an hour. She had last seen Madison standing in front of the bleachers at approximately 8:50. Hugo had slammed into her bicycle around 10:15. That gave the kidnapper a head start of at least eighty-five minutes.

Eighty-five minutes to terrify.

Eighty-five minutes to torture.

Eighty-five minutes to kill.

Emmy told herself that they were searching for the living. That Madison and Cheyenne were going to beat the odds, but with every passing second, she felt her hope slipping away.

Gerald coasted through a stop sign as he turned into the Verona Heights neighborhood. He dialed a new number into his flip phone, held it tight to his ear. He knew the odds just as well as Emmy. He had already spoken to the special agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s south-west region. He’d requested a forensics team to process the bicycles and the soccer field. He’d called in the four Clifton reserve deputies to join the others in a search. The Highway Patrol was scouring every street, highway and interstate from here to Alabama. The Verona, Ocmulgee and Clayville police chiefs had all sent officers. Half of North Falls had volunteered for search parties. Hannah and Paul were driving every possible route back to their house. Hannah’s aunt Barb was watching Davey so they could stay out all night if needed. Hannah had called Emmy once, almost incapable of speaking. She was panicked, terrified, heartsick.

So was Emmy.

Madison had been only seven years old when her mother had died from cervical cancer. Hannah had been the girl’s much-loved first-grade teacher. She had gladly stepped up when Paul’s life had fallen apart—first by helping Madison with homework and packing extra snacks, then by letting her sleep over, then picking out her clothes for school, then taking her to movies and birthday parties and playdates, then eventually falling head over heels for Madison’s father.

It should’ve been a Hallmark movie, but almost as soon as Hannah and Paul had started dating, Madison had turned into a seething, sullen nightmare. The marriage had only made things worse. They’d tried family therapy. They’d tried father–daughter days. They’d tried bribing Madison with the new bike and clothes she didn’t need and an iPhone that was far too expensive for a fifteen-year-old girl. The same phone that had been found near a pool of blood.

The fireworks display would’ve covered any loud noises.

A scream. A cry for help. A gunshot.

Emmy clenched her hands to stop the trembling. She was sick with worry, filled with absolute terror for what the girls were going through, and frantic to turn back the clock. She pressed her fist to her mouth as she turned to look out the side window. She kept seeing the image of Madison waiting for her in front of the bleachers. Sweaty and irritable. Clearly wanting Emmy to hurry up. Her forehead wrinkled with concern. Her lips pursed in anticipation. Finally, blessedly, ready to talk.

Not now.

What had Emmy been thinking? You didn’t tell a troubled teenage girl not now. You worked on their timeline. You stopped what you were doing. Especially if that frightened teenager was basically your best friend’s daughter. Any other friend would’ve listened. Any other mother would’ve known.

“Yep,” Gerald said into the phone. “Understood.”

Emmy heard the clamshell clap shut. The car slowed. Up ahead, she could see a dark brown sheriff’s cruiser already parked in front of the Bakers’ split-level home. No one was behind the wheel, but she recognized Chief Deputy Virgil Ingram’s ride.

Gerald nosed into the curb and put the gear in park. “House is empty. Neighbor on the right reports the family left in their minivan around three. Half an hour later, Cheyenne left on her bike. Family drove toward the river. She went toward town. Virgil’s tracking down the father’s cell phone number.”

Emmy nodded. Virgil was one rung below her father. She was glad he was here to take her place. She couldn’t face Cheyenne’s parents.

She told him, “Radio someone to pick me up. I can help with the search.”

“Nope,” Gerald said. “Talk it out.”

“Dad—”

His impassive expression stopped her. Emmy smoothed her lips together. They occasionally did this when they were alone in cars, just the two of them, the people who never talked to anybody would talk to each other.

“I fucked up.” Emmy had never said that word in front of her father, but anguish had pushed it out of her mouth. “I knew Madison wanted to talk to me. I could tell that something was wrong—knew it in my gut—but I was all in my head about Jonah and I wanted to be alone and I—I fucked up. I had Madison right there, close enough to touch, and she was finally ready to ask for my help, but instead of helping her, I hid in the fucking shitbox and now she’s gone.”

Gerald lifted up in the seat so he could retrieve his handkerchief from his back pocket. The cotton was damp from the heat, but Emmy used it to wipe her nose.

He asked, “Does Hannah know?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how I’m gonna tell her.”

“It’ll eat away at you like poison until you do.”

Emmy folded the handkerchief to find a fresh corner. “You called my name when I was walking through the crowd. It had to be around the same time Hugo drove onto the field and hit Madison’s bike. How did you know?”

He shrugged. “Got the tickle.”

“I felt it.” She looked down at her hands, felt the memory of holding onto Madison’s hand under the oak tree. “Not then, but earlier. I felt it with Madison, that something was wrong, but I ignored it.”

“Mistakes can give you a reason to forgive.”

“To forgive yourself or other people?” Emmy asked. “Or for people to forgive you?”

“Any.” He shrugged again. “All.”

She missed his meaning on purpose. “You’ve never made a mistake in your life.”

“Got the big ones out of the way early on,” he said. “Used to be too rigid. Always saw things in black and white. I turned some people out of my life. Shouldn’t have done that. Can’t change what happened. Too late to apologize. Had to teach myself never to do it again. Had to learn how to forgive.”

She looked at her father’s chiseled face. Tommy had talked about how different their parents were before Emmy was born, but she had never known her father to be anything but patient and understanding. “I can’t imagine you being that way.”

“I’m glad.”

Emmy looked out the window. Virgil was walking down the driveway in a T-shirt and jeans. He was holding his handkerchief to his forearm as though he’d injured himself. He shook his head to let them know there was no sign of the girls.

Gerald patted Emmy’s hand before opening the car door. She held back a moment, checking the messages on her phone. Nothing from Hannah, but her mother had let her know that Jonah had dropped off Cole. Emmy’s relief was clouded with even more guilt, because it felt wrong that she knew her child was safe and Hannah did not.

She got out of the car and was hit by the suffocating heat. Her sweaty uniform had dried in the air conditioning. The stiff collar chafed her neck. Virgil wasn’t doing much better. He winced as he lifted the handkerchief on his arm to look at the deep scratches. He was supposed to have the night off, but he looked far from rested. Virgil had told her in January that he was planning on coasting into retirement at the end of the year. The two bikes at the park had put an end to his peaceful dream. His lined face had an ashen look. His brow was even more furrowed than usual. Emmy looked up the driveway to the Bakers’ house. The garage door was open. A dark-colored Jetta was parked on one side. The other side was empty.

“Cut my arm on a damn wild rose bush trying to look through the kitchen window.” Virgil’s tone was somber as he glanced back toward the house. “Family’s not home, but I reached Felix Baker on his cell phone. I told him what’s going on. They haven’t heard from Cheyenne since they left the house around three. Thought she was at the park with Madison. They should be here any minute.”

Emmy felt the weight of his words. She had been so focused on Madison that she’d treated Cheyenne almost as an afterthought. The Bakers had to be terrified. She couldn’t imagine what that drive home must feel like.

Her father knew. As did her mother. Twice in their lives, they had gotten a phone call telling them that one of their children was dead. First Henry. Then later, Martha. Both lost in terrible accidents. Emmy had no idea how they had managed to carry on. She couldn’t breathe if she let herself think even for a second about losing Cole.

“Okay,” Gerald said. “What do we know?”

Emmy was glad for the question, because it gave her facts to concentrate on. “Eighty-five minutes elapsed between the last time I saw Madison and when Hugo ran over her bike. Cheyenne’s bike was found secluded in the trees along with Madison’s crushed iPhone and a significant amount of blood. Tire tracks indicate the vehicle used to take away both girls is a sedan.”

Virgil supplied, “Cheyenne Baker was last seen at the family home around three this afternoon when her father, Felix; mother, Ruth; and ten-year-old sister, Pamela, departed in their blue Honda Odyssey minivan to watch the show at the Flint River basin. Cheyenne was supposed to ride her bike to the park and watch the fireworks with Madison, then return home directly after. No one reported seeing Cheyenne at the park. She has a cell phone, but she’s not answering. Her parents don’t have it tracked. They expected her to be home when they got here.”

Gerald asked, “What do we think we know?”

Emmy went first again. “After I saw Madison, she must have gotten her bike. She would’ve pushed it up the stairs to the parking lot. Maybe she was going to cut across the field to get to Long Street. I think she went looking for Cheyenne. She was agitated when I saw her. I think Cheyenne was supposed to meet her at a set time, but she was late.”

“What time?” Gerald asked.

Emmy plotted the route in her head. “On the backroads, it would take Cheyenne twenty minutes, tops, to bike from here to the park. That would put her at a three thirty arrival. When I saw Madison around eight thirty, she seemed worried, but she wasn’t panicked like you’d expect if Cheyenne was running five hours late.”

Virgil suggested, “Could be Cheyenne wanted to spend the afternoon alone, then meet up with Madison right before the show to watch the fireworks.”

“That’s not how girls work,” Emmy said. “The point of being at the park wasn’t to see the fireworks. It was to hang out together. Plus, today is Madison’s birthday. Cheyenne wouldn’t roll up at the last minute. Especially if she had a curfew.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Virgil only had sons. “Is there a calculation Madison makes when she realizes Cheyenne is late? Like you said, it’s only a twenty-minute bike ride. At what point would Madison jump on her bike and come check the house?”

“I think no more than an hour,” Emmy said. “Madison would’ve been texting her, calling her cell, calling the house.”

Virgil said, “I’ve got warrants in the works for phone records. Both girls. Both house landlines.”

“There’s something else.” Emmy took out her spiral notebook. She made a rough sketch of the soccer pitch, plotting the locations where they’d found the bikes, then marking the broken caution tape. She used dashes to trace the sedan’s route. “The tire tracks take us here, to Cheyenne’s bike. Madison’s bike was way over here, maybe a hundred yards away and out in the open. We know from the tire tracks that the sedan was nowhere near Madison’s bike.”

Virgil said, “Okay, so Cheyenne showed up late, and she and Madison were together with their bikes near the cluster of trees. The kidnapper rolls up in his sedan. Gets out. Maybe they talk. He grabs Cheyenne, conks her on the head. She’s out cold, bleeds onto the ground. Madison drops her phone, jumps onto her bike, pedals across the field. He’s on foot. He runs, snatches her up, too. Leaves the bike. Puts both girls in the sedan. Drives away.”

Emmy had seen the blood. “I think one of them was shot.”

Gerald nodded. “Agreed.”

Emmy felt bile rush into her mouth. She nearly gagged as she tried to swallow it down.

Virgil asked, “Who’s our bad guy? Family? Acquaintance? Stranger?”

“Stranger,” Gerald said. “Emmy is Hannah’s best friend.”

She had to swallow again. Her father didn’t need statistics. He only needed a pair of eyes. Emmy’s cruiser was routinely parked in front of Hannah’s house. She was generally in uniform when they went for a drink after work. Emmy was also the sheriff’s daughter. Everyone in town knew the connection. Everyone in Madison’s circle would know about it, too. Even the most craven offender wouldn’t be reckless enough to target Hannah’s girl.

It had to be a stranger.

Gerald said, “Madison’s bike was left out in the open. Cheyenne’s bike was tossed under the trees.”

“He panicked,” Virgil said. “It’s pitch dark. He figured if one bike was found, no one would search for the other one. We’d focus on one girl instead of both. Probably starting with the parents and working out from there.”

“Needed us to waste time,” Gerald said. “Wanted to get away.”

Emmy took a quick breath, trying to dive back in. “From a logistical standpoint, it’s incredibly risky to go after two fifteenyear-old girls at the same time. They’re too unpredictable. The likelihood that one or both would fight back is too high.”

“He took Cheyenne first,” Gerald said.

“He must’ve talked to her,” Emmy said. “Maybe he drove up to her on the street. She was on her bike. He showed her the gun, told her to get into the car. She started bargaining with him, trying to talk him out of abducting her. Like, ‘my friend is waiting for me. If I don’t show up, she’ll come looking. She knows where I am. Her stepmother’s best friend is a cop.’ Then the kidnapper decides to use Cheyenne as bait to draw out Madison.”

“We’ll know from their cell phone records if she called or texted Madison,” Virgil said. “Maybe the kidnapper had some kind of sick fantasy he’s always wanted to act out. Two girls at once.”

Emmy looked down at the ground so that they couldn’t see her expression.

Gerald said, “GBI said call the FBI.”

Emmy knew her father wasn’t big on federal involvement. They tended to break more things than they fixed. “What are you going to do?”

“Don’t know.”

They all turned when a set of headlights swung onto the street. Emmy checked her watch. They had hit the three-hour mark. The chances of the girls still being alive had dropped to twenty-two percent.

Virgil stepped into the driveway as a blue minivan raced toward them. Ruth Baker jumped out of the vehicle before her husband had time to stop. Her face was red, eyes swollen from crying. She was frazzled, scared, panicked. “Have you found her? Where is she? Tell me what happened.”

“Ma’am,” Gerald said. “We haven’t found her. I need to ask you some questions.”

“What questions?” She grabbed onto his arm. “You should be talking to Hannah and Paul. We told them Madison was a bad influence. Whatever mess Cheyenne has gotten into is that little bitch’s fault.”

Emmy tried to keep her composure. The woman was distraught, grasping at straws. It still hadn’t hit her that the small things didn’t matter anymore. The kidnapper didn’t care.

“Ma’am,” Gerald said. “The girls were taken by force. We found a significant amount of blood at the scene. The situation is dire.”

Ruth’s mouth opened, but she said nothing. She was too stunned to even blink.

“Sheriff.” Felix Baker held onto his youngest daughter’s hand. Pamela looked as wide-eyed and shocked as her mother. “What can we do?”

Gerald said, “Tell me about your afternoon.”

“Yes, of course.” Felix took a deep breath. Emmy recognized the coping mechanism. He was trying to be calm and clear. “I had some work to do, but I came home to help pack the van for the picnic. We left for the river basin around three. I told Cheyenne to come home directly after the fireworks.”

“That was the last time you saw or heard from her?”

“Yes.” Felix’s lip trembled when he looked at his wife. “Both of us, that was the last time.”

“She didn’t go with you to the Flint?”

“She wanted to be with Madison.” Ruth’s voice was strained. “She begged me. I should’ve said no, but . . .”

Gerald kept his attention on Felix. “You drove straight to the Flint River basin?”

“I dropped them off.” Felix nodded toward his wife and child. “I had a couple more hours of work to do. I’m a mechanical engineer. I went to the factory to review some schematics, then left around seven and met Ruth and Pamela at the river basin.”

Emmy did the math. That was more than a couple of hours. Maybe they were wrong about their predator profile. It wasn’t lost on her that a father whose daughter and her best friend were missing had a shaky alibi.

“Why are you wasting time with minutiae?” Ruth had found her voice again. “Whatever happened, Madison is the one who got them into this. Cheyenne never got into trouble until we moved to this backwater. Felix! Tell them!”

Felix was shaking his head. But then he said, “She’s right. Cheyenne changed when she met Madison.”

“When was this?” Gerald asked.

“Two years ago.” Ruth gave a startled laugh, as if she couldn’t believe it was that recent. “Two years, and she ruined our damn lives.”

Emmy tried to check in on Pamela, but the child was staring at the ground. This was not a conversation to be having in front of a ten-year-old. And the neighbors. Emmy could see lights on in the surrounding houses. She wondered why her father hadn’t suggested they go inside.

“Sheriff,” Felix said, “are you sure she didn’t run away?”

Gerald asked, “Do you think she ran away?”

“I thought—” Felix stopped to swallow. His composure was slipping. “We were talking about—before this—we were talking about moving back to Iowa. To be closer to family. And Cheyenne didn’t want to do that. She said she would run away if that happened.”

“Had you made any firm decisions?” Gerald asked.

“No.” He glanced at his wife. “No, we didn’t.”

“You don’t know!” Ruth yelled. “She could’ve run away!”

“No,” Gerald said. “The girls didn’t run away.”

“How can you be sure?” Ruth demanded. “Whose blood did you find? Maybe Madison attacked her. Maybe they’re both hiding somewhere.”

“Mrs. Baker,” Gerald said. “Tell me about the changes in Cheyenne.”

Ruth’s mouth opened, then closed again. She didn’t answer because she wanted to hold onto the fantasy that maybe the girls were playing an awful game.

Felix cleared his throat. “It was so fast. She met Madison, then practically overnight, she was different.”

“How?” Gerald pressed.

“In every way possible.” Ruth tried to use the hem of her shirt to wipe under her eyes, but her hands were shaking too hard. “Before Madison, Cheyenne was our perfect little girl. Then suddenly, she didn’t want to be seen with us anymore. Refused to go to mass. Started skipping school. Everything was a secret. Then the lying started. Lying about where she was going, who she was going to be with. Spending a lot of time alone in her room. Being very unkind to Pamela.”

To Emmy’s thinking, that sounded a lot like the behavior of a teenager.

Gerald asked, “Were there any boyfriends?”

“No.” Ruth sounded emphatic. “Never.”

Emmy would’ve missed Pamela’s furtive look had she not been staring directly at the child.

Felix added, “Cheyenne isn’t allowed to date. She’s not old enough.”

Emmy bit her lip. Hannah had reported spotting a hickey on Cheyenne’s neck on more than one occasion.

Gerald asked, “Do you have any family members in the area?”

Felix shook his head. “They’re all in Iowa.”

“Did Cheyenne have other friends?” Gerald asked.

“No,” Ruth said. “She was popular when we first moved here. But then her circle got smaller and smaller until . . .”

Emmy watched tears roll down the woman’s face. Ruth’s throat was visibly strained as she swallowed. She had exhausted all of the blame and excuses. Now it was just cold, hard facts: her daughter was missing. She might never come home.

“Okay,” Gerald said. “My deputy would like to search Cheyenne’s room. Felix, could you show her the way?”

Felix looked surprised that the request was directed toward him. He’d assumed that the sheriff would want to talk to the calmer parent. He didn’t know this sheriff understood that people who were calm tended to be careful about what came out of their mouth.

Gerald had noticed that Felix’s alibi was shaky, too.

“Of course.” Felix reached for Pamela’s hand. “Ready, sweetie?”

Pamela’s eyes lingered on Emmy a moment too long before she let her father lead her up the driveway. Emmy matched their slow pace. She thought about Pamela’s furtive look when Gerald had asked about boyfriends. The girl was five years younger than her sister. There were twenty-two years between Emmy and her brother, but she had treated Tommy as a full-on subject of interest. He couldn’t send an email or make a phone call without her Veronica Mars-ing his ass. Emmy had known he was going to ask Celia to marry him before he did.

It had to be worse with sisters.

“Sorry.” Felix used his key to unlock the front door. “We didn’t have time to clean up.”

“No problem.”

Emmy scanned her surroundings as he took her up the stairs to the main level. She could’ve drawn the floorplan standing at the curb. Almost every house in the neighborhood had a similar design. Decades ago, some distant Clifton cousins had built split-levels all over Verona. The engineers at the factory loved the twentieth-century modern look. Their wives detested the basement floor laundry room and two sets of stairs you had to climb to get from the garage to the kitchen.

The Bakers’ house wasn’t messy, considering two busy adults, a tween and a teen lived here. The furniture was nice if mostly bland. The couple seemed to favor variations of browns and whites. Emmy could see the same color scheme in the kitchen, the hall, the powder room. There didn’t appear to be any pets. Only a few paintings hung on the walls. There were no rugs to warm things up or even throws and pillows to make people feel at home. If Emmy had to use one word to describe the place, it would’ve been temporary.

The family hadn’t started talking about moving back to Iowa because of Madison Dalrymple. Ruth had clearly refused to set down roots here. She was looking for any excuse to go back home.

“This way,” Felix nodded for her to follow.

All the doors off the hallway were closed. Emmy guessed that was an Iowa thing. The hardwood floors were old and cupped from the humidity. Every footstep was accompanied by a particular kind of squeak. She imagined it was difficult to sneak out of the house at night. She also imagined that Cheyenne had figured out a way to do it.

Felix paused at the last closed door on the right. His hand wrapped around the knob, but he didn’t open it. Emmy let him have a moment.

“Dad,” Pamela whispered, like she was embarrassed that he had forgotten how to open doors.

“It’s okay, sweetie.” He gave a self-conscious laugh. “Your sister’s going to be furious when she finds out I let a stranger go into her room.”

Emmy heard the shakiness in his voice. She gave him some space to make the decision. Opening the door meant that Cheyenne was really missing. That she might not come back. That someone had probably hurt her.

Felix took a deep breath, then opened the door.

She had been expecting the usual teenage mess, but Cheyenne’s bedroom was next level cluttered. Unlike her mother, she’d set down deep roots. Posters of every band and singer you would expect had been taped on the walls. There were multiple sets of collections—stuffed animals, horse figurines, perfumes, lip glosses, earrings, dried flowers, candles, Harry Potter, the Twilight series, make-up sets, so many clothes and shoes that the closet door wouldn’t close.

Felix gave a dry laugh. “She likes her stuff.”

“Most girls do.”

“I yelled at her this afternoon,” he said. “I wanted her to go with us to the river. I told her it was important to do things as a family.”

Emmy gave him some grace. “It’s hard raising a teenager.”

He gestured toward the eyeshadows and blushes strewn across the desk. “We gave up the battle over her make-up. Ruth said she was too young, but she would put it on as soon as she left the house, so . . .”

Emmy heard his throat work as he swallowed.

“Cheyenne was right,” he said. “She told me I wouldn’t be at the river anyway. That I would get tied up at work, and that I would be late, so what did it matter if she was there or with Madison.”

Emmy studied his face. She felt his regret was genuine, but she didn’t have the luxury of giving people the benefit of the doubt. “Did she have a laptop or—”

“Ruth took away her laptop last year.” He shrugged. “Cheyenne figured out a way around the parental controls. We didn’t want her using social media. She’s only allowed to use the desktop downstairs for homework.”

“Can you get the laptop for me?”

“I’m sorry, I think Ruth donated it to the church. The nuns have a program for underprivileged youth.”

“That’s okay.” Emmy would follow up on it later. “What about her phone?”

“It’s an old flip phone I tossed in a desk drawer a few years back. Ruth was furious at her for scratching her initials into the plastic . . .” His voice trailed off as he seemed to realize that he’d wasted too much time being angry over stupid things. “We monitored all of her online activity. She wasn’t allowed to have internet access outside the house or at school. There are so many bad people out there that . . .”

Emmy watched his face collapse as he realized that the bad people had gotten to his daughter anyway. She told him, “I should get started.”

“Of course.” Felix clasped his hands together. “Do you need my help with this, or—”

“The sheriff probably has more questions for you.”

“Right,” he said. “Right.”

Emmy watched him leave. His footsteps were heavy in the hallway, squeaking every floorboard. She heard his tread down the split-level stairs. The click of the front door. Emmy was about to get started on the search when she heard a soft squeak closer by.

Pamela peered around the edge of the open doorway. Emmy smiled at her, but the girl quickly pulled back. Her footsteps were light as a mouse across the hall. One of the bedroom doors opened, then closed.

Going after her was an option, but Emmy had to weigh the fact that Pamela was a ten-year-old whose sister was missing against the probability that she had any useful information. The girl would probably remember every part of this night. She didn’t need to remember being terrified of an aggressive sheriff’s deputy. Besides, the worst way to get something from a child was to demand they speak up.

Emmy started the search of Cheyenne’s bedroom with a quick visual scan in case anything obvious was lying around. Cheyenne seemed to like pink and blue, which was unsurprising considering how she’d decorated her bike. This wasn’t a little girl pink on the walls, though. The color was closer to hot pink, likely chosen to annoy her mother.

The bedspread was an almost identical vivid blue to Cheyenne’s bicycle. The sheets were an explosion of multicolored flowers. The throw pillows were in a similar range. Glow-in-the-dark stars had been stuck onto the ceiling and pressed onto the blades of the ceiling fan. There was a fake sheepskin rug on the floor. The edges were curled. A pair of deep gouges had damaged the hardwoods. The top of the desk was almost completely covered with various types of make-up. Three bottles of dark nail polish rested beside a history textbook. Underneath was a yellow legal pad with doodles drawn in purple ink. Emmy knew both girls were in summer school because they’d failed social studies during the regular year.

She checked to make sure the doorway was still empty before taking a pair of gloves out of her pocket and pulling them on. She paged through the textbook. Skimmed the class notes. Cheyenne’s handwriting was a girlish loop with circles instead of dots. From what Emmy could tell, none of her notes were personal in nature. There was a backpack leaning against the side of the desk. She bent down to look inside. Another textbook, a copy of Romeo and Juliet, a Twix bar, an empty water bottle, a school ID, three crumpled dollar bills, thirty-two cents in loose coins, and what looked like a furry Tic Tac.

Emmy stood back up. She started with the low-hanging fruit. Ran her hands between the mattress and box spring. Peered under the bed. Opened the bedside drawers, checked inside, then slid her fingers along the wooden undersides. Then she performed the same routine with the dresser drawers. She rifled the closet shelves. Rummaged through the trash. Searched random pockets in clothes. Looked inside the zillions of pairs of shoes tossed into the closet.

Bingo.

Emmy found a small, metal lockbox tucked into the very back corner of the closet. She didn’t waste time looking for a key. The box was flimsy, the sort of thing you would give a child, not engineered with a patented lock from Fort Knox. Emmy unclipped the multi-tool on her belt and found the auger. She jammed it into the keyhole and twisted. The box opened.

“Huh,” she mumbled.

There had to be at least 3,000 dollars in the box. She took out the bills to count them. The money wasn’t Cheyenne’s only stash. There was a baggie of weed, more seeds than stems, but still. She placed it all on the floor.

The only thing left in the box was a strip of photos like one you’d get from a booth at the fair. Each of the four squares showed Madison and Cheyenne, arms around each other, posing for the camera. They were dressed up, probably for a party that neither set of parents had known about. Madison’s eyeliner was too heavy, her lips ballooned out with cherry red lipstick. Cheyenne’s too-tight shirt gaped open wide enough to show her black bra underneath. The gold necklace with her name spelled in script practically disappeared into her cleavage. Madison had a matching necklace with her name, but in contrast, she was more modestly dressed, as if she hadn’t been able to fully commit to the look. The last photo on the strip raised an interesting question. Cheyenne was holding Madison’s head in her hands as she kissed her on the face.

Not the cheek, not the lips, but somewhere in between.

Emmy didn’t want to read too much into the kiss. At that age, she had constantly developed crushes on girls, but there was never a sexual component. It was more like she wanted to be them rather than to be with them. To have Celia’s quick wit or Taybee’s unwavering certainty or Hannah’s dark sense of humor. To be anyone but herself.

It was so hard to be a fifteen-year-old girl.

She heard the hallway floorboards creak again. Emmy glanced into the mirror over the dresser. She could see Pamela peering around the doorjamb.

Emmy sat back on her heels. Again, she thought about Pamela’s furtive look in the street. At ten years of age, Pamela was old enough to understand something bad had happened to Cheyenne, but not old enough to grasp that she really needed to help. Any past promises or pinky swears or even bribes were inconsequential. Pamela needed to confess it all. Emmy tried to think of a way to convey this truth without pushing the girl too far. Cole was one year older, but probably half as mature. The only real power you had at that age was silence.

She took out her phone and carefully photographed everything she had found. Then she placed the photo strip back in the metal box. Then the bag of pot. Then she started counting the cash. Twenties, mostly. A few tens. Several fifties, which was surprising. Emmy had been wrong in her estimate. There was closer to five grand in the lockbox. The amount was staggering for a teenager to have hidden in her closet. And it wasn’t as if Cheyenne could go to an ATM. Who the hell had given dozens of crisp fifty-dollar bills to a fifteen-year-old girl?

Pamela’s shadow fell across the shoe collection. The girl squatted down beside Emmy. She was wearing a yellow dress that was stained down the front, likely from a red popsicle. Her knobby knees had cuts and scrapes. She had red clay under her fingernails from playing in the river basin. She smelled almost overwhelmingly sweaty, but in that way that children could stink but still smell sweet.

Emmy kept quiet as she started counting out the bills again, placing them in stacks like Monopoly money. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Pamela pressing the seeds in the baggie like she was popping bubble wrap. Emmy tidied the stacks of bills. She bit her tongue so that she didn’t ruin this moment. She had spent so many hours doing busy work in the kitchen or pretending to care about dusting books on the shelves or arranging PlayStation CDs while she waited for Cole to finally tell her what was bothering him. This should’ve been easy compared to that, but she was so desperate to find Madison and Cheyenne that her hands ached to grab Pamela by the arms and shake her.

Instead, she scooped up the fifties and started turning the faces on the bills in the same direction.

Pamela kept pressing her thumb into the seeds.

Emmy decided to take a risk. “I guess your dad doesn’t know about Cheyenne’s iPhone.”

Pamela stiffened.

“It’s not a big deal.” Emmy had seen Cheyenne with the iPhone on Hannah’s couch. The two girls had been sitting a foot away from each other and still texted rather than opening their mouths to speak. “I won’t tell anybody.”

Pamela went back to pressing the seeds. She had broken apart most of them. Emmy wondered if she knew what was in the baggie. Rather than ask, she picked up the twenties and started to face them all in the same direction.

“There’s more,” Pamela said.

“Money?” Emmy kept arranging.

“Yeah.”

Emmy waited until she had finished with the bills. “Where?”

Pamela didn’t answer. The guilt of revealing Cheyenne’s secret was obviously weighing heavy. Again, Emmy forced her mouth to stay closed, scooping up another stack of bills as her ears strained for any break in the silence.

Finally, Pamela tapped Emmy on the arm. She waited for her to look, then her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling in the closet.

The kid was a better investigator than Emmy. There was an attic access panel at the top of the closet.

Pamela stood up. She threw back the sheepskin rug and dragged the desk chair across the floor. That explained the gouge marks in the wood. Emmy was wondering how the kid managed to get to the panel when Pamela started piling books onto the seat, which was not only dangerous but unnecessary.

“I’ve got it, sweetheart.” Emmy stepped onto the chair. She reached up over her head and pushed away the panel. She felt blindly around the attic joists. Pink insulation rained down into her mouth and eyes. She coughed, using her arm to wipe grit from her eyes. She was about to ask Pamela for more guidance when her fingers touched the edge of a plastic bag. Ziploc. Gallonsized. Thick enough for the freezer. She pulled down the bag through the opening. She blinked her eyes, but not from the insulation. Because she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Another giant wad of cash. A blister pack of birth control pills with four tablets missing. More pot. What looked like two eight balls of cocaine and ten tabs of Molly.

She looked down at Pamela. Emmy was done being careful. She asked, “Does Cheyenne have a boyfriend?”

“Yeah,” the girl said. “His name is Jack.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Chapter Four

Yet again, Emmy sat beside her father as he drove her cruiser, this time to another house with another family that was about to have their lives turned upside down—though for very different reasons. The Jack that Pamela had named was the sixteenyear-old son of Dr. Carl Whitlock, a pediatrician whose patient list touched almost every person in North Falls, including Emmy, who’d seen him as a teenager, and Cole, who’d never known another doctor. Carl’s wife, Monica, had been nearly twenty years younger than him and had never taken to small town life. She’d remarried and moved to Atlanta a few years ago, but they’d kept Jack in North Falls so that he could finish high school.

Gerald asked, “She on your radar?”

He was asking about Cheyenne. Every cop had a list of potential criminals on their radar, the kind of people who’d been lucky or clever enough to avoid getting arrested. Emmy had never suspected anything other than teenage angst behind Cheyenne and Madison’s steely silences whenever she walked into the room. The stash of drugs and money had thrown her for a loop.

She told her father, “I knew the girls were getting high sometimes, but I had no idea Cheyenne was messed up in anything like this. If I had, I would’ve told Hannah to get Madison the hell away from her.”

“Okay.”

Emmy studied her father’s profile. His okays had several layers. Sometimes they could be taken at face value as an agreement, sometimes they were meant to acknowledge that words had been spoken and they’d been heard, but that was the extent of it. They both knew Jonah spent most of his days either drinking or getting high. They both chose not to talk about it.

“Dad, there’s a big difference between a couple of joints and two eight balls and a dime of Molly.” Emmy tried to take the petulance out of her tone. “The hard drugs change things. Between the lockbox and what I found in the attic, Cheyenne was sitting on nearly 16,000 bucks in cash and 1,000 more in drugs. That’s a significant amount of business.”

“What’s Jack’s involvement?”

“Was he dealing or were they holding for him?” Emmy stared at the blur of the road as she considered the possibilities. “His father is a doctor, but I don’t see Dr. Carl losing track of his prescription pads. And the drugs we found aren’t legal pharmaceuticals. If I’m a drug dealer, I might get Cheyenne to hold my stash, but I wouldn’t trust her to keep that much money. Plus, if he abducted the girls in order to get the cash back, the cash would be gone. According to the neighbors, the Bakers’ house has been empty since three thirty at least.”

“Take the drugs out of it.”

“It doesn’t change anything. Jack would have better opportunities to abduct the girls. He could tell them to swing by his house. But why would he take them in the first place? Where would he hold them? Why take them both at the same time? This feels too calculated and controlled for a sixteen-year-old boy to pull off.”

Gerald asked, “What are the other scenarios?”

Emmy tried to think of how the drugs could tie into the disappearance of the two girls. “The biker gangs out of Macon run coke and oxy. The militia runs—”

“Emmy Lou,” he said, his tone not exactly making fun of her, but not exactly not not making fun of her. The humbling part was that he was right. Whoever had supplied Cheyenne with the drugs was at least ten rungs below the organization that trafficked them into the state.

“They’re fifteen-year-old girls,” Emmy said. “They can’t drive. Can’t hang out at bars. Can’t really leave the house without permission. Everywhere they go is on their bikes, so that limits their world even more. They’re not following politics or the news. Their entire lives are whatever happens at school and whatever happens at the outlet mall. And even then, it’s all focused through the narrow lens of their own existence.”

“So?”

“He probably met them at the outlet mall.” Emmy silently flipped through the carousel of small-time drug dealers in the county. Most of them were middle-aged men with receding hairlines who were barely scraping by. “I mean, even the street-level dealers have a moral compass. I could see them dealing to older kids, but I don’t see any of them snatching up two girls, no matter what they did.”

“Focus on Madison,” Gerald said.

Emmy felt her throat tighten. Talking in theoreticals had given her some distance, but now she was reminded that at the heart of everything were two terrified, endangered children. They were not hardened drug dealers or streetwise hustlers. They were Felix and Ruth Baker’s oldest daughter. They were Paul and Hannah’s baby girl.

“Sixteen grand is a lot for a teenager to hold onto,” Emmy said. “It takes an enormous amount of discipline to not blow it on clothes and make-up. They were saving up for something important. Probably to leave town.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what you want to do when you’re a teenager. Everybody treats you like you’re a kid but you think you’re an adult. Your parents are stupid. School is a waste of time. It’s boring hanging out every day at the outlet mall. You see the same people over and over again. Hear the same stories.” Emmy paused, trying to think back to being stuck in that hellish limbo. “The Bakers claim Madison is the one who corrupted Cheyenne. Hannah and Paul say that Cheyenne is the bad seed. I think it’s more likely that they egged each other on. Cheyenne is from out of town. She’s exciting and flashy. Madison soaks up the drama and emotion like a sponge. In order to keep Madison’s attention, Cheyenne has to keep taking bigger and bigger risks. If I’m a skeevy drug dealer, Cheyenne is the one I approach.”

Gerald said, “Paul and Hannah are North Falls people.”

Emmy knew what he meant. There were a lot of assumptions baked into the phrase North Falls people. The town’s real estate market was tight and restrictive. The citizens, particularly the women, tended to be tough as nails and long-lived. Generally, if you owned a house within the city limits, it was because your grandmother had passed it on to you, and her grandmother had passed it on to her. People in the city had more money, more education, more political reach, and more resources. In other words, if you were doing something covert or illegal, you would stay as far away from North Falls people as possible.

And you would especially want to avoid their privileged, spoiled children.

“The kidnapper probably watched them before he decided to make his move.” Emmy’s stomach twisted into a knot as she considered the possibilities. “Maybe he only sold weed to them in the beginning. Then he talked to them a bit. Then he figured out that Cheyenne was the leader, so he chose her.”

“Okay,” Gerald said. “What’s his angle?”

“Sex.” She felt a tinge of heat in her cheeks. “Hannah and I talked about this when Madison turned thirteen. Suddenly, all these creepy adult men came out of the woodwork. We both remember it happening to us around that age, too. What you wear, how you walk, how you talk, how you breathe—there’s always a skeevy older guy who’s paying attention, noting your vulnerabilities, flattering you, flirting with you, because he’s trying to groom you.”

“For sex?”

“Sure, but also for power, control, manipulation. Small men can’t handle grown women. They go after girls because most girls are pliable and desperate for outside approval. At that age, you’ll do almost anything for attention, even if it feels bad and you know it’s wrong.”

Emmy shrugged when Gerald looked at her, because it really was that simple.

He asked, “They wouldn’t tell their parents?”

“Parents get mad about the wrong things. What were you doing talking to him? Why were you hanging out there? Why didn’t you walk away? What were you wearing? Why did you lead him on?”

“Okay.” He cut the steering wheel into a sharp turn. “Explain the drugs.”

The knot twisted tighter. “He must’ve used them to expand his drug business into the high school. Summer school is in session until the end of the month. Both girls are enrolled. That means kids from Verona, Ocmulgee, Clayville, and North Falls.”

“Not good.”

“I’ll see what Dylan knows.” Emmy took out her phone and started texting Deputy Dylan Alvarez, the sheriff’s resource officer who was in charge of the high school, to see if he had any useful information about dealers or the girls. “Dylan patrols the halls every day. He can tell us which kids we need to talk to.”

Gerald’s phone started to ring. He flipped it open, put it on speakerphone. “You got both of us.”

“No news on the girls.” Virgil was obviously standing outside. The chirp of crickets filled the background. “Paul went online and pulled up Madison’s cell phone records from the last six months. Other than Paul and Hannah, Madison only ever called three numbers. The first one matches the flip phone Cheyenne’s parents knew about. The second number was registered to a pay-as-you-go account.”

“A burner phone,” Emmy said. “The number could belong to the kidnapper. How frequent are the calls?”

“Nearly nonstop, and not short,” Virgil said. “Some last thirty, forty minutes. Some are over two hours. The number of texts is ridiculous. I don’t have the content, but I’ve got the time stamps. We’re talking quick bursts, sometimes a text was sent every four or five seconds.”

“That sounds more like two girls,” Emmy said. “Is there a pattern between Madison’s phone, Cheyenne’s flip phone, and the burner? Like did Madison text with both Cheyenne and the burner simultaneously?”

“Hold on.” Virgil was clearly looking at the records. “Okay, the short answer is no. It looks like Madison only called Cheyenne’s flip phone before and after summer school hours. During school, she was exclusively contacting the burner, and that’s like—Jesus, a lot. Fifty, maybe a hundred texts over the course of six hours. Then they stop when school is out, then they pick back up around midnight and continue off and on until the morning.”

“The burner has to belong to Cheyenne,” Emmy said. “A predator or dealer wouldn’t be on the phone that much. It leaves a record. He’d want to interact in person. Less chance of being overheard. Lower risk of the parents finding out.”

Gerald asked, “What about the third number?”

“That’s the interesting thing,” Virgil said. “Eight days ago, the burner phone went dark, then a third number came online, also pay-as-you-go. Madison stopped communicating with the old number and picked up the new one. Same frequency, same hours.”

“Maybe the burner was lost?” Emmy asked. “Stolen?”

“Whatever the reason, we need to lay our hands on those phones,” Virgil said. “You have to have the actual device to read the texts. Paul gave us the password for Madison’s iPhone, but I couldn’t get the damn thing to power on. It’s not just the glass that got cracked. The bits and pieces are loose inside.”

“Was it backed up to the cloud?” Emmy asked.

“No, they opted her out ’cause she had so many texts and pictures it was blowing through their data plan,” Virgil said. “I’ve got the phone bagged and ready to go to the GBI lab along with the Bakers’ desktop computer.”

“Delay that,” Gerald said.

Emmy looked at her father. She knew that he’d decided to call in the FBI.

She asked Virgil, “What about the Bakers? Can they access records on Cheyenne’s flip phone?”

“Felix doesn’t have an online account. You need a code to activate it. He’s going to call the business office as soon as it’s open in the morning.”

Emmy thought it was weird that an engineer didn’t have everything set up electronically. “If you’re trying to be sneaky, you buy a burner phone because you can pay cash and you don’t have to give your real name. You wouldn’t buy it online because you’d have to use a credit card, so you’d go to a brick-and-mortar to get it. There can’t be more than a couple of places where Cheyenne or Madison could buy a burner. I’d start with the Good Dollar and the kiosk at the outlet mall.”

Gerald said, “Could be the kidnapper bought the phones.”

She hadn’t thought about that, but it made sense that the man controlling Cheyenne would also control who she spoke with.

Gerald said, “The bulge in Madison’s pocket.”

Emmy felt her heart sink. She’d stupidly thought Madison had packed a bag of snacks. “She could’ve had a flip phone on her at the park. Dad, there’s no way this was random. The kidnapper is sophisticated and seasoned at grooming girls.”

Gerald said, “Put a team on the List.”

Emmy had known it was coming, but it still hit her like a hammer to the chest. The List referred to all the registered sex offenders in the county.

“Shit,” Virgil mumbled. He was feeling it, too. “Yes, boss.”

Gerald closed his phone and slipped it into his pocket. His eyes stayed on the road. Emmy listened to the white noise of the car wheels traveling over asphalt. They were on Vernon Road, named after her great-great-grandfather. Soon, they would take a left onto Delilah Avenue, named after her great-greatgrandmother. Hannah lived just behind Delilah on Clay Street, which was named after the first Clifton who’d stolen the land from the Creek tribe in 1822 and plastered his name all over the county.

“Emmy Lou?” Gerald said.

She turned to look at him. She knew what was coming before he even said it.

“You’re gonna have to talk to Hannah.”

Emmy slowly nodded her head.

“Need to search Madison’s room. Find out if she’s been hiding anything. Look for the missing burner. Any other burners. Cash. Drugs. Pills.”

Emmy kept nodding.

Gerald pushed up the turn signal to take a left onto Delilah. Emmy looked at her watch. It was one in the morning, yet the lights were on in every single house. There were open garage doors, empty carports, so many people walking in the street with flashlights that they looked like a swarm of fireflies.

They were all looking for Madison and Cheyenne.

Gerald nosed the car into the curb in front of Dr. Carl’s house. Emmy checked her phone as she got out. Two more texts from her crazy aunt. The cousins text had blown up again, but the potluck vs. restaurant argument had reached a detente. Taybee had created a spreadsheet that referred to a map overlaid with search areas she had assigned to various branches of Cliftons. No one was questioning her authority. For once, they were all in complete agreement about what had to be done.

The last text was from her mother. Cole had finally nodded off in Emmy’s old bed. She let herself feel the relief of knowing her child was cared for. Emmy was about to return her phone to her pocket when it started to ring.

She answered on speakerphone so her father could hear. “Dylan, we’re both here. What do you have?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I know Cheyenne and Madison from seeing them in the halls, but they’ve never been in trouble with me.”

Emmy was disappointed but not surprised the two girls had managed to stay clear of the school’s law enforcement officer. They were demonstrably good at keeping secrets. “What about Jack Whitlock?”

“Dr. Carl’s son?” Dylan sounded slightly alarmed. His fourteen-year-old daughter was probably a patient. “Jack’s not in the popular group for sure. Kind of quiet. Kind of a loner. I’ve never had any one-on-one with him.”

Again, not surprising. A school resource officer’s job was safety and crime prevention. Dylan’s days were filled with breaking up fights, tracking down petty thieves, and walking the hallways to remind the students there was a cop on duty—none of which would put him in direct contact with kids who knew how to stay out of trouble. Or at least give off the appearance.

She asked, “Who are the dealers at school?”

“Nobody,” Dylan said. “North Falls High does not have a drug problem.”

Emmy almost laughed. “Are you kidding me?”

Gerald cleared his throat. “Dylan, Emmy will meet you at the school first thing in the morning. Give her the rundown. She’ll need to talk to the guidance counselors, teachers, kids. Make a list.”

Like Virgil, he hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes, boss.”

Emmy ended the call. She asked her dad, “What was that?”

Gerald didn’t answer. He walked up the driveway toward Dr. Carl’s house. Emmy followed, trying to turn her brain away from the strange phone call and concentrate on the task at hand.

As of right now, Jack Whitlock was their only lead in the disappearance of Cheyenne Baker and Madison Dalrymple. The girls had been missing for over four hours. The odds that they would be found alive were dropping into the single digits.

Emmy let her gaze travel around the property. The red brick ranch-style home with crisp white trim and a carport on the left-hand side was another Clifton family special, this one designed to take advantage of government-backed mortgages provided to returning World War II veterans who were eager to start their families. Three bedrooms. En suite in the primary. Hall bath. Living room. Kitchen. Den. No basement.

There was only one vehicle parked in the carport, Dr. Carl’s black Volkswagen Jetta. The rest of the space was taken up by a long workbench and several metal storage cabinets. Everything was tidy and in its place, unlike the yard, which had gone to hell since Monica had left. The flower beds were mostly weeds. The grass looked parched. No one had cleaned out the gutters in a good long while.

The bigger problem was that, unlike every other house on the street, the lights at Dr. Carl’s were turned off. Not even the porch light was on.

Gerald glanced back at Emmy. All the bad explanations passed wordlessly between them.

Torture. Rape. Murder. Patricide. Suicide.

Jack Whitlock was a sixteen-year-old white male who was unpopular at school and described as a quiet loner. Emmy knew for a fact that Dr. Carl kept at least one weapon in the house. She had seen him at the shooting range with a SIG MCX that had a sixteen-inch hammer forged barrel, a skeletonized side-folding stock, and a thirty-round magazine. The nearly $3,000 rifle was billed as a home defense weapon, but the military styling had an ungodly appeal to weekend warriors, divorced fathers, and school shooters.

Emmy unsnapped the strap around her Glock for the second time that night.

Gerald walked up the two steps to the front porch. He waited until Emmy was positioned behind him and to his right. He raised his fist and gave the door three hard knocks. Each one was loud enough to sound like a gunshot, which was by design. You didn’t knock tentatively if you didn’t know what was waiting for you on the other side.

Emmy saw a light switch on in the far corner of the house. She knew it came from the primary bedroom. She silently counted off the steps to the front door. Up the long hallway. Through the living room. Turn left at the kitchen. Another short hallway. Then the foyer.

An interior light came on, sparkling through the etched glass panels in the top of the door. Then the porch light glowed amber. Then the door was opened, and Dr. Carl was standing there in a white undershirt tucked into a pair of white boxers. He blinked behind his glasses.

“Gerald?” Carl sounded surprised. He glanced out into the street. “What happened?”

“Cheyenne Baker and Madison Dalrymple are missing.” Gerald nodded inside the house. “Can we come in?”

“Y-yes.” Carl stepped back, opening the door wider. “What can I do? When did this happen?”

Emmy watched Carl start turning on lamps in the living room. He looked concerned, but not frantic. She told him, “Madison was last seen at the Fourth celebration at the park. Cheyenne was last seen this afternoon at home. We suspect foul play.”

“Jesus.” Carl’s glasses bumped up as he rubbed his eyes. He was still caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. “Do you—I mean, dental records would be—”

“That’s not why we’re here,” Emmy said. “Can we talk to Jack?”

“Jack?” Carl asked, but he didn’t push for clarification. He turned back toward the dark hallway. “I thought he was asleep.”

Emmy could see a faint blue light slipping out from under a closed bedroom door. She didn’t wait for an invitation. She walked down the hall with her hand on her holstered Glock.

“Gerald,” Carl said, “what’s going on?”

Behind her, Emmy heard the low register of her father’s deep voice as he answered the question, but all of her attention stayed on the door. She reached out, carefully resting her fingers on the handle. She made herself let out the breath she’d been holding, then she opened the door.

Jack was sitting at his computer, turned away from Emmy. The large monitor was the only source of light in the room. He was seated in an office-style rolling chair that was pulled up to a large wooden desk. Papers and books were piled across the top. A pair of Beats headphones were attached to his iPhone by a red cord, but the volume was turned up loud enough for Emmy to make out the pounding synth pop of “Poker Face” leaking from around his ears. An atom bomb could’ve gone off behind him and he would’ve been oblivious.

Emmy stepped carefully into the room. She had to open her mouth to breathe. The smell hit her hard and fast: sweat and testosterone with a hint of Axe Body Spray and hand lotion. The bed was unmade, the fitted sheet pulled back to expose the bare mattress. Clothes were strewn across the floor. Shelves had been built into the open closet. The posters on the wall were filled with women suggestively caressing vintage sports cars. Everything was messy, disordered, tossed around.

She looked at the monitor. Jack was staring at a Facebook page for someone named Rex Delilah, which sounded like he’d fallen for that phishing scheme that claimed to generate your porn name but secretly collected the name of your first pet and your childhood street so the thief could break into your passwords.

While Emmy watched, Jack hit refresh on the comments. Dozens of new posts loaded. She squinted at the monitor, which was so large that she could read it from six feet away:

–Can’t stop thinking about the last thing Cheyenne said to me. She wanted to copy my homework but I said no.

If I had of let her, maybe she wouldn’t be missing right now.

–I used to have lunch with Cheyenne when she first moved here. People grow apart but I always considered her a friend. I pray to God for her safe return. #CliftonStrong

–She was always a BITCH and so was Madison

–Mad snapped me a pic of her pussy want2 see it?

–I love Madison we were friends in middle school and her mom was so sweet. She made the best cupcakes do y’all remember? I like Mrs. Dalrymple 2 tho she was my teacher.

–Cheyenne told me she’d give me a bj for $50

–Cheyenne we love you and Madison both please come home! #CliftonStrong

–LINK to Mad’s pussy

–We need to pray for both of them to be returned safely. The Lord hears the prayers of children first. Let’s lift up our voices in the school quad tomorrow. #CliftonStrong

–Get on your knees before me and I will give you something to pray about real hard lmfao!!! #CliftonDONG

Emmy heard Jack snort a laugh.

From triumph? From vicarious pleasure?

He reloaded the page again like a junkie seeking a fix. More posts scrolled up. Emmy checked for her father. Gerald was standing in the hall. He had a light step for such a large man. Emmy moved to her left, positioning herself between the twin bed and the window. Gerald blocked the door, effectively cutting off any chance of escape. He slid his finger under the light switch. He waited for Emmy’s nod before flipping it on.

“Dad!” Jack yelled, standing up so quickly that his chair slammed into the bed. His Beats were yanked off his head in the process. “Poker Face” had reached the chorus. The drums sounded tinny when the headphones hit the carpet. “What the—”

Emmy heard the sharp snap of his teeth as his mouth closed. He looked at Emmy, then her father. Instinctively, she knew he was hiding something.

She asked, “Where are Madison and Cheyenne?”

“What?” he asked. “How would I know?”

“You know they’re missing.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You’ve been reading that Facebook page all night.”

“That’s not—”

“What am I going to find when I search your room?”

Jack opened his mouth to answer, then snapped it closed again. His gaze went toward the door. Carl was standing behind Gerald. “Dad, I’m a minor. They’re not allowed to talk to me without your permission.”

Carl asked, “Do you know why they’re here?”

Jack shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Son, you obviously knew the girls were missing.” Carl sounded appalled. “Why didn’t you wake me up? Madison has been my patient since she was a baby. Hannah and Paul must be terrified. You didn’t think I’d want to help look for her?”

Jack’s head tilted down. The motion had a practiced feel. “Sorry, Dad.”

Emmy looked at Gerald. He was taking in the room. The posters. The state of disarray. The vitriolic posts on the Facebook page. He didn’t have to step close to read what was being said. His cataract surgery had given him sharper vision than she’d ever had.

Gerald turned back to Carl. “You mind letting Emmy talk to your boy alone?”

Carl shook his head, but said, “Yes, of course she can. Let’s go back to the living room. I’ve got some scotch, or—” Emmy blocked out the rest of the conversation as the two men walked away. She kept her focus on Jack, asking, “What am I going to find in your room?”

“Nothing.”

“So if I look under your bed . . .”

“Shit,” he hissed. “Okay, fine.”

Jack got on his knees and reached between the mattress and box spring. He tossed an object onto the wrinkled sheets. She saw a black plastic flashlight, except the part that was supposed to have the light was silicone, and the silicone was formed into the shape of a labia. As if that wasn’t awful enough, the words POCKET PUSSY were etched onto the side.

“Are you happy?” Jack demanded.

Emmy was not happy. “Put that thing on the floor and sit in the chair with both hands where I can see them.”

Jack grunted, but he complied. “There’s nothing else. I promise.”

Emmy knew what a guilty eleven-year-old boy looked like. She guessed at sixteen, they weren’t that much better at feigning innocence. She took a pair of gloves out of her pocket, but she wasn’t going to search blind. She tilted up the twin mattress onto its side. She didn’t recognize half the kinky shit Jack had hidden under there, but the kid was definitely at the height of his sexual awakening. There wasn’t enough money in the world that would compel her to take a black light to this room.

She checked on Jack. He was rocking back and forth in the chair, furious, impotent, ashamed. Emmy was reminded of a line she’d read from a study of school shooters—

They seek to reaffirm their masculinity by attacking students and teachers who they perceive to be thriving within the social entity that they feel has diminished their masculinity.

Emmy let the mattress drop back into place. She checked the bedside table and dresser drawers. Nothing. She searched the shelves in the closet. Nothing. The dirty clothes basket was full. She kicked it onto its side. Nothing.

She kept Jack in her line of sight while she flipped through the paperbacks on the desk. The Last of the Mohicans, A Room with a View, Beloved. The spines were cracked. Post-it flags stuck out from the pages. She assumed he was knocking out his summer reading assignment for AP English. She used the toe of her shoe to push over his backpack. More books, including The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor. His desk drawer was filled with index cards and pens. Nothing alarming or unexpected was in the room if you left out the veritable Red Light District under the mattress.

Jack crossed his arms over his chest. “I told you there wasn’t anything else.”

“You did.” Emmy walked across the room and leaned against the windowsill. “Talk to me about Madison and Cheyenne.”

“I hate them. I hope they’re dead.”

Emmy listened to his tone of voice. He seemed almost matterof-fact about it. She asked, “Do a lot of people hate them?”

He shrugged, but said, “You mean everybody in the entire school? Sure.”

“Why?”

“They’re bitches. Both of them. If you look at ’em wrong, then your life is over.”

“How?”

“They tell people your dick is tiny. Or that you’re a bad lay. Or that you tried to touch them when you didn’t.”

“Did you have sex with either of them?”

“They’re not my type,” he said, his voice so filled with anger and longing that Emmy could practically feel it on her skin. “I have a girlfriend.”

“What’s her name?”

He looked down at the carpet again. His leg had started to shake. “Madison told everybody I’m gay. I’m not gay.”

“Okay,” Emmy said. “But it wouldn’t matter to me if you were.”

“Well, I’m not,” he insisted. “She lied to the whole school, and they believed her.”

“I’m sorry she did that to you, Jack. Sometimes people can be really mean for no reason except they need to be mean.” Emmy didn’t have time to dissect the Byzantine cruelties of high school girls. “Tell me what you think happened to Madison and Cheyenne tonight.”

Jack shook his head, but she gathered he was really considering the question. “I mean—it’s bad that they’re missing, right? I hate them, but whatever happened is bad.”

“It is,” she confirmed. “Did you watch the fireworks at the river tonight, or—”

He snorted an incredulous laugh. “I watched them with my dad on the back porch. In case you didn’t pick up on this from the last five minutes of our conversation, I’m not very popular.”

Emmy had guessed as much the second she’d seen him at the computer wearing his tighty whities and faded Weezer T-shirt. She mentally took a step back to really look at him. His hair was greasy. Acne spotted his cheeks. He would grow into his looks one day, but for now, his body was caught between boy and man—scrawny arms and legs, concave chest, a smattering of hair on his upper lip that he probably had to shave every third day. He was not only reading his summer assignments but taking notes. He was using a pseudonym to lightly stalk his peers. He was probably subjected to the worst kind of ridicule every time he stepped foot inside the school.

She said, “Jack, let’s start over. I’m not here to embarrass you. I know high school can be difficult.”

He snorted again. “I know you’re a Clifton.”

“Not the right kind of Clifton.” Emmy tried another approach. “My grandfather didn’t want to work at the factory. He sold his shares and joined a traveling circus.”

Jack stared at her. “For real?”

“Yep,” she said. “The Great Depression hit. The factory almost closed down. Grandpa decided he’d be better off taking the money and running. Except he didn’t get far. Broke his back on the trapeze. Came home in a wheelchair. That’s why my father dropped out of high school and joined the sheriff’s department. He had to help support the family.”

“Damn,” Jack said. “What about the money from selling his shares?”

“Went to prostitutes and gambling debts.”

“Damn.”

“Damn is right,” Emmy said. There was a reason Taybee grated so much. She had the arrogance of a Rich Clifton, which was hard for a Poor Clifton to swallow. “Jack, I’m going to be honest with you. Whatever you’ve got in your room is your business. I don’t care about your girlfriend or your toys or your browser history. I just want to know how I can find Madison and Cheyenne.”

His right shoulder went up in a shrug. “They’re already dead.”

“Don’t believe everything you read online.” Emmy tried to sound like she wasn’t losing hope. “Do I have to explain to you what could be happening right now to two teenage girls who’ve been kidnapped by a stranger?”

He bit his bottom lip. She could tell he was affected by the question. “No, ma’am.”

“Was there a particular person you noticed was angry with either of them?”

“Not specifically, but I wasn’t lying before. The entire school hates them, no matter what’s happening on Facebook.”

“What’s happening on Facebook?”

“All the popular girls are suddenly acting like they weren’t total bitches. Like Shy and Mad were friends with everybody. But they weren’t friends with anybody but themselves. Nobody liked them. Not really. They were only popular because people were afraid of crossing them, and now that they’re gone, it’s like nobody remembers how cruel they are.”

Jack looked out the window, but Emmy knew he could only see his reflection. He wasn’t a bad-looking kid, but he had that thing about him—that aching need for acceptance—that painted a bright red target on his back.

Emmy said, “I know Cheyenne was dealing hard drugs.”

Jack looked surprised, but not for the obvious reason. “How’d you find out?”

“I’m a cop. I find out things out for a living.” She smiled, but just to soften the next question. “Is it possible that Cheyenne pissed off one of the other drug dealers at school?”

“I’m not mixed up in that stuff,” Jack said, but he’d confirmed her belief, which was that there was no way a high school that enrolled around 2,000 kids a year from every rung on the socio-economic ladder did not have a drug problem.

She asked, “What about the outlet mall?”

“I don’t hang out there,” he said. “It’s boring and all the stuff is overpriced anyway.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s focus on school. This is really important, Jack. Whoever took them isn’t playing around. I understand why you don’t like them, but do you hate them enough to stay silent while they’re being hurt?”

He shrugged again, but he was clearly considering the implications. “I mean—at school, the only guy who’s, like, a straight up gangster-type is Woody, but I doubt he’d care.”

Emmy nodded for him to continue.

“His real name is Wesley Woodrow. Have you heard of him?”

“No.”

“’Cause he’s sneaky-smart,” Jack said. “He lives in Clayville, but he won’t sell to North Falls kids. He straight up refuses. So, he wouldn’t be mad about Shy and Mad dealing to them. Probably wouldn’t even notice.”

“What if Cheyenne started cutting into his customer base?”

“Honestly?” he asked. “There’s no way. Woody is terrifying and Shy isn’t stupid. It’s not like she can shut him down by spreading a rumor and making him anorexic. He would beat the shit out of her.”

“Even though she’s a girl?”

He nodded. “For real. He’s done it before.”

Emmy made a note to follow up on that. “Was it only Cheyenne who was selling, or was Madison involved, too?”

“No way Madison’s doing anything other than tagging along. I’ve known her since kindergarten. She’s always been a chicken. She’s scared of everything.”

Emmy felt oddly relieved that her read on the girl had been right. “Was Madison seeing anyone? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

He shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

“Are you sure about that?” Emmy pressed. “She wasn’t hanging out with anybody or maybe had a crush on somebody?”

“I only ever saw her at school with Cheyenne. She could’ve had a crush, but Mad hasn’t talked to me since middle school. None of the girls I used to know back then give me the time of day now.” He did the shoulder jerk again, but the snub was obviously still raw. “I’m in chorus and band. Singing the ‘Seal Lullaby’ and playing violin didn’t turn out to be the aphrodisiacs I thought they’d be.”

Emmy smiled at the joke. “Cheyenne’s little sister thought you were her boyfriend.”

He didn’t laugh or rail against the very idea. He gave her the umpteenth shrug. “Shy could be nice sometimes. You just had to get her away from people. And do things exactly the way she wanted to.”

Emmy thought about the post on Facebook claiming that Cheyenne would give a blow job for $50. There had been a lot of fifties inside her closet lockbox. “Did you pay her for sex?”

Jack licked his lips, but he didn’t answer the question. “I helped her dad clean out his shed over spring break. It took a while because he would try to throw stuff away, like snow tires and winter things, and Shy’s mom would pitch a fit because she thought they would need them if they moved back to Iowa, so we had to put it all back in. Like, this went on for over a week. Pamela probably saw me and Shy talking. Like I said, she was different when nobody else was around. Softer. Nicer.”

“Spring break,” Emmy said. “Is that when you found out that Cheyenne was dealing?”

“I knew before then, maybe as far back as Christmas last year. But she never said anything to me about it. To be honest, I was really shocked the first time I heard. Not because she wouldn’t do something stupid like that, but her folks are super strict. Like, they won’t even let her have her own computer. She was late for curfew once and they grounded her for an entire month.”

“You seem to know a lot about her.”

“It’s easy to see everything when you’re basically invisible.”

Emmy didn’t have time to let her heart break for this kid. “Did you see Cheyenne dealing at school?”

“No, ma’am, but I heard about it in the locker room. Guys were saying if you needed Oxy or Addies, then Shy could hook you up.”

The Oxy and Addies were new information. This just kept getting worse. “Do you know where she was getting the drugs?”

He shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

“Is it possible Woody was supplying them?”

“Possible, but not probable. The guy is so careful. He wouldn’t even talk to you if you were North Falls. And everybody knows—”

Emmy waited for him to finish, but all she could hear was the end of “The Fame” coming from the Beats headphones on the floor.

She prompted, “Everybody knows what?”

Jack let the half-shrug come back into play. “That you’re a cop and you’ve got Madison’s back.”

Emmy let the words sit in her brain for a moment. She hadn’t had Madison’s back tonight, probably the one time in the girl’s fifteen years that it could’ve made a difference.

“Okay,” she said, borrowing her father’s multi-layered placeholder. “Who would Cheyenne get drugs from if Woody wouldn’t sell to them?”

He shook his head, but said, “The Perv, probably.”

Emmy felt the hairs on the back of her neck go up. “Who’s the Perv?”

“I don’t know his real name. Everybody just calls him the Perv. He’s an old dude. Hangs out at the Chilly Treat sometimes.”

The ice cream parlor wasn’t far from the sheriff’s station. “Is he old like me or old like your father?”

“I dunno. Like, just regular old.”

“Dark hair? Light hair? Tall? Short? Fat? Skinny?”

Jack started shaking his head again. “Dark hair for sure. Not tall or short, just average. Kind of average weight. I don’t know. It’s not like I get invited to hang out a lot. I just saw him a few times when I went to get take-out at the Chilly.”

“Why is he called the Perv?”

Another shrug. “I guess ’cause he’s at parties sometimes? Like, parties with kids in my class, but he’s older, like way out of high school, so it’s weird.”

“What kinds of parties?”

“Nothing, like, at somebody’s house, but they go up to the Falls sometimes. Just a bunch of kids, no warning or anything that it’s gonna happen. Then a text gets sent out or a post goes up and people go there with beer and other stuff.”

Emmy had hung out with Jonah and Hannah at the waterfall back when they were in school. She knew what happened there. “Stuff like drugs?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. At least that’s what I hear.”

“Is that why the Perv was at these parties—to deal drugs?”

“I mean, probably? But also to party with them?” Jack’s shoulder jerked up in yet another defensive shrug. “I’ve only heard about it after the fact, like guys saying, ‘did you see how wasted the Perv was last night,’ or like, ‘I gotta hit up the Perv for more weed.’ That kind of thing.”

“Who else would be at these parties?” Emmy asked. “If you had to guess.”

“The football team, definitely. The popular girls—Kaitlynn, Ashleigh, Brandi, Connor.”

Emmy took out her spiral notebook and wrote down the names. “If I showed you some photographs, do you think you could pick out the guy you’re calling the Perv?”

“Like a line-up?”

“Exactly like that.”

“Okay, yeah. I mean—yes ma’am,” he said. “I could do that.”

She heard a light knock on the open door. Her father nodded that it was time to go.

Emmy told Jack, “I’ll be in touch in the morning, okay? Try to get some sleep tonight. Turn off your computer. I need you sharp and focused when you look at the line-up tomorrow, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you for your help, Jack. I really appreciate it.”

He didn’t answer, but she saw the blush on his cheeks when he reached for his headphones.

Emmy followed her father back to the living room. Carl was leaning on the arm of the couch. He’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt. He told Gerald, “I spoke to Father Nate. He says there are enough searchers. I volunteered to work the food and coffee line.”

“Good,” Gerald said. “We’ll be in touch.”

Emmy opened the door and walked out onto the front porch. The humidity wrapped around her like a wet towel. She could feel sweat breaking out on her skin. By the time she made it halfway down the driveway, the back of her collar was chafing again.

She asked her father, “Did you hear what Jack said about the Perv?”

“Yep,” Gerald said. “Carl watched the fireworks at home with Jack.”

“Jack said the same thing,” Emmy confirmed. “Taybee’s daughter, Kaitlynn, was on Jack’s list of popular girls. I can swing by their house in the morning before I go to the school and see if she can offer any information. I also want to figure out why Dylan is being coy about drugs at the school.”

“Okay.” Gerald stopped at the car, but didn’t get in. “Highway Patrol found a necklace on one of the backroads. Gold. Cheap. Broken in the middle. Something missing—maybe a locket. Looks like a scuffle took place. Bike tire tracks. Shoe prints. Big ones, like an adult male. Small ones, like a girl’s. Found some blood, too.”

Emmy felt the lump back in her throat. She’d had a respite with Jack, feeling that she was getting information and moving forward. Now reality was hitting her again. The statistical chance of the girls surviving would be past the decimal point soon.

“It’s not a locket.” Emmy reached into her pocket for her phone. She showed her father the photo she’d taken of the series of photobooth pictures Cheyenne had kept in her lockbox. “Cheyenne and Madison have matching gold necklaces with their names spelled out in script. They got them for each other at Christmas last year. They never take them off.”

Gerald nodded toward Carl’s house. “Told me Madison went on birth control back in March of last year.”

“Is he allowed to share her personal medical information?”

“Nope.”

Emmy guessed Carl had weighed the consequences. “Hannah didn’t know. She would’ve told me. Did Dr. Carl say anything about Cheyenne?”

“Not his patient.”

“Jack knew that Cheyenne was dealing. He wouldn’t cop to paying her, but it sounds like she was prostituting herself. Fifty bucks for oral sex. That could explain some of the cash.”

“Madison?”

Emmy felt her stomach roil at the thought of Madison taking money for sex. She was just a baby. Both of them were. “I don’t know, Dad. I hope not.”

Gerald took the car keys out of his pocket. “Hannah’s home.”

Emmy knew he was dismissing her. She watched him climb behind the wheel. She waited until the cruiser was down the street before she put her head in her hands. Her skin felt gritty. Exhaustion finally caught up with her. Fear gripped every muscle in her body.

Nothing that Jack had told her pointed to anything but trouble for Cheyenne and Madison. The drugs and sex were excruciating to learn about, but the girls hadn’t stumbled into those things on their own. Someone had led them there. Someone had groomed them, tricked them out, put them in jeopardy, all without their parents even noticing.

The chilling fact was that Ruth and Felix were very involved in their daughter’s life. Hannah and Paul were so wrapped up in Madison’s daily dramas that it was almost claustrophobic. Both sets of parents had tried their best. Done their best. Loved their girls. Listened to them. Cherished them. Tried to protect them.

And they had still been stolen away.

Emmy forced her legs to move, her feet to walk down the street. She took a left. Then a right. Then she was standing in front of Hannah’s house.

Red brick ranch. Crisp sage green trim. Carport on the right-hand side.

Emmy had helped pick out the color for the trim. She had gone with Hannah to buy the Jeep in the driveway. She had pushed Hannah into accepting Paul’s invitation for a first date. She had been standing with Hannah in the bathroom when they both looked down at the pee stick that told Hannah she was pregnant with Davey.

Cotton swelled into her throat. Emmy had to open her mouth to breathe. She touched her fingers lightly to the hood of the Jeep as she passed. The metal was hot. Hannah had only recently gotten home. Paul’s Honda was nowhere to be seen. She assumed he was out combing the streets, shouting Madison’s name, desperate to have his child back.

Hannah opened the door before Emmy could knock.

“We haven’t found them,” Emmy said.

She watched the last bit of hope drain from Hannah’s expression. Then Hannah collapsed into her arms, wailing in grief. Emmy had to hold her up so that she didn’t fall down. Tears filled her own eyes, because this was awful, and they both knew that there wasn’t going to be a happy ending. They clung to each other in a way they hadn’t since they were children.

In the long history of their friendship, there had been heartache and tears, but nothing like this. Hannah started to tremble from the weight of it. Her sobs had a keening quality. The sound was like a razor flaying open Emmy’s heart. She closed her eyes and only saw Madison. Not on the couch eating a Pop-Tart or rolling her eyes as she moved around the kitchen or even standing under the oak tree. She was waiting for Emmy at the top of the hill in front of the bleachers. Lips pursed. Hand clutching her phone. Eyes anxious. Ready to confide. Ready to share.

Not now.

“Emmy,” Hannah moaned. “Emmy, what am I going to do?”

Emmy tried to swallow. The cotton in her throat turned to glass. She remembered her father’s words—the way you help her is to keep your head down and do your job.

“Hannah.” Emmy gripped Hannah’s arms in her hands. The sight of her tear-stained, swollen face was almost too much to bear. “Think really hard. Was anyone hanging around Madison? Making her uncomfortable? Looking at her weird, or—”

“No,” Hannah said. “I would’ve told you. You know I would’ve told you.”

“Okay.” Emmy knew she was right. “What about her laptop?”

“I already tried to get in, but I couldn’t guess the password.”

“Okay,” Emmy repeated, her heart shaking as she tried to think of next steps. “What about money?”

“Her allowance?”

“Did she seem to have more money than you would expect her to?”

“Money?” Hannah’s head started to shake back and forth. “No, she was always begging me for cash. Why are you asking about money?”

“Never mind,” Emmy said. “I need to search Madison’s room.”

“Yes! I was just going through it!” Hannah excitedly grabbed Emmy’s hand, pulling her toward the back of the house. Emmy nearly stumbled on the rug in the living room. The house had belonged to Hannah’s mother. She had grown up here, dragged Emmy back to her room a thousand times before to tell her secrets or commiserate about boys or get away from her mother.

But never anything like this.

“I’ve already gone through everything, but you’re better at this.” Hannah turned the corner into Madison’s room. “You take that side. I’ll go over this side again. Maybe I missed something. She could’ve left a note or a clue. You know how clever she is.”

Emmy didn’t have the heart to tell her that she should’ve stayed out of the room. Hannah hadn’t searched so much as thrown clothes out of drawers and frantically thumbed through paperbacks that she’d dropped onto the floor.

“Hannah.” Emmy tried to be gentle. “Maybe let me do this?”

“I can help,” Hannah said. “Oh, shit—the mattress. You’re always saying to check the—”

“Hannah.” Emmy caught her wrists. “Let me do this, okay?”

Hannah’s eyes flooded with tears again, but she nodded, backing up to stand in the doorway. She watched as Emmy put on a fresh pair of gloves, lifted the mattress and found nothing. Hannah started wringing her hands when Emmy checked the drawers top and bottom, ran her hand along the closet shelf, moved around the shoes, rummaged through pockets and checked clothes.

There was no attic access in the closet. No lockbox. No Ziploc bags. No secret stash.

Hannah asked, “What did she say to you the second time?”

Emmy looked up from searching Madison’s backpack. “What?”

“Louis Singh told me that he saw you with Madison in front of the bleachers.”

Emmy slowly let the backpack drop to the bed. Her face felt like it was on fire. “We didn’t talk.”

Hannah looked puzzled. “But Louis told me you said something to her, and Madison followed you behind the bleachers.”

Emmy’s hand went to her stomach. She hadn’t known that Madison had followed her.

“Em?” Hannah’s head tilted to the side in confusion. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m not—” Emmy took a quick breath. “I didn’t know she followed me. I went to the bathroom.”

“But what did she say?”

“She didn’t—” Emmy kept her lips parted, but couldn’t catch her breath. “We didn’t talk.”

“But Louis said you spoke to her.” Hannah’s hands went to her hips. Emmy had joked that this was her teacher stance, the one she used when a kid was bullshitting her at school. “Are you saying Louis was lying?”

“No, I—” Emmy forced air into her lungs. “Hannah, I didn’t . . .”

Hannah waited, but when Emmy couldn’t find the words, she asked, “You didn’t what?”

She lost her nerve. “Ruth Baker told Dad that she talked to you about Madison. She thought that she was a bad influence on Cheyenne.”

Hannah’s laugh was so loud that it sounded like a bark. “Are you kidding me? That bitch made one passing comment in the hall about how maybe Madison was the problem. I told you about it when it happened. It was parents’ night right before Christmas break. Don’t you remember?”

Emmy remembered now.

“Why?” Hannah asked. “Is Ruth trying to blame Madison for this? What could it possibly matter?”

“Hannah—” Emmy pressed her fingers to her eyelids. She couldn’t keep putting this off. It was too cruel. She made herself look Hannah in the eye. “Madison was waiting for me when I came up the hill. I knew that she wanted to talk, but I told her not now.”

Hannah’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“I was—I went to the bathroom. I didn’t know she’d followed me around the side of the bleachers. I needed a moment to-to collect myself.”

“Collect yourself from what?” Something flashed in Hannah’s eyes. She huffed out air between her lips. “Jonah.”

“He was—” Emmy couldn’t even remember what the argument had been about. “We had a fight in front of everybody. I just needed a minute.”

“You needed a minute.”

“Han, you know how it is.” Emmy tried to make light of something that wasn’t light at all. “We complain about our husbands all the time.”

“I complain about Paul’s shoes not matching his belt. You complain about Jonah being so stoned that he forgot to pick up Cole from school.” Hannah’s tone had turned frigid. “It’s not the same thing.”

Words temporarily eluded Emmy. In the silence, she felt the shallow rise and fall of her chest. She had never seen Hannah like this before. There was an aura around her, a shimmering kind of anguish and rage.

Emmy said, “I looked for Madison when I came out. After the fireworks were over, I looked for her. You saw me with Brett. I asked him and Vanna if they’d seen her because I—”

“Because you ignored Madison so you could hide in the toilet and cry over Jonah Fucking Lang.”

“That’s not—”

“Not what? Accurate? That’s not the exact same thing you’ve been doing since that worthless jackass sat down at our lunch table in middle school?” Hannah didn’t wait for a response. She took an aggressive step forward. “Do you know why you don’t remember Ruth Baker telling me that Madison might be the problem?”

Emmy felt the spit leave her mouth. “I—”

“Because the next day, Jonah charged 800 dollars on your credit card for a new amp for his guitar, and you went insane. You slept here on our couch. Do you remember that? We sat at the kitchen table right down that hall talking about how you were going to leave him. Making plans. Drawing up a budget. Compiling a list of things to take to your mother’s house. Did you leave him?”

Emmy forced herself not to look away. “No.”

“No, you didn’t leave him. And you could have. You make the money. You own the house. You own the car. You’d get full custody of Cole. All you’d have to do is lay down your Clifton Card at the courthouse and they’d give you whatever you want.”

“Hannah—”

“And if you had left him, your head wouldn’t have been up your ass today when Madison needed you.”

“That’s not—”

“You didn’t talk to Madison because you were upset with Jonah. That’s exactly what you just said. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Emmy took a stuttered breath. “P-please, I—”

“You what?” Hannah demanded. “Jesus fucking Christ, Em! How many times has Jonah disappointed you? How many times has he pissed you off? Argued with you? Fought out in the open with you? Humiliated you? Lied to you? Fucked with you? Totaled your car. Cheated on you when you were pregnant. Abandoned you when you went into labor with Cole. Even pushed you down the stairs! And the one time—the one time—my girl looks for you, needs to talk to you, when she actually stands at the top of the hill waiting for you, then follows you around the bleachers like a lost puppy, you’re too wrapped up in Jonah’s bullshit to stop and listen?”

“I-I-I’m sorry, I—”

“No!” Hannah yelled. “You’re not sorry! People who are sorry don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again, especially with the person who’s supposed to be their best friend.” Emmy couldn’t think what to say. She felt like her brain had filled with stinging hornets. This was horrible. They would never come back from this if she didn’t find a way to stop it. She should get on her knees. She should beg for forgiveness. Hannah was right. Everything she was saying was right.

“Look at you! You can’t even defend yourself! You know exactly what you did. You chose him—you chose that malignant, narcissistic asshole over a precious, struggling young girl.” Hannah threw up her arms, almost incandescent with rage. “She’s not just precious to me, Em. You watched her grow up, too. You love her almost as much as I do. And now she’s gone. We both know that’s true. Some hateful monster stole her away from us, and he’s probably raping her, or killing her, and you couldn’t take three seconds to stop that from happening because all you cared about was that useless piece of shit who will never love you the way you love him!”

Hannah’s voice was so loud that it echoed through the house.

She looked staggered by her own words, but she was still not backing down.

She demanded, “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I-I—” Emmy took another stuttered breath. “You’re right. I know I should—”

“Leave him?” Hannah huffed out air between her lips again, this time in disgust. “Fuck no, we’re not doing this again. You’re not gonna leave him. We’ve been here so many times I’ve lost count. It’s been nearly twenty years of ‘This time I’m gonna leave him. No, this time. No, this time I really mean it, Han. I promise I mean it, Han.’ It’s all bullshit! Bullshit!”

Emmy’s hands flew up to block herself as Hannah grabbed her by the shoulders, then forced her to turn around.

“Get out of my house.” Hannah pushed her into the hall. “I want you out of here. Don’t call me. Don’t email me. Don’t text me. Don’t try to talk to me. Don’t even send me a goddam letter.”

“Hannah, please—”

“You don’t love Jonah. You’re addicted to his brokenness. You can’t fix your fucked up family, so you try to fix him.” Hannah’s hands were back on her hips. “Paul and I laugh about it, you know? How you’re this badass strong bitch who carries a gun and puts criminals away, but then you go home and roll over for whatever bullshit Jonah wants.”

“Hannah, please.”

“No.” Hannah grabbed her shoulders again, forced her up the hall. “This is it for me, Emmy. I’m getting off this bus. If you see me in the street, go to the other side. If you see me in the store, turn around and go home.”

Emmy stumbled as Hannah gave her a hard push into the living room. She caught herself before her face hit the wall. Dozens of framed photographs looked back at her. Madison when she was eight and still occasionally crawled into Hannah’s lap. Paul and Madison at her middle school graduation. Madison on her bike. Madison rolling her eyes and smiling and laughing and living, and she might still be all of those things if only Emmy had stopped to listen to her.

Hannah swung open the front door. “Get out.”

Emmy wiped away tears she hadn’t known were falling. “Hannah, please.”

“You always chose Jonah.” The anger had left Hannah’s voice. She was talking as if it was already over. “Even back in high school, I would ask you to go to the movies or hang out at the mall or listen to me whine about my mom, and all Jonah had to do was snap his fingers, and you’d be gone. You always chose him over me. Always.”

“That’s not—” Emmy caught herself, because she couldn’t say it wasn’t true.

“If I could get back all the hours I spent listening to you obsess over that prick. All the excuses you made. All the lies you told yourself. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“You’re right,” Emmy said. “You’re right about all of it—about Jonah, about Madison. I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry. Tell me how to fix this.”

“How can it be fixed?”

Emmy was stopped short by the question.

“Even if Madison is alive, even if by some miracle she’s brought home to me and Paul, what is her life going to be like? How the hell is she ever going to recover from it? And how on earth can you be in my life if all you do is remind me of losing the most precious thing I’ve ever had?”

Emmy shook her head. It was too much. It was all too much.

“Paul will never forgive you for this,” Hannah said. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive you, either.”

“Please,” Emmy said. “You’re my best friend in the entire world. I don’t even know how to live my life without you.”

“Figure it out,” Hannah said. “You chose your husband. Now I’m choosing mine.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Five

Emmy walked down the stairs into her mother’s kitchen, squinting at the slice of early morning sun cutting through the window over the sink. Her head was pounding from grief, heat exhaustion and sleeplessness. After leaving Hannah’s, she’d made herself keep moving forward, swallowing her emotions as she knocked on door after door of sex offenders from the List.

There were 128 total perpetrators registered in the county. Eighty-seven had been convicted of some form of offense against a minor. Emmy had been assigned to the team covering Clayville. She was sickened by the details in their arrest records. Sexual exploitation of a child. Child molestation. Solicitation of sex with a child. Sodomy against a minor. Aggravated sodomy against a minor. Statutory rape. Incest.

Madison. Cheyenne. Madison. Cheyenne. Madison. Cheyenne.

None of the offenders appeared to be connected to the kidnappings, but every disgusting man she’d come across had made her skin crawl. Not because they looked like grotesque monsters, but because they looked like what they’d been in their former lives: an elementary school janitor, a fast-food restaurant manager, a Sunday school teacher, a volunteer at the children’s hospital. Thick glasses and chubby bodies and nervous smiles and grandfatherly crinkles around their eyes, and by the time Emmy had gotten to her parents’ house, all she could do was stand under the hottest shower she could tolerate, then curl up into bed beside her beautiful son.

That was when it had really hit her. The fear for Cheyenne and Madison was a constant simmer on her nerves, but the fight with Hannah had scalded her to the bone.

How on earth can you be in my life if all you do is remind me of losing the most precious thing I’ve ever had?

She was right. She was right about everything.

“Morning.” Her mother padded into the kitchen wearing her house dress and matching slippers. She stopped in front of the empty coffee maker. “You didn’t make coffee?”

Emmy didn’t answer because the answer was obvious.

“No, please, allow me.” Myrna gave her a disapproving frown before grabbing the carafe and filling it with water. Her long gray hair was down around her shoulders. She had a lost look on her face when she turned back to Emmy, asking, “How many scoops?”

Emmy cleared the grief from her throat. “Twelve.”

“I don’t know where my brain is lately.” Myrna shook her head as she grabbed the cannister. “Your father already left for the station. No news to report from overnight. He left the keys in your car. The FBI has sent a team down from Atlanta. He said he’ll call you later, but you should go to the school this morning as discussed.”

Emmy cleared her throat again. “What time does the staff show up?”

Myrna looked at her watch. “Not for another thirty minutes, but if you wish to speak with your sister-in-law, Dr. Clifton will breeze in when she pleases.”

Emmy stared all of her irritation into her mother. Myrna had never gotten along with Tommy’s wife, mostly because they were both strongly opinionated women with dueling English degrees, but tempers had boiled over four years ago and neither had spoken a word to each other since.

Myrna stared back. “What’s wrong with your face? Have you been crying?”

“Mom—” Emmy didn’t know where to start. The fight with Hannah was an open wound, but Myrna had never been the kind of mother who held you while you cried. She wanted to make plans. To take action. To do something about it.

“What is it?” Myrna sounded impatient. Her hands were on her hips. Classic teacher stance. The pose was a mirror image to Hannah’s.

Emmy lost her nerve. “I think the girls are dead.”

“I think you’re right.” Myrna glanced at the doorway to the living room before she punched on the coffee maker. Faded lines on the doorjamb marked the growth of her four children. Emmy Lou and Tommy. Martha and Henry. The woman was intimately familiar with the devastation of losing not one, but two teenagers on the precipice of their adulthood to two tragic accidents.

She said, “Hannah will need to lean on you more than ever now.”

“I don’t know, Mom. Last night . . .” Emmy wanted to tell her about the fight, but she couldn’t find the words. Everything was still painfully raw. There was no going back from it. The wound would fester for the rest of her life. “That Poe quote you said to me in the park—something like, if you don’t suffer, you won’t be blessed.”

Myrna sat at the table with a heavy groan. She clasped together her hands on the place mat. She looked at Emmy, quoting, “‘Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.’”

“Were you talking about suffering Jonah to be blessed by Cole?”

“Poe disdained didacticism and allegory, though like all writers, he seldom followed his own rules.”

“I take from your deflection that you were making a point about my marriage.”

“Your take would be accurate.”

Emmy’s throat went tight again. Hannah had said that she and Paul had laughed at Emmy for believing Jonah’s bullshit. What had her parents said to each other? Were Tommy and Celia making fun of her, too? Were the cousins gossiping about her behind her back like they gossiped about everybody else? She felt nauseated by the thought of all the text chains she’d been left off of. What an absolute fool she’d been.

“Well?” Myrna asked.

Emmy was saved further humiliation by the sound of car wheels crunching against the gravel driveway. She stood to look out the door, recognizing the silver Mercedes ML 400 by the red UGA LAW SCHOOL ALUMNI plate on the front.

Taybee was strangling the steering wheel with both hands as she pulled down the driveway. Her daughter Kaitlynn was in the car beside her. She grabbed onto the dash as Taybee came to an abrupt stop. The emergency brake raked up. The driver’s door popped open. Taybee got out wearing white cowboy boots with a long white linen skirt and blouse. Her jewelry was understated, yet somehow managed to convey the full power of the Clifton fuck you money that had propelled her side of the family to success after success.

Emmy reflexively clenched as Taybee shut the car door, then opened it and closed it again. Then she tapped the hood with her knuckles and pointed at Kaitlynn before walking toward the house. Her make-up was perfect. Her skin was like a china doll’s. There had always been something terrifying about her cousin. She was breathtakingly beautiful, thin as a rail, and shockingly bossy.

“Hey.” Emmy pushed open the screen door, asking, “What’s up?”

“I volunteered to wrangle all the kids. Considering what’s going on, it’s best to drop ’em off at the farm where they can all be together and play in the dirt. I’m due in court in an hour, so you need to tell Cole to shake a leg. Never mind. I’ll get him. I brought Kaitlynn with me so y’all can talk. Move it, baby. Your aunt Emmy doesn’t have all day.”

Taybee breezed into the house, shouting a needlessly loud “Good morning!” to Myrna on her way up the stairs, ostensibly to fetch Cole. Her fingers tapped along the railing to a beat only Taybee could hear. There was no question who was going to win the Xbox war this morning.

Emmy slipped on a pair of flip-flops before walking down the porch stairs. The heat was already brutal. She held up her hand to block the intense sunlight. Emmy could feel it burning her skin. Her sleeveless shirt and shorts turned into sandpaper against her body. It said a lot about the state of her marriage that she lived a ten-minute walk away but still kept extra clothes at her parents’ house.

Kaitlynn took her time getting out of the car, her thumbs sliding furiously across her phone. She was the reverse image of her mother, dark hair and olive skin where Taybee was blonde and almost translucent. She got her coloring from her father, Terrell, who was also a Clifton, but not the same branch as Taybee, which had inexplicably compelled Taybee to hyphenate her last name to Clifton-Clifton. Hannah called her the Extra C, though not for that reason.

Emmy said, “Mornin’ sweetheart.”

“Mornin’ Aunt Emmy.” Kaitlynn’s smile had a quiver as she tucked her phone into her dress pocket. She was seventeen, two years ahead of Madison and Cheyenne, but her beauty and money had given her advantages the other girls would never have. There was a reason Jack Whitlock had listed Kaitlynn first among the popular girls. She could be as terrifyingly confident as Taybee, but being smart and pretty had its disadvantages, too.

Emmy asked, “Did you want to talk to me?”

Kaitlynn nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Let’s find some shade.” Emmy led her across the driveway. She smoothed her thumb into the palm of her hand as she walked. She couldn’t let go of the sense memory of holding Madison’s hand under the oak tree. It seemed fitting to stand with Kaitlynn under the magnolia that draped across half the front yard—the second time in as many days that Emmy had stood under a tree with an anxious-looking teenage girl. Kaitlynn was clearly troubled, too. Emmy gently tucked the girl’s hair behind her ear. She could be a pill sometimes, but she was only ever mean to her mother.

Emmy promised, “Whatever you have to say is between us.”

“You can tell Mama,” Kaitlynn said. “We already talked. That’s why she dragged me here. She said you needed to know what they were up to.”

“Cheyenne and Madison?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kaitlynn grabbed onto Emmy’s hand like she needed the physical reassurance. Her palm was still cool from the car’s air conditioning. “I don’t know much, but I know that Cheyenne was seeing an older man. I heard her talking about it with Madison the last week of school. We were waiting for Mr. Loudermilk to let us into the auditorium for chorus practice.”

Emmy’s brain flashed up the image of Madison wearing a light blue North Falls Choral Club T-shirt the day before. “Can you remember what she said specifically?”

“Not in her actual words, but Cheyenne made a joke about how the guy was so old that he couldn’t get an erection sometimes, and then she said that she wished his penis was as big as his wallet.”

Emmy didn’t note any signs of embarrassment in Kaitlynn’s face. Taybee worked in family law. She had never shied away from using the proper words for things. “What else?”

“She said that the guy was boring, but that having sex with him was the only way they were going to get enough money to leave town.” Kaitlynn tightened her grip on Emmy’s hand. “Madison started laughing, then she said something about them staying in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta, then they saw me standing on the other side of the lobby and stopped talking. That was it. I’ve never really had a reason to talk to them. They weren’t in my grade. Does that help you?”

“Yes, it does. Thank you, sweetheart.” Emmy stroked back her hair again, wishing she could smooth the worry from the girl’s brow. “What about drugs? Were they using?”

“I don’t know about using, but it would make sense. I heard that Cheyenne was hooking people up, but I’m not into that. I mean, I don’t mind when people do it, but I don’t like being stoned, and alcohol tastes gross.”

Emmy hoped that never changed. “Do you know a guy who’s called the Perv?”

She shook her head. “No, ma’am. Who’s he?”

“I’ve heard that he’s a drug dealer. He’s older. Dark hair. Shows up at parties down by the Falls.”

“That place is nasty. Connor got hookworm there last month. Nobody goes anymore.”

Emmy wasn’t surprised that Jack’s information had fallen out of date over the summer break. He wasn’t being forced to make up failed classes like Cheyenne and Madison. “Can you remember anyone else hanging around the girls or the school building? Someone who didn’t belong or made you feel uncomfortable?”

“No, ma’am. I would’ve told my mom. Like, immediately.”

Emmy believed her. “What about the outlet mall?”

“Only kids go there. It’s really boring.”

Emmy didn’t tell her that she was still a kid. “I know you’ve probably talked to your friends about the disappearances. Does anybody have any theories? Are there rumors? Even crazy ones?”

“No, ma’am. That’s why everybody’s so freaked out. Nobody knows what happened. If they’re safe. If they’ll ever come home. They didn’t hang out with anybody else. They only ever had each other. And now they’re both . . .”

Emmy watched her lips start to tremble. She pulled the girl in for a hug. Kaitlynn buried her head in Emmy’s neck. Emmy told her, “It’s okay, sweetheart. I know this is hard right now. We’re going to find out what happened.”

Kaitlynn started to cry in earnest. Emmy rubbed her back, feeling the sharp edges of her shoulder blades sticking out like wings. Kaitlynn was taller than Cheyenne, thinner than Madison. All that Emmy could think about was the List. The arrest records of men who were six-two and -three, north of 200 pounds, and the damage they could do to a young girl’s body.

The screen door banged open. Cole bolted down the porch stairs. “Mom! We’re going to the farm! One of the horses is having a baby!”

Kaitlynn peeled away, taking out her phone, bowing her head so that her hair covered her face. Emmy let herself smile as Cole gave her a drive-by hug, his arms gripping her waist for less than two seconds before he jumped into the back seat of the Mercedes. Emmy gathered from the matching shirt and shorts that Taybee had worked her magic. His cowlick had been tamed. Both shoes were tied. Her cousin was an enchantress.

“Seat belts, y’all. Kaitlynn, stop dawdling. Hop-to.” Taybee rapped her knuckles on the hood of the Mercedes three times as she walked toward Emmy. “Hon, I forgot to tell you Aunt Millie was blowing up my phone yesterday saying she needs to talk to you about how the man she hired to work on her pond has been smoking cigarettes and attracting riff-raff. I didn’t have time to figure out her craziness, but you need to give her a call before I have to drive over there and strangle her to death. You’re okay with Cole going to the farm, right?”

Emmy laughed, because it was a bit late for the question. “I’ll tell Jonah to pick him up before supper.”

“Sure thing.” Taybee plastered a smile onto her face as she opened the car door. They both knew that Jonah would be late. If he even remembered. “Em, I’ll tell you what. You mind if Cole sleeps over? Terrell’s got a mare foaling and I know he’d love the company.”

Emmy felt the spit leave her mouth. She had never before realized how artful Taybee was at solving the Jonah problem. “Thank you.”

“Thank me when I send him back covered in horse shit and afterbirth.” Taybee started to get into the car, but she stopped to study Emmy. “Tough day ahead. You got this, lady?”

Emmy nodded. “I’ve got it.”

“Call me if you need me.”

The door closed with a rich thunk as Taybee started the car. She adjusted the mirrors, moved her seat up a bit to give Cole room in the back. He started furiously waving goodbye as they reversed out of the driveway. Emmy waved back until the Mercedes turned the corner. It occurred to her that Taybee had said she was wrangling all of the kids, but she’d only had one kid in the car that wasn’t hers.

Emmy hugged her arms to her waist. Her eyes blurred with tears that she refused to let fall. She had told herself in her darkest moments that she was staying with Jonah for Cole’s sake, but what lessons was she teaching her son about women? That they could be badass strong bitches in their jobs, but the second they got home, they rolled over for whatever bullshit their husbands spewed?

“Emmy Lou?” her mother called from the kitchen door. “Your father’s on the phone.”

Emmy felt like an anvil was on her head as she walked back across the driveway. Myrna wasn’t there when she reached the kitchen, but she’d rested the receiver on top of the wall-mounted phone. The cord dangled down like a hangman’s rope. The upstairs pipes rattled. Myrna had turned on the shower.

“Dad?” Emmy said into the receiver.

“The blood at the scene. Two liters, medical examiner says. Looks like a head wound. Probably a gunshot.”

Two liters of blood. Emmy had lost that much during labor.

The surgeon had told her that she would’ve died without a transfusion. “So, we know that one of them is dead.”

“Blood type is O-positive,” Gerald continued. “Had Dr. Carl look up Madison’s. She’s A-positive.”

Despite the dire implications, Emmy felt a sliver of hope. “Madison could still be alive.”

“Could be.” Gerald’s tone was absent hope. “FBI wants a press conference. Tip line’s gonna be busy.”

“I’ll swing by the school, then report to the station.” She was about to hang up the phone, but then she realized that her father was still speaking.

“How’d it go with Hannah?”

“Madison’s room was clean. No cash, burners, drugs. Nothing.” Emmy listened to his pointed silence. “It wasn’t good, Dad. She’s not going to forgive me.”

“Okay,” he said, but he wasn’t finished. “Been thinking about what you told me in the car. Need to talk it out.”

Emmy leaned her back against the wall. She could hear the noise of the station under the rasp of his breathing. He wasn’t referring to the case. You didn’t talk it out unless it was something deeply personal.

She told him, “Go ahead.”

“When you were Madison’s age. Those men who came out of the woodwork. The ones who made you feel bad. You were right. I would’ve gotten mad about the wrong thing. I’m sorry.”

“I was talking about parents in general, not you.” Again, Emmy listened to his silence. He didn’t believe her. Probably because she wasn’t telling the truth. “It’s okay, Dad. It was a long time ago.”

He held the silence for another long while. “Okay.”

Emmy let out a slow breath. She couldn’t have this conversation right now. She was her mother’s child. She wanted to make plans. To take action. To do something. “Kaitlynn told me she overheard Cheyenne telling Madison about a sexual relationship she was having with an older man. She was taking money from him. They were both planning on running away to Atlanta.”

“Overheard it when?”

“At the end of the school year, so the last week of May.”

“Recent.”

“Sixteen thousand dollars in a lockbox takes more than two months to accumulate. Could be the kidnapper wasn’t the only older man who was paying Cheyenne for sex.”

“Tricked her out?”

“Pimps don’t let their girls hold onto that much cash.”

“Jealousy motive?”

“Maybe, but why take Madison, too?” Emmy realized that there were always explanations for Cheyenne, but never any for Madison. They couldn’t keep running in that circle. The thing that tied the girls together was the thing that would lead them to the kidnapper. “Did they manage to get any fingerprints off the broken necklace that was found on the backroad?”

“Chain’s small. Takes a special process. FBI sent it to Quantico.”

“Was anything else found on the pitch? Bullet casings or—”

“Unclear,” Gerald said. “FBI’s tracking down the tire impressions. GBI’s working the trace evidence.”

“I told Jack Whitlock that he needed to swing by the station to look at a line-up this morning. I need to put together some six-packs. Hopefully, Dylan or somebody at the school will be able to steer me in the right direction. I have to think someone called the Perv is in our records.” Emmy’s brain was finally waking up. She needed to write this down. “I also want to try to track down Cheyenne’s laptop that the mother donated to the church. And we need to locate the flip phone that’s on her family’s plan. The father told me last night she scratched her initials into the plastic casing. We should update the searches so everybody knows to look for it. I’ll get to the station as soon as I can.”

“Okay.”

Emmy slipped the receiver back on the hook. She looked at her watch. The staff was probably shuffling into school. There was no time for reflection. Only one blood type had been found at the scene. They were less than halfway to the twenty-four-hour mark since the kidnapping. Fuck the statistics.

Madison could still be alive.

Emmy ran up the stairs. She changed into a fresh uniform and twisted her hair into a knot on top of her head. She rushed back downstairs to the kitchen, filled a Thermos with coffee, and was walking out the door when the pipes in the wall rattled again from Myrna turning off the shower.

North Falls High School was a fifteen-minute walk from her parents’ house and a five-minute drive. Emmy used the time alone in her cruiser to set her mind toward the investigation. Drugs. Sex. Money. Everything they’d found so far pointed to Cheyenne Baker being involved in something she couldn’t control. But maybe they were looking at it the wrong way. Maybe Madison wasn’t a bystander. Maybe she was wrapped up in it, too, but of the two girls, she was the better liar.

Emmy recognized her brother’s blue Honda CR-V in front of the main building. Tommy had parked beside Celia’s hunter green Alfa Romeo convertible that had belonged to her father. She was one of six vice principals, so she worked year-round. Tommy was teaching summer school for the extra money. Emmy assumed if they knew anything useful about the girls, they would’ve already volunteered the information, but she should probably speak to both of them before she left.

She was getting out of her cruiser when her phone buzzed in her pocket. Aunt Millie was calling again. Emmy silenced the call and walked inside. Deputy Dylan Alvarez was waiting for her in the reception area. He was thumbing through a file, but he looked up when Emmy’s equipment belt set off the metal detector. Dylan was an attractive man, recently divorced, and usually hard to read. Her heart clenched at the hope edging into his expression.

“We haven’t found them.” Emmy felt his disappointment like a pair of hands pressing down on her shoulders. “What’ve you got for me?”

“I pulled their schedules. They both failed social studies during the regular year, so they’re doing summer school with Mrs. Burrough from eight until noon. Cheyenne was making up personal fitness and health, so she had to stay until four.”

“She failed PE?”

“Coach T didn’t buy that she had her period every day for an entire semester.”

“You talked to him already?”

He winced. “I hope that’s okay. I spoke with Mrs. Burrough, too. I figured it’d be good to get a head start before the kids show up. I can’t say I got much out of them. You know how potential witnesses get when bad things happen to complicated people. Especially children.”

Emmy had seen as much on Jack’s Facebook page. No one wanted to speak ill of the possibly dead. “Were you able to read anything between the lines?”

“Both girls were insular and very clingy, but only with each other. You see that around this age sometimes, where girls are intensely focused on each other. They feed off the drama of being isolated. Us against them. Nobody understands us. We’re smarter than everybody else. I’m glad my girl’s not too wrapped up in that. It’s not an easy way to live.”

Emmy knew that Dylan had taken the job as school resource officer in part to keep an eye on his fourteen-year-old daughter. “How about their teachers from the regular school year? Are any of them working over the summer?”

“Other than Coach T . . .” He paged through Cheyenne’s records and traced his finger down her class schedule for the previous year. Then he did the same for Madison. “Dr. Hardy is here. Chemistry teacher. Kind of a loon. Both girls were in Choral Club. That’s surprising. I got the impression they were mouthy. Mr. Loudermilk doesn’t play.”

Emmy knew Dale Loudermilk from her own high school years. He ran his classroom like a Marine Corps drill instructor. “Is he here?”

“No, he works part-time at the rec center during the summer. Won’t be back until show choir auditions the week of preplanning.”

“I want to talk to Dr. Hardy before I go. I’ll track down Mr. Loudermilk on my way to the station. What did you mean last night when you said, ‘North Falls High does not have a drug problem’?”

Dylan nervously glanced toward the principal’s office. “Let’s get moving. Dr. Clifton told me she’d meet us at Cheyenne and Madison’s lockers over in the Arts Pod.”

Emmy kept in step with Dylan as they walked down the main hallway. She heard a loud whir start up like a jet engine. One of the janitors was pushing a floor buffer. Another man in painter’s overalls was using a roller to touch up the walls. Yet another was adjusting doors on the hall lockers. The system was on a year-round calendar. They had to do all of the repairs before school was back the first week of August.

It was no small task. The North Falls High student population was so large that the building was sectioned into pods that spoked out from the main hallway like a wagon wheel. The Ninth Grade Academy, STEM, English, History, Athletics, and the Arts each had their own pod that included classrooms, a counseling center and a vice principal’s office. The architecture predated the epidemic of school shootings. Wide open spaces and windows were everywhere, offering very little cover.

Emmy felt extremely exposed as they cut through the cafeteria, which was the size of an aircraft hangar and had a balcony that ringed the perimeter like a sniper’s nest. She heard pots and pans clanging in the kitchen. Like Emmy, Dylan was in full uniform. The heavy treads of their work boots and creaking equipment belts echoed around the cavernous space. Emmy was about to prompt Dylan to talk, when a woman wearing a paper hat walked through the swinging doors. She started stacking cutlery into the dispensers. Another woman came out to help. Word had clearly gotten around that Emmy was here. She had grown up with teachers. She knew how gossip could spread around a school.

She asked Dylan, “What grade is your girl in?”

“Jenna,” he supplied. “She just finished ninth. One B-minus in algebra, but the rest are all As.”

“That must be a relief.” Emmy lowered her voice. “I mean, because of the divorce. I’m sure it was hard on her.”

“She was upset at first, but once we got custody figured out and she had a routine, things got a lot better. You know how kids are. They need for things to be predictable.”

“Were you happy with your lawyer? I mean, was he fair?”

Dylan gave her a curious look as he held open the door. The hallway was empty. The lights were off. Still, he waited until they had some distance from the cafeteria to answer. “You don’t want fair in a divorce lawyer. If you’re asking for a recommendation, your cousin Taybee chewed me down so hard she’s probably still got some of my short hairs in her back teeth. That’s who you need.”

Emmy felt a rush of heat go through her body. She knew that the decision had been made. There was no going back now. “It can’t be Taybee. I don’t want my family to know how small I’ve let myself get.”

She wanted to slap her hand to her mouth, but it was too late. The words were already out there hanging like a shroud of shame. Dylan’s eyes went to the floor as they kept walking. Emmy felt heat burn her face. She couldn’t tell if he was shocked or appalled or feeling sorry for her. None of those options sat well. She shouldn’t have asked him such a personal question, let alone revealed something so pitiful about herself. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.

“My guy’s Ramon Rodriguez,” Dylan said. “Smart, honest, above-board, but willing to get in the mud if he has to. I’ll ping you his contact info.”

“Okay.” Emmy let out a slow breath. She looked into the windows of the classrooms as they passed. The lights were off. There was no one working in this part of the building. They were finally alone. “Tell me about the drugs.”

Dylan let out his own sigh, but his seemed to come from frustration. “All the schools in the state run a software program called SchoolPlusOne. Everything gets a code. Grades, sure, but also suspensions, fights, assaults, thefts, stalking, drugs. The data gets reported to the state Department of Ed. Bad data, bad reputation, more meddling from the state, possible loss of funding, accreditation issues, angry school board, pissed off parents.”

“They’re not coding the drugs accurately.” Emmy was disappointed but not surprised. “How do they explain the suspensions?”

“Not suspensions. Detentions. The violations get coded as fights, class disruptions, low-level problems. Your sister-in-law refuses to participate, but once it crosses the railroad tracks, the code is magically changed.”

He was referring to the tracks that ran between the high school and the Clifton County Board of Education. Emmy was not surprised Celia was telling the county office where to stick it. One of her quirks was being a contrarian. “Tell me about Wesley Woodrow.”

“Thug in the making. Sells pot, Oxy, Addies, Mollies.”

“Coke?”

“That’s more of a college thing,” Dylan said. “Woody’s the worst kind of dealer because he’s smart. Sixteen years old. Lives with his grandma over in Clayville. He’s done one stint in juvie. Hasn’t made it to big boy prison yet, but the little shit’s birthday is burned into my soul. One second after midnight on February sixteenth, he’s all mine.”

“I’m not following.”

He stopped walking, so Emmy did, too.

Dylan explained, “School law is different from regular law. I can’t touch a kid until they’re seventeen. Before that, only the administrators can deal with them. Which can be good, because all the school needs is reasonable suspicion to search a kid. As a cop, I have to meet a higher standard of probable cause. I can bring in drug dogs, but I can only search the lockers, which is performative to say the least. I can’t search the kids. I can’t toss their cars or their backpacks. Woody knows the rules better than anybody. He could teach one of my classes.”

Emmy had forgotten that Dylan was going to law school at night. “I heard that Woody won’t deal to North Falls kids.”

Dylan laughed. “Bullshit. Who told you that?”

“Jack Whitlock.”

He winced. “Yeah, that kid’s not your best source for intel. He’s pretty low on the food chain. I do my best to protect them, but the gay kids don’t have an easy time here.”

“He’s gay?”

“Super gay.” Dylan shrugged. “Nice kid, though. What else did you get out of him?”

Emmy was never going to let the words pocket pussy leave her mouth, but she said, “I don’t think he’s gay. He let me think that he paid Cheyenne fifty bucks to give him a blow job.”

“Maybe?” Dylan shrugged again. “At that age, sexuality can be fluid, especially when a blow job is on the table.”

“What about the cost? You could get a blow job for twenty bucks at the truck stop off the highway.”

“I’ve got no idea what the going rate is, but something is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it.” Dylan added, “Besides, Jack would get his ass kicked at the truck stop. Those ladies are mean as shit.”

“You don’t sound surprised that a fifteen-year-old girl might be trading sex for money.”

“It’s terrible, but high school is terrible. Half of them would walk off a cliff if a Kardashian did it first. The other half would yell at them to walk faster. These kids make astoundingly bad choices. Sometimes I look at them and I think, ‘How is this jackass still alive?’” He seemed to remember himself. “So, no, I’m not surprised Cheyenne was selling herself. I’m kind of heartbroken if you wanna know the truth.”

Emmy felt the same way. “What about an older guy who the kids call the Perv?”

“The Perv?” Dylan looked unsettled, but he shook his head. “Never heard of him. What’s the context?”

“Jack,” Emmy said, but now she was wondering how reliable his information really was. “He told me the Perv is a dealer who hangs out with kids at the Chilly Treat and the Falls. Dark hair. Not tall not short. Average build. Super helpful.”

“I can ask around, but if this Perv’s really a bad guy, it’d be weird for him to not already be on my radar.”

Emmy didn’t doubt it. “Did you know that Cheyenne was dealing? That’s not from Jack. I searched her bedroom and found two eight balls, some pot and Molly, and a shit ton of cash.”

“Seriously?” He looked surprised. “I had no idea, but take that with a grain of salt. Most times when I’m working a case, I’m navigating through overlapping circles. Like, some of the stoners hang with the nerds and this nerd knows a goth who knows a mean girl who might know a jock, and eventually that leads me to the source of the problem. Nobody overlapped with the Cheyenne and Madison circle. It was only the two of them.”

Emmy was running out of questions. They were back to circles again. “Madison tried to talk to me yesterday at the park. I blew her off. She was taken less than an hour later.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. But you can’t beat yourself up about it. Even if you’d talked to her, there’s no guarantee she would’ve been honest, and sure as hell no guarantee that she would’ve let you help.” Dylan looked down the hallway. “There’s Dr. Clifton.”

Tommy’s wife was tall and slender, usually given to flowing dresses and butterfly hairclips that kept her dark brown hair neatly pulled behind her head. Today, Celia was wearing jeans and a North Falls Cougars T-shirt. Her reading glasses were on top of her head. A large ring of keys circled her wrist. She held a two-way radio in her hand. Emmy could hear the low static as Celia listened out for trouble brewing in other parts of the building.

Dylan said, “I’ll leave you guys to it. Students are gonna be hitting the doors soon. Emmy, lemme know when you’re ready to talk to their teachers.”

She watched him take out his phone as he turned to go. A few seconds later, her own phone buzzed in her pocket. She knew that he had sent her the contact details for his divorce lawyer.

“I’ve got the master key on here somewhere. We can start with Cheyenne’s locker.” Celia had put on her reading glasses so she could go through the ring. “What a fucking shitshow. The county office is on my ass. Parents are screaming at me on the phone. Teachers are telling me they can’t come in.”

“Why?”

Celia cut her a look like she was slow. “They’re scared their kids are next.”

Emmy was slow. She’d only thought about the town coming together to search for the girls. She hadn’t considered that fear would make them tear each other apart. “How well did you know Cheyenne and Madison?”

“Should I read into your use of past tense?”

Emmy was surrounded by pedantic English teachers. “Cheyenne is probably gone.”

Celia froze as she let the news sink in. “And Madison?”

“She could be—” Emmy felt her hope draining away again. “It’s not looking good.”

“Shit.” Celia sighed out the word. “I’ve had both of them in my office a couple-three times this summer. Cheyenne was usually the ringleader, but when Madison got into trouble, she could be sneaky as hell about it. It’s always the quiet ones who’ll shiv you in the shower.”

Emmy should’ve known that Celia was the one person in this school who would be brutally honest. “What were they doing?”

“Talking back. Not paying attention. Using their phones in class. The usual tedious bullshit that requires every bit of my PhD in twentieth-century American literature.” Celia’s tone was strident, but when she looked up from searching the keys, her expression suddenly softened. “Believe it or not, I actually liked them. Cheyenne was always pushing buttons, but she could be funny as hell. And Madison was so smart. Too smart. I always had to be on my toes with her. Don’t get me wrong, they ate up a lot of runway, but given time, they would’ve eventually found a soft landing.”

Emmy could hear the pain in her voice. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, when you catch the bastard, give me five minutes alone and I’ll make sure he never hurts anybody else ever again.”

Celia shoved a key into the locker. Emmy heard a click. The door swung open. She saw a textbook and a brown paper lunch bag before the odor of pot hit her like a sledgehammer.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Emmy had to clear her throat before she could ask Celia, “Can you step back?”

She used her flashlight to illuminate the locker’s interior. Six photos had been taped to the back. 4x6. Two across, three down. Madison and Cheyenne were posing for the camera: lips pursed, one hand on a hip, one knee bent, chests thrust out. In four of the photos, the girls were together. In the other two, they had taken turns sprawling alone across a king-sized mattress. They were wearing heavy make-up and the cheap costume jewelry they favored. Each girl was dressed in a barely-there lace bra and matching thong panties. Madison’s set was white. Cheyenne’s was black. Good versus evil. Angel versus vixen.

Emmy didn’t want to, but she leaned in to get a closer look. The mattress was on the ground. The concrete floor was unfinished. The wall behind the bed was painted white. No bookshelves or artwork. No sheets. No identifying features. Just a king-sized mattress and two vulnerable children.

“Jesus,” Celia whispered. “I wish I hadn’t seen that.”

Emmy felt the same. There was something so painful about their expressions. They were smiling and laughing and pouting and teasing and they clearly thought that they were the ones who were in control, not the filthy man who’d persuaded them to contort their bodies into sexually aggressive positions for the camera.

“Let’s hope they were just playing around,” Celia said.

“Yep,” Emmy said, but the photos had to be on the internet. No one went to these lengths for a private collection. They did it to brag. To share. To humiliate. To exploit.

Emmy clipped the flashlight back on her belt. She used her phone to photograph what she’d found so far, then she slipped on a pair of gloves so she could examine the actual contents.

Cheyenne’s name was written in looping cursive on the front of the brown paper bag. Emmy guessed that Ruth Baker had packed her daughter’s lunch, though she doubted the woman had put the six bags of weed and four smaller packets of yellow pills inside. Emmy photographed them together. She’d have to get some evidence bags out of her cruiser.

“Deputy Alvarez.” Celia had the radio to her mouth. “Keep all staff and students out of the Arts Pod, please.”

A burst of static preceded Dylan’s answer. “Yes ma’am.”

Emmy paged through the health textbook before placing it on the floor, then she put the paper bag on top. Only one other item remained in the locker. Again, she used her phone to document a white mailing envelope. The return address showed a C-shaped gear with a lightning bolt cutting through the middle. Emmy recognized the logo for the Clifton Tool and Die Company. It was the de facto family crest.

Celia asked, “Cheyenne’s father works at the factory, right?”

“Felix Baker. He’s an engineer.”

Emmy opened the envelope. There was another photo, this one showing Cheyenne fully nude. On the bare mattress. On her back. Legs splayed. Arms out. Mouth open.

“Dear God,” Celia said. “What were they mixed up in?”

Emmy put the photograph back in the locker face-down. She didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to know all the things that Cheyenne Baker had lost in that single moment when the camera had captured the image.

She told Celia, “Cheyenne was taking money for sex.”

“Dammit.” Celia sounded disgusted, but more with herself than the girl. “I had no idea. Was she doing it in school?”

“I don’t know. I need copies of all the CCTV footage from the last month.”

“The cameras only cover doors and hallways. She could go into one of the empty classrooms. Bathrooms. Changing rooms. Not that she’d have to. Everyone knows that the system is glitchy.” Celia pointed up at the camera behind Emmy. “We just got that one back online last week.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Emmy doubted it, but she would go through the footage anyway. “Have you heard any of the kids talk about someone they call the Perv?”

“That’s a bit on the nose,” Celia said. “But no, I haven’t heard of him. Is he your suspect?”

“Could be,” Emmy said, but she was questioning Jack’s reliability. “Where’s Madison’s locker?”

“Down here.”

Emmy waited while Celia slipped the key into the lock. She held her breath, bracing for the horrors they might find. The door swung open, but there wasn’t anything as dramatic as Cheyenne’s. No photographs. No textbook. No brown paper bag. In fact, the locker was empty but for a SIM card that had been cut into three pieces.

“Those little shits,” Celia muttered. “I confiscated Cheyenne’s phone last week. Madison must’ve stolen the SIM card.”

Emmy immediately recalled the conversation about Cheyenne’s burner phones. One of the numbers had gone offline nine days ago and a new number had replaced it. “Where’s the phone?”

“If I’ve still got it, it’ll be in here.” Celia motioned her down the hall. “Two days after I took Cheyenne’s phone, Madison came to my office asking for a tampon. I told her to go to the nurse, but she said she was too embarrassed. I can’t believe I fell for it. I left her alone in my office. She must’ve stolen the SIM card then.”

“You’re sure it was two days later?”

“Absolutely. We had a fire drill that morning. Madison was standing outside my door when I came back from the football field.”

“Was your office locked during the fire drill?”

“Yes, but I unlocked it so she could wait inside. I told you she was sneaky.”

Emmy was more interested in the logistics. Why not take the phone? Why only steal the SIM card? And why destroy it?

If they were right about Madison’s phone logs, Cheyenne had replaced the confiscated burner with a new one the same day. Then two days had passed before Madison had stolen the SIM card. Cheyenne clearly didn’t need a phone at that point. Who had told them to get the SIM card back? And why hold onto the plastic pieces, when cutting it up destroyed whatever data was stored on the card?

Maybe they were supposed to show it to somebody in order to prove that it had been destroyed. Maybe the kidnapper had sent Madison to steal it.

Celia walked through the counseling center to her office in the back. Her desk was piled with neat stacks of papers. There were two framed photos: one of Emmy holding Cole and one of Tommy playing the banjo. It was an old photo. He still had most of his hair.

Emmy scanned the bank of monitors above the filing cabinets across from the desk. They showed the empty hallways, the auditorium entrance, the doors into the back of the building. Dylan had done his job keeping out the kids. The only thing that looked out of place were the contents of Cheyenne’s locker that were still laid out on the floor. Emmy thought about the photos inside. Madison had turned fifteen only yesterday. Her body was less woman than child.

“Here you go.” Celia grabbed a cardboard box off one of the filing cabinets and plopped it down on her desk.

Emmy felt her heart sink. There were at least a dozen phones. “Do you remember what brand Cheyenne was caught with?”

“They all blend together after a while. Phones are my white whale.” Celia handed her a clipboard that had a list of names and dates. “I make the kids sign them in, so I don’t have to touch the screens. God knows I don’t need to get pink eye. The rule is, if you use it in class, I keep it for four school days. If that’s over a weekend or a holiday, sorry about your luck.”

Emmy looked at the long list of scribbled names. There were no checks or Xs to indicate when the phones were returned to students. “How do you know if a kid gets their phone back?”

“They’re scratching at my door by the fourth day. Phones aren’t cheap.”

“Would you notice if one was missing from the box?”

“No,” Celia said. “But they wouldn’t know that. Ninety-nine percent of my job is making kids believe I’ve got the time and the wherewithal to outsmart them.”

Emmy guessed that was why Madison stole the SIM and left the phone. She found Cheyenne’s name on the list. “Cheyenne signed her phone in on Tuesday of last week. Do you remember her asking for it on Monday?”

Celia’s brow furrowed in thought. “I honestly can’t remember.”

Emmy still had her gloves on. She rummaged through the box. Flip phones mingled with iPhones and Androids and a chunky Samsung. All of them were powered off. There was every kind of case. Some of them had sports mascots or rainbows. A lot of them had cats. None of the flip phones had initials carved into the plastic. Emmy was resigning herself to going through them one by one when she spotted a very distinctive shade of blue on an iPhone case. The same blue as Cheyenne’s bike. The same blue as her bedroom sheets.

Emmy asked, “Do you have a paper clip?”

Celia pulled one from a stack of papers. She didn’t have to be asked to twist it around so that the pointy end was sticking out. Emmy slid the paper clip into the tiny hole on the side of the iPhone. The SIM card slot popped open. The tray was empty.

“That’s weird,” Celia said. “What’s he doing here?”

Emmy turned around. Celia was looking at one of the monitors. Dale Loudermilk was in the hallway. He looked exactly like what he was: a forty-something-year-old high school chorus teacher who was married to a church secretary. Thick glasses. Push broom mustache. Ned Flanders haircut. Ron Swanson body. He was dressed in the green shirt and tan cargo shorts uniform of the North Falls Recreation Center.

He had stopped in front of Cheyenne’s locker, probably wondering why all of her stuff was on the floor. The truth must’ve hit him, if only because of the suggestive photos taped to the back. Instead of walking away, he looked left, then right, then he reached inside. He picked up the photograph that Emmy had left face-down in the locker.

She expected him to be repulsed, to immediately return it to its place, to feel sick and disgusted, to do anything but what he actually did.

He stared at the lewd photo of Cheyenne splayed on the mattress. His expression was completely passive. Emmy stepped closer to the monitor, studied his bland features, the casual way he was looking at a piece of child pornography as if it were a bus schedule. She found herself counting off the seconds. She got to ten, then twenty. She had almost reached thirty seconds when Loudermilk finally returned the photo to the locker and walked away.

Emmy told Celia, “Radio Dylan. Tell him to get down here now.”

She didn’t wait for a response. She jogged back through the counseling center. Her skin felt like it was on fire. The tickle. The bad feeling. None of what Dale Loudermilk had done felt right.

Instead of running into the hallway to confront him, she peered around the edge of the door. Loudermilk was walking away from her, heading toward the auditorium. His hands were in his shorts pockets. His head stayed straight. His pace was quick. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the auditorium doors. He turned his head left, then right, then went inside.

Emmy held down the equipment on her belt as she jogged after him. She paused outside the doors in order to keep her distance. She entered the lobby. Went into the dark auditorium. Gently closed the door. The exit signs acted as nightlights. She saw Loudermilk, hands still in his pockets, walking down the center aisle. Emmy hung back. She waited until he had disappeared into the wings to follow him across the stage. She clenched her teeth when the soles of her heavy boots squeaked on the black floor.

He didn’t seem to hear. He was too focused on moving forward. Emmy passed dressing rooms and bathrooms. She paused, waiting until he took a left down a narrow hallway. No lights came on. No doors opened or closed. She peered around the corner. Loudermilk was walking toward the end of the hall. The exit sign glowed ahead of him. His hands were out of his pockets. She could tell that he was holding something small that fit neatly into the palm of his hand. Instead of taking the exit, he turned sharply into the stage manager’s office. Emmy kept to the shadows, inching down the hall, until she could position herself to see through the glass window into the office.

Loudermilk was reaching behind a filing cabinet. He pulled out a laptop. He sat down at the desk, opened the computer, and slid a thumb drive into the side. Immediately, he started clicking and dragging his fingers across the trackpad. The light of the screen reflected into his glasses. In the silence, she heard the hard drive spinning, the fans waking up. He was copying files onto the thumb drive.

Emmy knocked on the glass.

“Jesus!” Loudermilk slammed the laptop closed as he jumped up from the desk. “What do you want?”

Emmy walked into the small office. She turned on the overhead lights. “What files were you copying?”

“I—” His eyes went to the laptop, then back at her. “Song sheets. Show choir auditions are next week. I need to prepare.”

“Auditions aren’t until the end of the month.”

“I meant—I have to get ready next week. For the auditions that are coming up. It takes preparation.” His eyes flicked toward the window. Celia had followed them. He straightened his shoulders, trying to assert some authority. “Dr. Clifton, could you explain to this young woman that I have work to do?”

Celia told Emmy, “That computer belongs to the school. I have admin authority.”

Emmy nodded for Celia to give it a try.

“You can’t—” Loudermilk reached for the laptop, but Emmy blocked his way.

She asked, “Why did you hide your laptop behind the filing cabinet?”

“It wasn’t hidden. I stored it there to keep it safe over the summer, but—” His eyes shifted as he desperately searched for an explanation. “Anyone could access it. I haven’t been here since post-planning. Any one of the janitors could’ve—”

“Could’ve what?” Emmy crowded into his space. “What files were you copying?”

“N-nothing, I—” Loudermilk’s hand went to his mouth. “Please, this is a misunderstanding. It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m a good man.”

“I’m in,” Celia said.

Emmy leaned down to look at the laptop. A progress bar showed on the middle of the screen. Nine hundred and sixty-eight files were being copied. Emmy opened the thumb drive, which was titled SHEET MUSIC. There were more folders than she could count. HYMNS. ORATORIOS. MAGNIFICATS. CANTATAS. PSALMS. CHRISTMAS.

“See?” Loudermilk pointed to the files. “I told you that I needed to print out some song sheets for—”

“Shut up.” Emmy toggled the dates to show the most recent folder. Sacred Concertos jumped to the top of the list. The contents must have been massive. The progress bar estimated the task would take forty-eight minutes.

She moved the cursor to the folder.

“Please don’t,” Loudermilk begged. “Just walk away. We can all just walk away.”

Emmy tapped open Sacred Concertos. It was like a Russian doll. More folders appeared, one for almost every letter of the alphabet. She started with the As. Thumbnails loaded for dozens of JPEGs. All of the file names followed the same pattern: a name, a dash, a number.

Abigail-10

Allyson-10

Andie-11

Angela-10

Anna-9

Emmy tasted bile in her mouth. She opened the B folder. Then the C. They were all the same. Alphabetized. Indexed. A name. A dash. A number. She didn’t open any of the photos. The thumbnails alone were nauseating.

“I can explain,” Loudermilk tried.

Emmy didn’t need an explanation.

Dale Loudermilk was a pedophile with easy access to both of the missing girls.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Chapter Six

Emmy sat beside her father in the viewing room inside the sheriff’s station. The lights were off. There were two monitors on the table in front of them, both showing different angles of the interrogation room thirty feet away. One camera was focused on Dale Loudermilk, who was sitting ramrod straight in a chair, hands folded together in his lap. The other was on Lionel Faulkner, the lead FBI agent from Atlanta who’d spent the last three hours trying to get Dale to confess to the kidnapping and likely murder of Cheyenne Baker and Madison Dalrymple.

So far, all that he’d gotten were emphatic denials.

“Dale.” Lionel’s voice was gratingly calm through the cheap speaker between the monitors. “Where are the girls?”

Emmy watched Dale shake his head, the same as he’d done each time Lionel had asked him the question before. The man who’d panicked when she’d walked into the stage manager’s office was a distant memory. This version of Dale was the one Emmy remembered from school: smug and condescending, annoyed that you dared even speak to him. He clearly thought he was smart enough to talk his way out of trouble when the truth was, if he was really smart, he’d shut his mouth and get a lawyer.

“Agent Faulkner, I’ve told you this a million times,” Dale said. “My answer will not change. I have no idea where the girls are. I had nothing to do with their disappearance. I am wholly innocent.”

“Why do you keep lying to me?”

“I am not lying. I’m telling you something you don’t want to hear.” Dale sounded as if he was lecturing a student. “I am an educator. I would never harm a child. The very idea is anathema to my system of beliefs.”

“Let’s get into that.” Lionel sat back in his chair. He crossed his legs, acting as though he had all the time in the world. “What made you want to become a teacher?”

Emmy huffed out her frustration. She had picked up Lionel’s pattern early on. The agent would lean in, physically intruding into Dale’s personal space, as he aggressively questioned him about the missing girls, then pull back and ask an innocuous question about choral arrangements or what it was like to work at the rec center.

The technique was textbook, designed to gradually destroy the suspect’s sense of control. You set the tone. You chose the topics. You told them where to sit, where to stand, when to talk, when they got to eat, when they could pee, and eventually, they broke down out of desperation and confessed. It was a variation of good cop/bad cop meets Stockholm syndrome, but from where Emmy was sitting, Dale Loudermilk wasn’t buying it.

He wasn’t sweating. He wasn’t pleading or begging. He wasn’t shaking and crying. His leg wasn’t jiggling. His hands weren’t wringing. For all intents and purposes, he could be in a student–teacher conference where a parent was trying to get him to change a grade.

Dale wasn’t going to change anything.

“Dad, this is crazy.” Emmy couldn’t hold back her irritation. “Faulkner’s been doing the same yo-yo back and forth for the last three hours. Dale hasn’t cracked an inch. Why isn’t he using any of the information we gave him?”

“Don’t know,” Gerald said.

“Look at him.” Emmy waved at Dale’s imperious face on the monitor. “He still thinks he’s walking out of here. Faulkner needs to start turning the screw. Talk about Cheyenne’s phones, the SIM card, the sex, the drugs, the CCTV from the school. Half the FBI is busy tearing up Dale’s house and car, doing a colonoscopy on everybody he’s ever met. Faulkner needs to start making it clear that Dale’s entire world is closing in on him. Madison could still be alive.”

“Frustrating,” Gerald said.

“You’re damn right.” Emmy felt her temper ramping up. “Can’t we go in there?”

“Nope.”

“Dad, he needs to throw the book at him.”

“Book’s not always heavy enough.”

“What does that mean?” Emmy demanded. “You’ve always told me if something isn’t working to try something new. Madison could be baking in the trunk of a car or tied up in a hunting cabin. How long can she last in this heat without water?”

Gerald didn’t answer. He was laser-focused on the monitor that showed Dale Loudermilk sitting in the catbird seat. Emmy was about to press her father for an assignment that got her out of this stifling, dark room when a sharp cough rattled the speaker. Dale’s hand went to his mouth. He coughed again.

Emmy watched Lionel Faulkner point to the plastic cup on the table.

He told Dale, “Drink some water.”

Dale made a show of lifting up the cup. He sipped loudly.

Smacked his lips. Returned the cup to the table.

Emmy squeezed her hands together until she felt the bones shift. She kept thinking about holding Madison’s hand under the oak tree. She had failed the girl once. Now she was watching another cop fail her again. Dale was never going to tell Faulkner where they were. It took every ounce of her willpower not to run down the hall, burst into the interrogation room and slap the pompous look off his face.

Lionel said, “You recruited Cheyenne and Madison when they were ninth graders.”

Dale gave a heavy sigh. “It’s not a recruitment. I hold auditions. Any child can try out. Cheyenne is a solid contralto. Madison has a very rich tessitura that goes well with my senior tenors.”

“That’s just a fancy way of saying she’s a good singer, right?” Lionel waited for Dale to dip his head in a nod. “They’re pretty girls, aren’t they? Cheyenne in particular.”

“Don’t be disgusting.”

“Madison, though . . .” Lionel clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Got those nice curves on her. Gives you something to hold onto.”

Emmy felt the acid burning in her stomach.

Lionel said, “Madison was in your show choir. You took her to the state championship in Atlanta last year.”

“I took an entire busload of students on that trip. Madison Dalrymple was but one of them.”

“You stayed in the same hotel as Madison. The Marriott Marquis on Peachtree Center Avenue. Your room was right next to hers.”

“My wife was right next to me in bed.” Dale seemed to enjoy the wordplay. “Mrs. Loudermilk helped chaperone the trip. You can talk to her. She’ll tell you she didn’t see anything.”

“I dunno if Esther is the best judge of character.” Lionel let a sense of familiarity play in his tone. “After all, she had no idea she’s been living with a pedophile for twenty years.”

Dale’s hands had drawn into fists. He slowly extended his fingers, a kind of reminder to himself that he needed to stay calm. “You had no right to talk to my wife without my permission.”

“I feel like you don’t understand the situation you’re in,” Lionel said. “You’ve been arrested for possessing child pornography. You were caught red-handed.”

“I think you’re the one who misunderstands,” Dale countered. “I’ve told you repeatedly that I donated my old laptop to the drama department. I haven’t seen it in over a year.”

“The head of the drama department doesn’t remember you giving it to her.”

“I’m not surprised. She’s a flighty woman.”

“Dr. Clifton says the laptop is still registered to you.”

“I wouldn’t trust her record-keeping if I were you. She’s very sloppy.”

“We checked the laptop for prints, Dale. We only found two sets. Dr. Clifton’s are on the keyboard, which makes sense, because she unlocked the computer. We found your prints on the inside, the outside, and the thumb drive you were using to download the porn.”

“Ah, I see the misunderstanding. The machine was covered in dust. I wiped it off before I used it.” Dale picked up the cup of water, but he didn’t drink. “I told you I haven’t seen the thing in a year. Not since I got the new one.”

“Right,” Lionel said. “The PTA bought you a brand new MacBook Pro after the Choral Club won first place at regionals. We found it in the briefcase inside your vehicle.”

Dale placed the cup back on the table. “I’ll give you the password. You have my permission to check it. All you’ll find is lesson plans, choral arrangements, and sheet music.”

Lionel leaned forward again. “Let me tell you what the FBI does when we get a case like this. Can I tell you?”

Dale gave a heavy, put-upon sigh. He hadn’t put it together that Lionel asking for his permission to relay information, and repeatedly using the phrase let me, were meant to give him the impression that he always had a choice.

He waved his hand, saying, “I’m listening.”

“We search your house. We search your vehicles. We search your place of work, your storage unit where you keep your garden tools, your gym locker at the rec center where you keep your jar of Gooch Guard. We talk to your wife. We talk to your family. We talk to your neighbors, your co-workers, your preacher, the men on your softball team, the dude at the feed store who loaded six bags of mulch into your truck last week, the woman who trimmed your hair on Friday.”

Emmy hissed out a stream of air between her teeth. Faulkner was finally laying out the details that would let Dale know his life was under a microscope.

The agent said, “Dale, let me be brutally honest with you.” “Does that mean you haven’t been brutally honest prior to this moment?”

“You’re going to prison.”

Dale shook his head. “I’m not going to prison.”

Lionel guffawed in the face of his certainty. “My dude, you were literally caught in the act by a sheriff’s deputy.”

“Emmy Clifton is a child. She only got the job because of her father.” Dale seemed to think he’d scored a point. “My dude.”

“Seriously, man, you sound high on your own supply. Should I drug test you?”

Dale snorted in disgust. “I don’t even drink alcohol.”

“Listen to me, Dale. I don’t know what unicorn fantasy world you’re living in right now, but let me tell you how the real world operates. Let’s take what you did to Cheyenne and Madison out of the picture for a minute, okay?”

Dale started muttering, “That’s ridiculous.”

“The state of Georgia is about to hit you like a Mack Truck. You don’t know it yet, but you are gonna be laid out flat to the ground. They’ve got some of the most brutal penalties for possession of child pornography in the country. Each download is considered an offense. Each download. You following me?”

Dale didn’t respond, but he was suddenly paying close attention.

“We’re talking felonies, not misdemeanors. We’re talking fines up to 100,000 dollars each. Sentencing guidelines of five to twenty years each.” Lionel had yo-yo’d into Dale’s personal space again. “I know you’re not a math teacher, so let me scratch out the numbers for you. Let’s say you get the minimum, right? That’s not what you’re gonna get, but let’s cut you a break. Five years times 968 pornographic images of girls from the ages of nine to eleven equals your ass is gonna die in prison.”

Emmy saw Dale’s tongue dart out under his mustache as he licked his lips. The information had clearly hit him hard, but his cool demeanor would not break.

Again, Dale insisted, “I’m not going to prison.”

“You keep holding onto that. But from where I’m sitting, the only question is, which prison are you gonna die in, and how long is it gonna take?”

“That’s two questions.”

“Let me answer both of them for you,” Lionel offered. “It’s either gonna be Dooly State Prison, where they house all the other pedophiles, or it’s gonna be the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison, where you’ll spend about fifteen years in isolation inside a cell before they walk you down the corridor, strap you to a gurney, stick a needle in your arm, and kill you.”

Dale’s lips parted. His sharp breath whistled through the speaker.

“Look around this shitty little room, man. This is the Taj Mahal compared to what your cell is gonna be like. You can stretch out your arms and touch the walls on either side.”

Dale couldn’t stop himself from looking around the room.

Lionel said, “We know Cheyenne’s already dead.”

Dale bit his bottom lip to keep his mouth closed.

Lionel asked, “Is Madison dead, too?”

Emmy heard another whistle of a sharp breath. Dale cleared his throat. He stared at the wall across from his chair. His expression was blank, but Emmy saw a thick bead of sweat roll down from his sideburn.

He said, “This is all a mistake.”

“Do you know how many dudes are in prison because they made a mistake?”

“I didn’t say I made a mistake. I said you made a mistake.” Dale took a moment to calm himself by finishing off the water. The plastic cup made a popping sound when he returned it to the table. “Why would I need two laptops? My MacBook Pro is the far superior machine. As I’ve stated repeatedly, I haven’t laid eyes on the old one in months.”

Emmy felt all the air leave her body. He’d used silence to think of another excuse.

“Okay,” Lionel said, rolling with it. “How did you know the laptop was hidden behind the filing cabinet?”

“Everyone knew it was back there. It wasn’t hidden. It was stored there.”

“Stored by who?”

“By whom, and I wouldn’t know.” “How long has it been there?” “No idea.”

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Lionel said. “What you’re telling me happened is: Cheyenne Baker and Madison Dalrymple are kidnapped, and by some weird coincidence, you show up at the school bright and early the very next morning to get a laptop you haven’t laid eyes on in over a year, or a year exactly, or in months, or you don’t know how long, but you know it’s stored between a filing cabinet and a wall, that somehow everybody has seen but nobody else has ever touched, because you wanted to copy some sheet music, but unbeknownst to you, the only file you copied onto the thumb drive you brought from home is the only file on the laptop that has nearly 1,000 photos of child pornography.”

Dale licked his lips again. He knew it sounded preposterous. “Yes.”

“Esther was at her sister’s house up in Carrolton to watch the fireworks with her kids. Said she talked to you on the phone, but didn’t see you in person. Neighbors were all at the firework shows. Nobody saw you. You don’t have an alibi.”

“I was at home.”

“Your neighbor says you were in your driveway this morning washing and vacuuming out your car. Do you usually wash and vacuum your car at five thirty in the morning?”

“Is it not summer in Atlanta, too?” Dale’s smugness had returned. “You do things in the morning because it’s too hot later in the day.”

“That makes sense,” Lionel agreed. “But what gets me is, I’ve never heard of a man using bleach to clean out his car. Leastwise, not an innocent man.”

Dale’s gaze returned to the blank wall in front of him.

“On those forensic shows, they always tell you bleach can destroy blood evidence and DNA. Tricks all the tests we have, right?” Lionel paused, but there was no response. “The thing is, it’s the fact of you cleaning the car with bleach that’s the red flag. Tells me that you were worried we’d find DNA and fingerprints and trace evidence from Cheyenne and Madison.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you did,” Dale countered. “I drive kids home from practice all the time. I always get permission from the parents first. You can ask Hannah and Ruth.”

“We did,” Lionel said. “You drove Cheyenne home a lot. Verona’s a twenty-minute drive in the opposite direction from your house.”

Dale said nothing.

“Tell me about the Glock 20 that’s registered in your name.” Lionel waited, but Dale didn’t respond. “We didn’t find it in your house or your car. Where is it?”

Dale’s head tilted down. He stared at the empty cup on the table.

“This isn’t looking good for you, man.” Lionel paused a moment. “You’re not stupid. You know how bad this looks.”

Emmy watched Lionel lean in again. She hadn’t noticed before, but Dale’s posture had changed dramatically over the last few minutes. He was no longer sitting ramrod straight. He’d slouched into the chair. His shoulders had rolled inward. He was shutting down.

According to the textbooks, this was the most dangerous time during an interview. There were only three things that could happen now: he would confess, he would ask for a lawyer, or he would go completely numb.

Dale whispered, “It wasn’t me.”

“Okay, buddy, I hear ya. But let me sum up where we’re at,” Lionel said. “Two kidnapped girls. You know them both. Blood at the scene indicates a gunshot wound. Your Glock is missing. You scrubbed down your car with bleach. You don’t have an alibi for last night. You were caught downloading child porn from your laptop this morning.”

Dale shook his head, muttering, “It’s not my laptop.”

Lionel asked, “Did you know computers keep a record every time a user logs in?”

Dale’s head popped up. He obviously had no idea. He sat up straighter in the chair, tried to get his confidence back. “Passwords can be stolen.”

“The last time your laptop was accessed was on May twelfth of this year. The contents of the Sacred Concertos folder were viewed for twenty-one minutes during your lunch hour.”

“Everyone has lunch at—”

“No, listen.” Lionel held up a finger to stop him. “We’ve got the CCTV camera showing you going into the auditorium three minutes before the log-in and leaving four minutes after the log-out. You were in there for twenty-eight minutes. Then on May twenty-fourth, same pattern. You go into the auditorium at lunch, log in for twenty-four minutes, log out, then the camera catches you leaving the auditorium.”

Emmy held her breath, leaning forward in her chair, silently begging Dale to finally crack.

“The—” Dale cleared his throat. “The hallway camera is broken.”

“That was true until recently,” Lionel said. “But the camera behind the ticket counter in the lobby has always worked fine.”

Emmy watched the color drain from Dale’s face. He gripped his hands together in his lap. The arrogance had finally melted from his features. He looked scared.

She mumbled, “Finally.”

“Dale,” Lionel said, “we’re going to keep looking at that CCTV and we’re going to match it to the log-ins and that’s how we’re going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you accessed your school laptop during school hours to masturbate to child pornography.”

Dale started to shake his head. “No.”

“Let me tell you what I think really happened this morning,” Lionel said. “You were bleaching down your car, thinking through all the weak points that could trace the girls back to you, and you panicked about the laptop.”

“No,” Dale insisted.

“You knew the town was crawling with cops. You knew it was only a matter of time before they talked to the girls’ teachers. You were scared one of them might find the laptop, or that somebody from the school would remember seeing it shoved behind the filing cabinet.”

“Not mine.”

“You knew the serial number would be traced back to you. You knew if anybody saw the files on that laptop, you would be connected to the kidnapping, because what are the odds that a pedophile who jerks off to pictures of exploited and vulnerable children isn’t the same raping murderer who abducted two little girls he’s known for two years?”

“They’re not little girls. They’re practically adult women.” “You telling me you like them younger?”

“I’m telling you that you’re wrong.” Dale’s tone had changed. He was angry. “If your insane theory is true—and it’s not, by the way—why wouldn’t I just take the laptop and destroy it?” Lionel chuckled, like the answer was easy. “Because you think you’re smart, Dale. Because you already went through all the bullshit excuses about the laptop in your head—I lost it. I don’t remember who I gave it to. I accidentally dropped it in the toilet—and you realized that the only solution was to erase the hard drive and hope that would be the end of it.”

Dale looked down at his hands, but not before Emmy saw the stunned expression on his face. He did think he was smart. He had panicked.

Lionel leaned forward again, elbows resting on his knees. “My partner’s the one who spoke to your wife.”

Both rooms were so quiet that Emmy heard Dale’s throat gulp as he swallowed.

“He told me Esther works a part-time job as a secretary at the Baptist church. He says she comes across as a good Christian lady. Do you agree with that description of your wife, Dale?”

He breathed out the word, “Yes.”

“Esther’s devastated, Dale. She couldn’t stop crying. She actually threw up when we told her. My partner had to call in a doctor.”

For the first time since all of this started, Dale looked concerned for someone other than himself. “She suffers from anxiety.”

“She’s suffering right now,” Lionel said. “She’s worried about Madison and Cheyenne.”

Emmy saw Dale’s lower lip start to tremble. His eyes were wet with tears.

Lionel said, “One of the most important tenets of Christianity is forgiveness. Do you think Esther will ever forgive you for this?”

Dale swiped under his glasses, wiping away the tears.

“I think Esther will forgive you eventually, Dale. Your wife believes in the Bible. She’s a God-fearing woman.” Lionel paused. “But she can’t forgive you if you don’t tell the truth. And that’s what you really want, isn’t it? You want to tell the truth.”

Dale started to nod, but he didn’t say the words. “The laptop belongs to you, doesn’t it?”

Dale shook his head.

“Tell me where the girls are, Dale. Let me take them home to their families.”

He kept shaking his head, but still didn’t speak.

“Dale, help me bring Cheyenne and Madison home. Ruth needs to see her baby. Hannah wants to hold her little girl one last time.”

Emmy felt her own tears flooding into her eyes. She looked at her father. Gerald hadn’t moved. His gaze had stayed locked on the same monitor as before—the one that showed Dale Loudermilk’s face.

“Tell me,” Lionel said. “Unburden yourself, man. Tell me where they are.”

Dale finally broke down. A loud sob shook the speaker. He threw his glasses on the table, covered his face with his hands. He started to cry, but then his cries turned into a kind of wailing. He rocked back and forth as if to soothe himself.

Emmy gripped the arms of her chair as she watched him. She could only think of Madison and Cheyenne. Had they cried like this? Had they felt terrified, helpless, abandoned? Was Cheyenne thinking of the end of her life when Dale shot her in the head? Was Madison wailing like a child in the dark place he’d taken her?

“Dale, listen to me, man.” Lionel put a hand on Dale’s shoulder to steady him. “Look at me, okay? The way you free yourself from this guilt is to tell me where they are. That’s all anybody cares about. Tell me where they are.”

Dale kept his face in his hands. He was mumbling something. His voice was too muffled for the microphone to pick up.

“What is it?” Lionel couldn’t hear him, either. He pulled away Dale’s hands, looked at his face. “Tell me.”

“I said I didn’t do it!” Dale screamed. He pushed away from the table. Started waving his arms, shouting, “I didn’t fucking do it! I didn’t fucking do it! I didn’t fucking do it!”

Emmy could hear his screams in echo, coming from the hallway first, then half a second later, from the speaker.

“Shit,” she hissed. She wanted to punch the monitor. She told her father, “He’s never going to give it up. You know that.”

Gerald reached toward the speaker and clicked off the sound. The muffled screams stopped just as abruptly. Emmy saw that Lionel had stood up. His hands were out as he tried to get Dale to calm down.

Gerald said, “Cheyenne’s locker. Show me.”

Emmy took out her phone. She tapped through to the photographs and handed the device to her father. “What am I missing?”

“Don’t know.” His fingers were clumsy on the screen. It took a few tries for him to zoom in. “No necklaces.”

Emmy felt stupid for not making the connection. “They got them for each other last Christmas. I don’t think they would’ve taken them off for the photos. They’re still wearing their other jewelry. That means the photos are at least seven months old.”

Gerald swiped across the screen. He did the same thing Emmy had done at the school, looking closely at the backgrounds for clues as to where the photo session had taken place.

He asked, “Color printer?”

“Yeah, the ink and paper’s not going to help us. It’s the kind you get at Office Depot. There’s no watermark or time stamp.”

He swiped again. “Tell me about Cheyenne’s phone.”

“I entered the serial number into the system. The iPhone was reported stolen in Atlanta in February of last year. We’ve got APD trying to track down the original owner, but the thing is, all the data on the phone was wiped. Cheyenne did a factory reset.” Emmy anticipated the next question because she’d had the same one. “Celia told me that Mrs. Burrough sent Cheyenne to the office to turn over the phone. She was on her own in the hallway. She had plenty of time to wipe it on the walk over.”

“But she didn’t take the SIM card.”

“She probably didn’t know that she needed to wipe that, too.

That’s why Madison went back two days later.”

“On whose order?”

They both looked at the monitors. Dale was sitting down now, arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t come across as particularly tech savvy.

Gerald asked, “What do we know?”

Emmy checked her watch. “We’re coming up on seventeen hours since the kidnapping. A man who taught both victims is a pedophile. We’ve got two crime scenes: the soccer pitch where the two bikes, Cheyenne’s blood, and Madison’s phone were found. The other scene is on the backroads where a broken gold necklace was found along with bike tire marks, a pair of large footprints and a pair of small footprints.”

“What do we think we know?”

“There’s a man called the Perv we can’t identify and who might not even exist. A drug dealer named Wesley ‘Woody’ Woodrow who might be their supplier. Cheyenne’s flip phone that her parents know about is out there somewhere. The second burner phone she bought to replace the one Celia confiscated is out there. The confiscated phone was erased by Cheyenne for some reason. For some reason, Madison risked getting into trouble to steal the SIM card out of Celia’s office two days later. She cut the card into three pieces, but she held onto it, even though there’s no way to access the data, which implies she was going to give it to someone as proof that it was destroyed.”

“What data?”

“A SIM card stores the phone number, network authorization, contact lists and a limited number of text messages. The data transfers with the card to whatever phone you put it in.”

“Photos? Videos?”

“No,” Emmy said. “But Cheyenne could’ve backed them up to the cloud. You can use a debit card to buy storage. Fake your name and address. It’s not hard.”

“Is our kidnapper in some pictures?” Gerald asked. “Videos?”

Emmy hoped like hell that she wasn’t the officer who found them. “The FBI says it’s not likely they’ll be able to restore the data on the wiped phone. There’s an encryption key or something technical I didn’t understand, but the upshot is, it’s a lost cause. They think they’ll have better luck with Madison’s phone. Or if we find the second burner Cheyenne was using. Or maybe her flip phone.”

“Too many phones,” Gerald said. “Go back to the envelope in the locker.”

Emmy knew he’d seen the Clifton Tool and Die logo on the return address. “Felix Baker works at the factory, so he could’ve had some envelopes lying around the house. But he told us that he dropped Ruth and Pamela off at the river basin, then went to work. He’s got four hours that we need to account for.”

“Done,” Gerald said. “Called the factory this morning. Talked to security. Baker’s key card swiped in at three twenty-eight, out at six fifty-one. CCTV caught him in the building. Minivan was parked in the lot.”

Emmy wasn’t ready to let Felix Baker off the hook. “I know his wife said he got to the river around seven thirty, but can we trust her? Leaving at six fifty-one still gives Felix time to go to the park and take the girls, do whatever he was going to do, then show up in time to drive Ruth and Pamela home.”

Gerald reached for the phone on the wall, punched in Virgil’s extension, then hit speakerphone. The rings warbled in the dark room.

“Yes, boss?” Virgil said.

“You got the logs?”

“They just hit my inbox,” Virgil said. “The license plate on Felix Baker’s minivan was picked up by GHP at seven sixteen last night turning onto Front Basin Road. Got scanned again leaving at eleven oh-two.”

Emmy knew all Georgia Highway Patrol cruisers had license plate scanners mounted on their front grilles. Front Basin Road was the only way in or out of the county fireworks display, so Felix Baker was in the clear.

Gerald asked, “What about phone records?”

“I’m expecting Madison’s activity from yesterday to update any minute now. Meantime, I’m working with the phone company trying to get the call logs on the two burner numbers. The only thing I know so far is that the first burner number came online in August of last year.”

“And the flip phone?” Gerald asked.

“Felix sent Cheyenne’s call logs over this morning. The flip phone only communicated with four people: Felix, Ruth, Pamela and Madison.”

Emmy said, “That’s not surprising. Cheyenne knew that her parents were keeping a close eye on her digital life. Ruth donated her laptop to the church after she got caught bypassing the parental controls. I made a note to call them this morning, but then Dale happened. I can go—”

“No.” Gerald motioned for her to stay seated. “Virgil?”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “The last thing is, I sent Brett to both the cell phone kiosk at the outlet mall and the Good Dollar. They sold a total of six phones with SIM cards on the day Cheyenne’s replacement number came online. We tracked down all the purchasers. One is a bookie, two are single moms down on their luck, the other three admitted they were using the phones to cheat on their wives.”

Emmy said, “Cheyenne’s first burner phone was reported stolen in Atlanta over a year ago. The second burner was probably stolen, too, but the SIM card could’ve been purchased locally. You don’t have to buy a new phone to get one. You just swap them out.”

“All the phone company could tell me was that both SIMs were activated in North Falls. I’ve got the twenty-digit ICCID numbers from the cards, but the things are sold in batches. They don’t have value until someone puts money on them. It’s like a gift card that hasn’t been activated. There’s no way to track it back to a seller.”

“Okay.” Gerald sounded ready to move on. He told Virgil, “Irma Woodrow goes to your church.”

“That’s correct.”

“Her grandson’s Wesley. Goes by Woody. Been selling drugs. Need to know if he had contact with Cheyenne or Madison. Maybe see if Father Nate will go with you.”

“On it, boss.”

Gerald ended the call. Emmy thought he was going to stand up to leave, but he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the chair.

He told her, “Tap the weak spots.”

This was another game they played, even when they were certain they’d arrested the right person. A good defense attorney would always look for the weak spots in the case. A good cop always made sure there weren’t any.

Emmy turned toward the monitors, following their prime suspect’s movements across the interrogation room. Dale was pacing, was still animated, undoubtedly still insisting that he’d had nothing to do with kidnapping Cheyenne and Madison.

What if that part of his story was the truth?

There was no doubt that Dale was a pedophile, but was he the pedophile who’d kidnapped two girls? Or was he another

pedophile, just like the eighty seven pedophiles already on the register?

She said, “The FBI pulled Dale’s bank records. Between the mortgage, Esther’s car payment, and their student loans, there’s barely enough left over at the end of the month. She works in the church office. He has to take the job at the rec center every summer to make ends meet.”

“Okay.”

“Cheyenne had sixteen grand hidden in her room. Meanwhile, Dale’s handing out towels at the rec center eight hours a day for minimum wage?” Emmy thought of something else. “Kaitlynn overheard Cheyenne making a joke about the older man she was seeing. She said something like, ‘I wish his penis was as big as his wallet.’ Dale doesn’t have a big wallet.”

“Could be more than one older man.”

“The child porn Dale kept on his laptop,” Emmy said. “The girls he was looking at were tweens—nine, ten, eleven. Cheyenne and Madison had already gone through puberty. There’s a difference.”

Gerald looked at the monitors, too. Lionel was pointing his finger in Dale’s face. He’d finally stopped yo-yoing, though the new tactic looked about as effective as the old one.

Gerald said, “Let’s go for a ride.”

Emmy hadn’t realized how claustrophobic the room was until she was out in the hallway. She blinked at the bright overhead lights. Her eyes took so long to adjust that she heard Brett before she could see him.

“Boss.” He sounded excited. “That other FBI agent said I could sit in on the interview with Dale’s wife. That okay with you?”

“Nope,” Gerald said. “Find a man called the Perv. Hit the streets. Bring him in.”

Brett did a half-ass job hiding his disappointment. “Yes, boss.”

The door to the interrogation room opened. Emmy caught a whiff of stale sweat as Lionel Faulkner came into the hall and pulled the door closed behind him. He kept his voice low, telling Gerald, “Guy’s a hard nut to crack.”

“They usually are.”

“Got any insight?”

“Easy when you don’t know anything to talk yourself into knowing something.”

Lionel laughed. “That’s a riddle inside of a puzzle.”

“Good luck.”

Lionel looked more than a little perturbed as Gerald continued up the corridor. Emmy gave the agent a shrug before she followed her father out the side door. She tossed him her keys, then got into the passenger’s side of her cruiser. The car had baked in the sun. She crossed her arms so her bare skin didn’t touch the scorching seats.

Gerald cranked the key in the ignition. Hot air from the vents blasted into her face. It would take a good five minutes of misery before it cooled down. Emmy waited until they were halfway down Main Street to ask her father about the interrogation. Gerald had clearly seen something on the monitors that made him change course.

She asked, “What did I miss?”

“DFR,” he said.

Don’t Feel Right.

Emmy tried to listen to her body. The knot was twisting inside of her stomach again. She had accused Lionel Faulkner of being a physical yo-yo, but emotionally, Emmy was doing the same thing. Her feelings had gone up and down at least twenty times in the last four hours. One minute, she was telling herself that Madison was alive and would be found. The next, Emmy was certain that she was dead. She’d felt almost elated when she’d arrested Dale, certain that he would tell them the truth. Then she’d sunk back into a depression because he wasn’t talking. Dale was never going to tell them what had happened. He would not lead them to the bodies. The girls would never be found.

Gerald said, “Not sure it’s him.”

“What?” Emmy’s head snapped around. “We tapped some weak spots, but nothing broke. Dale looks perfect for this.”

“Run the pros and cons.”

She didn’t have to think through the pros. Of course it was Dale. There was a stack of circumstantial evidence piled against him.

She listed, “He had both girls in his classes for two years. He’s had each of them alone in his car. It wouldn’t be hard for him to find private time during school hours. His afternoons are free. His gun is missing. He bleached his car clean this morning. He wasn’t shocked by the child porn in Cheyenne’s locker. He tried to wipe his collection off his laptop. He doesn’t have an alibi for last night. He fits the profile of an abuser. He’s arrogant, thinks he’s smarter than everybody else. He’s used to being in control. He seeks power by—”

“Emmy Lou.”

“I know you don’t like the theory stuff, but it’s true, Dad. There are profiles for people like this. You told me last night that the money and drugs could be a distraction. Maybe you’re right. The girls could’ve been taken because they’re two young girls. Bad men don’t need a logical reason to do bad things to women. They hurt them because they want to.”

“Okay,” he said. “Do the cons.”

“I did the cons. The money. Dale’s wallet isn’t big.” Emmy knew he wanted more. She took a moment to think. “If it’s not Dale, it’s someone like him. Someone in the community who hides in plain sight. He’s probably in a bad marriage or divorced. He probably started out watching child porn on his computer, then he decided to act on his fantasies.”

“Last night?”

“No, he’s been grooming the girls for a while. That’s the only way to explain the burners, the cash, and the drugs. If we assume from the photos in Cheyenne’s locker that the kidnapper met them before they bought their necklaces last Christmas, then this goes back at least seven months. Something set him off recently.”

Gerald slowed the car to make a turn. “Walk me through it.”

“Last Wednesday, Cheyenne had to give up her phone to Celia. She must’ve told the kidnapper what happened. By Friday morning, Madison was in Celia’s office stealing the SIM card. She cut it into three pieces, but she left it at school over the weekend. Maybe he didn’t take her word for it that she’d destroyed the card. Maybe he got worried and decided he had to shut them up permanently. He’s older, so he’s patient, calculating, knows how to bide his time. He knows they’re going to be together at the park for the fireworks show. Not just them, but the whole town is going to be out. The streets will be empty. He decides to take them on Wednesday night.”

“How?”

“He must’ve told Cheyenne to meet him somewhere first. That’s why Madison was worried. Cheyenne was late. She was supposed to meet Madison at the park under the oak tree.”

“When?”

“Probably eight o’clock, one hour before the start of the fireworks. That would mean that Cheyenne was supposed to meet the kidnapper around seven or seven thirty. Madison would know the details of the meeting. That’s why she was antsy when I talked to her. Then, when I blew her off, she decided to grab her bike and go look for Cheyenne on her own.”

“And?”

She closed her eyes for a second too long. The image of Madison waiting for her in front of the bleachers was so real that Emmy could still feel the anxiety that had radiated off the fifteen-year-old like heat from a roaring fire. Why hadn’t Emmy taken a moment? Why hadn’t she held onto Madison’s hand again, told her she could be trusted, listened to what the girl had to say?

Gerald said, “Something stopped her.”

Emmy took a moment to reset. She imagined Madison watching her sulk off to the toilet. Then leaving the bleacher area. Finding her bike. Dragging it up the concrete stairs.

She said, “Madison took her bike to the parking lot. It was dark. The lights were off. The fireworks were about to start. The kidnapper shows up in his sedan. He’s got Cheyenne’s bike in the trunk. Madison can see it because the fireworks have started. She goes to the car. Something happens. Maybe Cheyenne tries to bolt. Madison goes after her. The kidnapper drives onto the field. The girls try to take shelter under the trees. The kidnapper jumps out of the car and shoots Cheyenne.”

Emmy couldn’t stop herself from flinching. She could practically smell the gun oil, could see the recoil on Dale’s Glock 20 as the hammer came down, the bullet sliced through the air and broke open a hole in Cheyenne Baker’s skull.

“And?” Gerald said.

“The sound of the fireworks covers up the gunshot. Meanwhile, Madison takes off on her bike across the pitch. The kidnapper chases her on foot. He grabs her. Subdues her. Leaves the bike. Carries her back to the car. Puts both girls inside, then drives to whatever remote location he planned out ahead of time. There, he probably abuses Madison one last time before he kills her, too, then he disposes of both the bodies.”

“Where?”

“I mean—” Emmy tried to remember the statistics. “In most predatory kidnappings, the bodies are found within twenty miles of the abduction site. The area is generally familiar to the kidnapper. He oftentimes revisits the scene to relive his crimes. He usually conceals the bodies in some way—covered with leaves, buried in a shallow grave, submerged in water, hidden in an abandoned building or shed, disarticulated and disposed of in a landfill.”

“Think smaller.”

“There’s no smaller until we know more about Dale,” Emmy said. “Was he a hiker? Did he camp? Fish? Kayak? Go for long drives? We’re surrounded by trees. There are forests everywhere. Parks everywhere. There’s the Flint River. Dozens of lakes. Drainage ditches. Logging roads. Old fire trails. The Okefenokee Swamp is only four hours away.”

Emmy felt her heart racing, because she wasn’t just sputtering off scenic views. In her mind, she was picturing the girls in each location. Cheyenne’s gunshot wound bleeding onto dry leaves. Madison’s weighted-down body at the bottom of the swamp.

She asked her father, “What if we never find their bodies? What if Hannah has to wonder for the rest of her life whether Madison is alive or dead?”

Gerald reached across the console and held onto her hand.

Emmy realized that a tear had slipped down her cheek. The festering wound had opened again. The heartbreak of losing Madison. The fight with Hannah. The crushing guilt. She stared out the window, watched the trees blur by. Emmy didn’t have a right to cry about anything. She needed for her father to be wrong. She needed Lionel Faulkner to break down Dale Loudermilk. To get a full confession. To find out that Madison was still alive. To return to Hannah the most precious thing in her life.

To know that somehow, against all odds, everything would go back to normal.

Gerald let go of Emmy’s hand as he turned onto the backroads. The series of unnamed tracks crisscrossed between several farms—cattle grazing, peanuts, soybeans, horses. All of the farmsteads had passed down from one generation of Rich Cliftons to the next.

Currently, they were on Taybee and Terrell’s land. Emmy knew it by the crisply painted white fence that bordered their property. The red clay surface had been packed smooth from tractors and horse trailers and animal haulers going back and forth for nearly 200 years. Everyone in town had used the backroads at some point to cut through or past an area they were trying to avoid. As girls, Emmy and Hannah had ridden their bikes on their way into town or to look at the horses or to hang out at the pond that stretched across the bottom half of Aunt Millie’s property.

She asked her father, “Do you know why Millie keeps calling me?”

“Couldn’t tell you.”

Emmy had forgotten that Millie wasn’t speaking to Gerald. This was what Hannah meant by her fucked up family. Cliftons were frequently falling out with each other. The four years of silence between Myrna and Celia was nothing compared to the grudges that went back decades. Millie was the third oldest living Clifton. She had a very long memory.

Gerald slowed the cruiser. Up ahead, Emmy could see a white van with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation logo on the doors. The forensic unit was still processing the scene where the gold necklace and blood had been found. They’d set up a large perimeter using metal stakes to hold up the bright yellow crime scene tape.

Emmy knew why her father had brought them here. She quoted one of his better pieces of advice. “If you don’t know what to do, start at the beginning.”

“Yep.” Gerald got out of the car.

She braced herself for the sharp slap of heat. Emmy felt a bit light-headed when she stood. She’d forgotten to eat breakfast and it was past lunch time. Her phone started ringing as she approached the van. She expected to see Millie’s number, but the caller ID read GOOD DOLLAR.

Emmy had known Louise Good since kindergarten. They had gotten closer when they’d both attended Mercer, but then Louise had transferred to the College of Pharmacy so she could train to work at her family’s store. The Good Dollar serviced all of North Falls and most of Verona. It was also a bike ride away from both Cheyenne and Madison’s houses.

Emmy held up a finger to let her father know she’d be a minute, then answered, “Hey, Louise, thanks for calling.”

“If this is about the phones we sold last week, Brett’s already been by.”

“No, it’s something else.” Emmy kept her voice low, choosing her words carefully. “What kind of birth control is Madison Dalrymple taking?”

“Girl, I could get in all kinds of trouble for telling you that.”

Emmy closed her eyes. Hannah could ask for the information. She was Madison’s legal guardian. The only problem was that Emmy would have to ask her to.

“Shit,” Louise said, but Emmy heard a clacking sound as she started typing. “Okay, Dr. Carl has her on point-fifteen milligrams of Solaire-Freedom. That’s twenty-four pink and four white pills in a blister pack.”

Emmy recognized the description. It matched the pills she’d found in Cheyenne’s stash. “When did she start?”

“Lemme look back.” Louise made a humming noise as the keyboard clattered again. “Okay, here it is. Brought in the paper script on September thirteenth. Picked it up on the fourteenth.”

“What about Cheyenne Baker?” Emmy was careful again so that she didn’t fall into the past tense. “Is she taking birth control, too?”

“Oh hell no,” Louise said. “When the family first moved here, Cheyenne’s doctor back in Iowa had her on thirty days of amoxycillin to treat her acne. Gave the poor thing the screaming shits.

I mentioned to Ruth that she might want to try birth control and you would’a thought I told her to skin the child alive.”

That sounded like Ruth Baker. “Did Hannah pick up Madison’s birth control?”

“I’ve got no idea. And if I ask at the front counter, they’ll want to know why.” She paused. “Why aren’t you asking Hannah?”

“She’s got enough going on right now.” Emmy didn’t dwell on the evasion. She’d thought of another idea. “Was Madison’s birth control filed on Hannah’s insurance?”

“Oh, that’s smart.” More clacking, more humming. “Nope, she didn’t use insurance. Costs 178 dollars a month, which is ridiculous. Says here the last time Madison got it filled was June twenty-eighth at twelve twenty-one. Cash transaction.”

That tracked. Madison got out of summer school at noon. There were four pills missing from the blister pack, which meant they’d been started on the first day of the month.

“Thanks, Louise. I owe you.”

“Just find those sweet babies,” Louise said. “I know you’ve always held Hannah in your heart, but promise me you’ll bring them home.”

“Okay.” Emmy told herself she was using her father’s amorphous okay, that she was not making a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep. Before Louise could follow up, Emmy ended the call. She glanced back at Gerald. He was talking to one of the crime scene techs, a lanky man in a white Tyvek suit.

She looked down at her phone like she was reading something important, but the truth was that she needed a moment to collect herself. She tapped through cousin texts that her eyes were too blurry to read. Aunt Millie had left six voicemails. Emmy didn’t need to listen to them. They were always the same. Her aunt’s gruff voice announcing, “Millie Clifton,” followed by a series of sharp clicks as she tried to get the receiver back into the cradle.

Emmy silently ordered herself to get her shit together. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and got back to work.

Dust swirled around her pants and covered her shoes as she walked toward the van. The brutal sun had bleached the Georgia red clay to a high white that was so hard to look at her eyes started to water. She could see the crime scene techs were starting to pack up their equipment, literally pulling up stakes. The yellow tape dropped to the ground. Close up, she recognized the lanky, Tyveked crime scene tech as Special Agent Michael Berry-Lawhorn.

He nodded a hello to Emmy. “I was telling your dad our second team just found a bullet casing on the soccer field. Half-buried in the soil. Got crushed by one of the tires on the car. They’ve sent it to ballistics, but the thinking is it’s from a twenty-two Mag rimfire cartridge.”

“That’s for a rifle or a revolver,” Emmy said. “We’ve got a suspect with a registered Glock 20 that takes a ten-millimeter round.”

“I can tell you with near certainty that’s not the gun that was used,” Michael said. “If your victim had taken a ten-mil shot to the head, there’d be bone and brain everywhere. A twenty-two is smaller and lighter. Knocks around inside the skull like a pinball. The only thing that usually comes out is blood.”

Gerald asked, “You find anything here?”

“Nothing jumped out, but give me a second and I’ll take you through the scene.”

Gerald waited until Michael had walked toward his crew to tell Emmy, “Ruger has a rimfire pistol. Standard model. One-button takedown. Bolt-action. Drop-down mag. Nice gun.”

Emmy would never know firearms like her father did. “What’s the application?”

“Sport, mostly. Target shooting. Plinking.” He added, “Browning Buck Mark. Beretta Neos. Colt Ace. There’s more. Ruger’s the best.”

“I can’t see Dale shooting cans off a fence post in his free time.” Emmy googled the Ruger on her phone. The semi-automatic pistol had first been manufactured in 1949. “Looks like something you’d see a Nazi waving around in an old war movie.”

“Based off the Japanese Nambu.”

She put her phone back in her pocket. “Dale’s still the best suspect. The pros don’t cancel the cons.”

“Maybe haven’t found the right con.”

“Madison got the prescription for birth control pills from Dr. Carl so that Cheyenne could take them.” Emmy saw his curious look, but she knew he could easily figure out the source. “The first time Madison filled the prescription at the pharmacy was on September fourteenth. My guess is that Cheyenne waited a few weeks, then started on the first of October.”

“Took some time to be talked into it,” Gerald said.

“Maybe,” Emmy hedged, because she knew how idiotic teenagers could be. She’d started having sex with Jonah a full three months before a pregnancy scare had sent her running to the Planned Parenthood over in Clayville. Celia had driven her so that her parents wouldn’t find out.

“Sheriff.” Michael was rolling the loose crime scene tape around his hand like a bright yellow mitten. “Ready when you are.”

Emmy looked down at the ground as they walked along the track. There were drainage ditches on both sides, heavy rocks covering the French drains that diverted the water toward a retaining pond. Terrell kept the grass cut close to the ground to discourage snakes from scaring the horses. The fence to what was called the back hundred, a grazing area for his dairy cows, was fifty feet away. Emmy could see the rolling hills beyond, then the rise where the farmhouse was situated like a crown in the Clifton jewels.

She told her father, “Taybee and her family were at the river basin last night. The field hands would go home at four. No one would’ve been looking back here between seven and eight.”

Gerald nodded, but he told Michael, “Ready.”

“Yes, sir.” Michael unzipped his suit as he talked. “The FBI is handling the identification on the tire and shoe prints. They said we’ll have those back by the middle of next week. But this is definitely the area where the struggle took place. We’ve got the bike traveling from a westerly direction. We lost the impression about forty yards down, but you can see how the bike meandered back and forth across the road.”

Emmy saw the lazy curves and thought about Cheyenne pedaling her bike, arms out at her sides, tilting her body left, then right like an airplane, thinking about what she was going to do with the older man now, how much fun she was going to have with Madison at the park later.

“The car came from the west, too,” Michael continued. “We picked it up at twenty feet. There are a lot of farm vehicles that use this track, so it’s impossible to pick it up before then. What we know is that the driver came to an abrupt stop here. He got out of the car. These footprints are a man’s size eleven. I would guess some kind of hiking or work boot, but the FBI will confirm that. Now, if you’ll follow me down here.”

Gerald stayed on the road as Emmy followed Michael into the drainage ditch. The gravel shifted under the thick soles of her boots. Dust clouded up into her mouth. She coughed.

“There.” Michael pointed back at the road. “You can see that divot better from this angle.”

Emmy had to use both hands to shield her eyes from the sun. She squinted at the packed clay. She only noticed the indentation because Michael had told her to look for it. She shook her head, because this wasn’t at all how she had imagined it. “Are you saying the car hit the bike?”

“Yes.” He pointed a few feet back from the divot. “That’s where the impact took place. This is where the bike went down.”

Emmy climbed up to the road to get a better look. She had worked dozens of bike accidents on patrol. She went to one knee, trying to read the scene. The bike pedal had hit the ground first, acting like an anchor, then momentum had taken over and swung the rear tire around.

She remembered, “The rim of the back tire was bent. The chain was hanging off.”

“I believe the left front bumper of the car tapped the rear wheel. The impact bent the rim and sent the bike flying. And the cyclist.”

The image in Emmy’s mind changed from a carefree Cheyenne making lazy curves on the road to a terrified girl frantically pedaling her bike back and forth as she tried to outmaneuver a speeding car.

Michael said, “He wasn’t driving fast, maybe fifteen miles per hour, but it’s a 2,000-pound vehicle versus a 20-pound bike carrying a very small girl. She was knocked to the road here, then rolled into the ditch there.”

Again, Emmy played it out in her mind. The terrified look on Cheyenne’s face as she heard the car inching closer. The shock when the bike was tapped. The horror as she flew through the air and landed on the gravel, then rolled into the low point of the ditch.

She asked, “Did you find any other part of the gold necklace?”

“Nothing, but this is where the Highway Patrol found it last night. Absent a body, it’s hard to tell if it was yanked from her neck or if the impact broke it off.”

Emmy saw something else. Three round patches of gravel had been scooped from the ditch. “Was there blood on the gravel?”

“Yes, we found spatter from the impact, and several drops where she was either carried or crawled back up to the road. I would assume the blood came from her nose and mouth. Maybe some road rash. We’ll run it for DNA back at the lab just to make sure it’s hers. Excuse me, I have to take this.”

Michael was answering his phone as he climbed out of the ditch.

Emmy turned to her father. “This changes things, Dad. The kidnapper just drove up and hit her bike. He wanted to scare the shit out of her. Maybe kill her right then and there.”

“Yep.”

“What the hell were they involved in?”

Gerald looked up the road. “How’d she get here?”

Emmy looked up the road, too. She needed to get her bearings. She took out her spiral notebook and drew three horizontal lines, then overlaid them with three vertical lines spaced out at equal intervals to indicate the backroads.

“Michael said she came from the west.” Emmy held her notebook so her father could see. “The backroads go like this, kind of like a tic-tac-toe box with three extra squares along the bottom. This is where Cheyenne’s house is in Verona. This is where her bike was hit by the car. The fastest route for her to take would be here, which would bring her in from the east, not the west. She wouldn’t cut through Taybee’s place because of the dogs. Plus there’s the fence. She’d have to lift her bike over the—”

“Came through here.” Gerald pressed his finger to the bottom corner.

Emmy felt gut-punched. “That’s Aunt Millie’s land. Taybee told me she was complaining about strangers cutting through her yard.”

“Call her.”

Emmy could see the missed call notifications from Millie stacked up on her phone. There were eleven voicemails. She felt as if her stomach was folding in on itself as she selected the number. She tapped the icon to put it on speaker. Five long rings passed before her aunt finally picked up.

“Millie Clifton,” she announced.

“It’s Emmy. Taybee told me—”

“You took long enough to get back to me,” Millie interrupted. “You’re lucky I happened to come home from searching for those poor girls so I could take my blood pressure medication. Why didn’t you answer when I called?”

“Aunt Millie,” Emmy tried to keep her tone even, “please, just tell me why you were calling.”

“One of those missing girls. She was in my yard yesterday, and not for the first time. I recognized her face from the newspaper.”

Emmy felt stunned—not by the information, but by the fact that she could’ve had it as early as this morning. “You saw Cheyenne Baker in your yard?”

“No, the other one, the thick-waisted girl.”

“Madison.” Emmy felt her throat tighten around the name. “What was she doing?”

“She was talking to Adam.”

Emmy shot a questioning look at Gerald. He shook his head.

She asked, “Aunt Millie, who’s Adam?”

“The man I told you about last month. The one I hired to fix my retaining wall. I told you he was up to no good. Just sits out there smoking cigarettes with whatever riff-raff he can drag in. You girls never listen to me. You think I’m an old fool.”

Emmy couldn’t stop shaking her head. “What time did you see Madison?”

“I guess it was just before lunch time. Adam told me he didn’t mind working over the Fourth, but then I look out my kitchen window and I see both of ’em smoking and laughing with their bare feet in my pond.”

Emmy’s heart felt like it was going to explode in her chest. “Can you tell me Adam’s last name?”

“Oh, so now you want to know about him?” Millie asked. “I’ve told you for a month about strangers cutting through my yard to see him. Some lunatic even knocked on my front door at five in the evening. She thought he lived here at the house with me. And I’m talking a young girl, barely out of high school. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather.”

“Aunt Millie, please. I need to know Adam’s last name.”

“All right. Lemme look in my address book. It’s not under A for Adam . . .” Millie started singing the alphabet. “A, B, C, D, E—”

Emmy bit her lip so she wouldn’t scream. Her aunt’s address book was as thick as a regular phone book, except Millie had her own way of categorizing people.

“P,” Millie finally said. “Here is it. Adam Huntsinger.”

“Thank you.” Emmy’s finger hovered over the button to end the call, but she felt frozen.

The tickle. The bad feeling. The Don’t Feel Right.

“Aunt Millie,” she said, “why was Adam Huntsinger under P in your address book?”

“Oh, that’s from the young girl who knocked on my door,” Millie said. “Nasty little hooligan looks me right in the eye and tells me, ‘I’m here to see the Perv.’”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Seven

Emmy had thought that the Perv was in his twenties, but Adam Johnathan Huntsinger’s arrest record described him as a black-haired, brown-eyed, forty-nine-year-old male who was six-feet two-inches and 190 pounds. He had one identifying mark: a tattoo of a snake that wrapped around his left forearm. He had never been required to register as a sex offender and had no record of offenses against a minor.

That didn’t mean he was not known to law enforcement.

Six years ago, Adam had spent ninety days in county lock-up after a Verona cop had pulled him over for a busted tail light. Adam hadn’t been able to produce his driver’s license. The cop had noticed a joint in the ashtray of his green 1982 Chevy truck.

Three years later, Adam had earned another thirty days behind bars for driving the same truck through Clayville, again without a license, and swilling from an open container of Jack Daniel’s.

He’d been on and off probation. His employment history was spotty. He’d worked at the factory, then the feed store, then the factory again, and finally, he’d started taking odd jobs around town doing yard work and light construction for people like Millie Clifton.

According to his probation records, his last known address had him living with his parents. His father, Walton, was a dentist who often traveled with a group of volunteers to deliver dental services to underserved communities. Alma, his mother, was a much-loved fourth grade teacher. She suffered from early macular degeneration, which had affected her vision to the point that she could no longer drive herself to work.

Her son dropped her off and picked her up every day at the elementary school.

The same school where Hannah worked as a teacher.

The same school that Madison had attended.

Emmy looked up at the two-story farmhouse where the Huntsingers lived. They were in Elsinore Meadows, former grazing land that straddled the North Falls and Verona city limits. The nearest neighbor was half a mile down the unpaved road. One car was parked in the driveway, a black Jetta with a thick layer of dust from the dirt and gravel. There was a chip taken out of the edge of the trunk like the lid had banged against another piece of metal. Emmy scanned the rest of the car, slowly walking around to the front. The left side of the bumper was scuffed. The plastic streaked to the gray primer beneath the black paint. Narrow, not too deep, the kind of scratch you would expect to see on a vehicle that had struck the back wheel of a bicycle.

Emmy’s heart punched into her throat. “It’s him, Dad. This is the car.”

“Yep.” Gerald’s hand was on his gun as he looked up at the house. “Check the back.”

She unsnapped the safety strap on her Glock as she walked briskly along the front porch, peering into the living-room windows as she passed. She didn’t see anyone inside. Emmy turned when she heard her father checking the front door. The knob clicked. It was locked.

“Open up!” Gerald banged on the door so hard that the house felt like it was shaking. “Police!”

Emmy listened for a response, but she didn’t hear anyone stirring inside. She swung her legs over the railing and dropped down. The grass had been recently mowed. Someone had created a path lined with pea gravel to the concrete stoop on the side of the house. There were two entrances. One up the stairs that led to the kitchen, one down two steps to the basement.

Emmy tried the basement door, but it was locked. She looked in the window. A single floor lamp provided enough light to show the entire space, which was no larger than a cheap motel room. Dark paneling on the walls. Crushed beer cans on the floor. Overflowing ashtray on the coffee table. Fast-food bags spilling from a trash can. Discarded clothes littering the floor. Xbox hooked up to a giant television. Futon for a bed with a filthy-looking blanket. The door to the bathroom was gone. She could see straight through to the moldy shower. There was no closet, only a pair of gray gym lockers packed with clumsily folded shirts and jeans. It looked like a teenager’s bedroom, but she instinctively knew it belonged to Adam Huntsinger.

She was going to find the bastard.

She wasn’t going to let the FBI pat him on the head for three hours and yo-yo between accusing him of rape and murder and asking him polite questions about his love of yard work. If it took putting a gun to his head, Emmy was going to make Adam Huntsinger tell her what he’d done with Madison and Cheyenne.

“Emmy Lou!” Gerald called from the front.

Emmy could hear another man’s voice as she jogged toward the front of the house. She hadn’t seen Walton Huntsinger since she was a teenager, but he looked almost exactly the same. Big ears, slim build, goofy grin. His hair was wet. He was wearing a bathrobe. He’d obviously been in the shower.

“. . . just had to wash the road off me,” he was telling Gerald. “I was in West Virginia with the Tooth Troopers. Me and some of my dentist pals go around—”

“Where’s Adam?” Emmy asked.

Walton looked perplexed by the interruption. He gestured toward the driveway. “His truck’s not here.”

“That your car?”

“Yes, the transmission’s been slipping. I’m not one for flying. Had to take a rental the whole way there. I think the clutch is—”

“Dr. Huntsinger,” Emmy said, “it’s imperative we find Adam immediately.”

“Is he in . . .” Walton’s face went slack. “Of course he’s in trouble. He might be picking up Alma. She’s been in Biloxi this week with some friends from school. Supposed to be back about now.”

Gerald said, “Call her.”

Walton went back into the house and returned with his cell phone. He dialed the number, waited through the rings. “Hey, sugar, it’s me. I just got home. No, the drive wasn’t too bad. Where are you?”

Emmy listened to his tone of voice. It was high-pitched, nervous. He knew that this was serious. He didn’t want to panic his wife.

“Okay, well, do you know where Adam is?” He huffed out a forced laugh. “No, he’s not in trouble. I just wanted to see if he was going to pick you up, or should I?”

Emmy saw Walton’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallowed. He was sweating in the heat.

“Well that’s typical. I haven’t heard from him, either.” Walton looked down at the porch as he listened to her talk. “Okay, sugar, just give me a holler when you get to Trina’s and I’ll swing by.”

Emmy watched his chest rise and fall as he ended the call. He was bracing himself.

“Sheriff,” he said, “what happened?”

Gerald told him, “Call Adam.”

Walton nodded, like he understood that he just needed to accept this. He dialed a number. Listened through the rings. Finally, he shook his head. “Voicemail’s full. Tell me what I can do.”

Gerald said, “Need to search your house.”

“Okay—uh, yes. Of course. Come in.”

Gerald was halfway up the stairs by the time Emmy entered the foyer. She saw a suitcase beside the door. Black Samsonite, carry-on size. A red nylon man’s wallet with the Georgia Bulldogs logo was shoved into the zippered pocket. A colorful golf umbrella was hooked through the handle.

Walton said, “Forecast called for rain in Bridgeport.”

“Do you have any guns in the house?”

“Uh . . .” He shrugged. “I might have some of my father’s old pistols lying around. He was into target shooting. Used to take me plinking when I was a boy, but I’ve never liked guns.”

Emmy felt like a bird was caught inside her ribcage. She’d thought it was Adam when she’d seen the car, but now she was deadly certain. He’d really taken the girls. He would know where Cheyenne’s body was. He might have Madison trapped somewhere, tied up, chained, still alive.

She asked, “How do I get into the basement?”

“There’s a side entrance off the kitchen.”

“You can’t get in through the house?”

“No, it’s just a tiny room. Used to be my workshop. Adam built it out when he lost his job at the factory.” He looked flustered. “I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear all this. I’ll get the spare key.”

Emmy followed him down a long hallway past the living room, then the dining room, then into the kitchen. The walls were painted bright yellow, the appliances were mismatched. Walton opened the drawer by the fridge, but he was looking at the single key fob on the counter.

He said, “That’s to my car. I left it upstairs on my dresser.”

Emmy could hear the strain in his voice. “Dr. Huntsinger—”

His eyes met hers. He was afraid. “This isn’t like the other times, is it?”

“No, sir.”

She watched him rummage through pens, pencils, screwdrivers, scissors and scattered business cards. He opened another junk drawer and started looking again. Emmy clasped her hands together, reminding herself of holding Madison’s hand under the oak tree. The annoyed look on the girl’s face when Emmy had told her that she was loved. Madison was still loved. She could still be alive. There was a chance that Emmy could bring her home.

Walton opened another drawer. Emmy was going to give him twenty more seconds before she broke down the basement door. Every cop in the county was looking for Adam Huntsinger. There was an APB on his green Chevy truck. Officers were talking to his former co-workers, his friends, his enemies, his drinking buddies. The US Marshals were setting up a task force to coordinate with all law enforcement officers in Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

There could be a clue in the basement, a receipt, a note, that led Emmy straight to wherever Adam had taken the girls. Madison could still be alive. She had to be alive.

“I-I’m sorry.” Walton had found the key, but he held onto it. “Whatever he’s done, I’m so sorry.”

Emmy grabbed the key. She rushed out of the kitchen door, then down the stairs, then made the turn to the basement. She was fitting the key into the lock when she felt a sudden sickness in her body. This wasn’t a tickle, or a bad feeling, or a Don’t Feel Right. This was like live wires electrifying every nerve. Emmy’s brain had needed a few seconds to process what she’d seen. Not inside the house. Not through the basement door window. At the bottom of the kitchen stairs. Lying in the grass. The sunlight had caught a flash of something shiny and gold.

She turned around, her breath catching. The sun hadn’t moved. She could still see the glint of gold in the grass. She carefully went to one knee. She reached for the object, but sanity prevailed. Emmy didn’t have to touch it to know what she was looking at. Nor did she have any question about to whom it belonged. The curly gold script spelled out the owner’s name—

Cheyenne.

Her mouth opened. She drew in air to yell for her father, but then she saw another thing, an even more terrible thing. There was a large equipment shed tucked among the trees in the backyard. Emmy’s breath turned to ice in her lungs. The shed was large enough to accommodate a tractor. The two doors were held closed by a heavy bicycle lock. The windows on either side had aluminum foil covering the panes. To block out the heat of the sun? To conceal the contents? To keep a fifteen-year-old girl from knowing where she was being held? To make her feel like she had no chance of being saved?

Emmy felt a weird flutter in her heart, almost like a flower trying to open. It was hope. Just a tiny, budding bloom of hope.

She took off at a full run, arms moving, legs pumping, as if she’d just left her mark at a track meet. The distance to the shed stretched out like the wrong end of a telescope. Emmy thought about the heat, that the temperature was ninety-nine degrees, that the metal roof on the shed would be twenty degrees hotter, that it would be boiling inside. Did Madison have water? Had she passed out? Had she given up? Was she thinking about the last time she’d seen Emmy, the last time she’d tried to ask for help, only to be told not now?

Emmy slammed her shoulder into the shed doors. She bounced back like she’d hit a trampoline. She stood up, yanked on the lock as hard as she could. The doors wouldn’t budge. The lock was too strong. She ran around the side, found another foil-covered window. The edges had curled up at the bottom. Emmy cupped her hands to the glass, desperate to see in.

“Madison?” she tried, but the word strangled in her throat. “Baby, are you in there?”

She used her flashlight to break the window. The frame was weak from dry rot. The wood splintered along with the glass, ripping open the skin on the back of her hand. Emmy frantically looked inside. It was dark, almost black. She saw the outline of machinery, smelled motor oil and gasoline. Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Shadows turned into objects. A riding lawn-mower. A weed eater. A gas can. There was another set of doors in the back. Another lock. Another room.

“Madison?”

Emmy waited, but there was no response. She took three steps back, then ran at the wall, trying to shoulder her way through. The boards splintered like kindling. She fell into the shed. Her head popped against the cement floor. She fumbled for her flashlight. Blood had turned her hands slick. Gas fumes burned her eyes. She finally found the button and the beam of light bounced around the room. Along the floor, into the corners, up to the rafters. She took another running start and broke through the doors in the back. Spider webs wrapped around her body. She tripped against something heavy and solid. Her ankle rolled. She fell to the ground. The flashlight dropped. Her breath was gone. Her vision swam. She looked up into the broken webs, the slash of sunlight, the cavernous, lonely space.

The back room was empty.

The shed was empty.

Madison wasn’t here.

“Emmy Lou?”

Her father was standing by the rusted lawnmower. Sunlight crisscrossed his body. She could see the worry in his face.

“I found the—” She was breathless. “Cheyenne’s—I found the-the—”

“Okay, baby. Sit up.” Gerald knelt beside her. He gently wrapped his handkerchief around her hand. The white cotton soaked through with red. He used his thumb to wipe the blood from her face. “You okay?”

“Cheyenne’s necklace.”

“I saw it.”

“I-I thought Madison was in here, Dad. I thought I could save her.”

Gerald held her to his chest. Emmy was too devastated to cry. She could only listen to the rapid thump of his heartbeat. He rubbed his hand along her arm, trying to soothe her. She felt herself slowly return to her senses. The pain was almost immediate. Her hand was burning. Her ankle was throbbing. Her head ached. She had scratches on her arms, her face and neck.

She saw another shadow fall across the light. Virgil picked at his shirt collar. Sweat had turned his uniform into cling film. He did a double take at Emmy. Saw the blood, the broken doors.

She straightened up, swallowing the blood in her mouth, trying to pull herself together. Gerald’s handkerchief was completely saturated. Virgil reached into his back pocket and offered his. The cotton was already wet from his sweat.

“Thank—” She tried to clear her throat but ended up coughing blood. She’d bitten the inside of her cheek. Emmy tested the torn flesh with her tongue.

“Boss,” Virgil said, “GHP spotted Huntsinger’s truck at a dive bar over in Clayville.”

Gerald didn’t answer. Nor did he try to leave. He gave Emmy a worried look.

“I’m fine, Dad. Let’s go.” Emmy struggled to stand up. Gerald lifted her most of the way. She winced at the pain shooting up from her ankle. She put her arm around his shoulders so that he could help her walk to the cruiser.

He didn’t move.

She said, “I can do it. Let’s go.”

“Nope. You’re going to the hospital.”

“What?” she yelled. “Dad, no!”

He told Virgil, “Need the GBI here. Search the house. Process the yard.”

“Yes, boss.” Virgil unclipped the mic from his shoulder as he left the shed. Gerald slipped his support away from Emmy and followed. They were leaving without her.

She called, “Dad, I—”

Gerald cut her off with a look. His expression had gone stony. He’d made up his mind. “Call your mother to drive you.”

Emmy hopped on one foot, trailing after him. “I don’t need to call Mom. Dad, where are you going? What bar?”

Gerald ignored her as he walked through the backyard, talking in low tones to Virgil. She saw Walton standing on the kitchen stoop. She tested her ankle, gritting her teeth as she limped after her father.

“Dad!” Emmy tried. “Which bar? Tell me which bar.”

Gerald disappeared around the front of the house. Emmy hobbled after him, grabbing onto the bottom of the porch railing so she could get to the driveway. Her father was already sitting in Virgil’s cruiser. They were pulling out as Brett Temple was pulling in. Both vehicles stopped. The windows rolled down. Gerald was giving Brett orders.

“Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Brett pulled in alongside Emmy’s cruiser. He gave a low whistle at the state of her. “What happened?”

“Did they say where they were going?”

Brett shrugged. “Above my paygrade. Virgil said stay off the radio.”

“I need to—” Emmy felt a wave of nausea from the pain. Her hand was on fire. Her head felt like it was inside a ringing bell. “Cheyenne’s necklace is in the grass on the side of the house by the kitchen steps. Mark it off, make sure the scene is protected. The father—”

“Walton,” Brett interrupted. “He pulled my little cousin’s molar last week.”

“Interview him.” Emmy didn’t have time to play Six Degrees of North Falls. “He says he might have some old shooting pistols in the house. You need to search this place top to bottom. Start in the basement. That’s where the suspect lives.”

“Okay,” Brett said. “But your dad told me to call your mom to take you to the hospital.”

“I already texted her. She’s meeting me there.” Emmy had never lied so smoothly. She had to get out of here. “You’re wasting time, Brett. There could be something in that basement that we can use during the interrogation.”

Brett looked skeptical. “I don’t think you should drive yourself.”

“It looks worse than it is.” Emmy started to unbuckle her equipment belt to show that she was off duty. She took the mic off her shoulder. “Interview the father. He’s been out of town, but he might know something. We still have to build a case, Brett. Arresting Adam Huntsinger doesn’t guarantee anything. He’ll try to use the location of the girls for leverage. We haven’t hit the twenty-four-hour mark yet. Madison could still be alive. We’ve got to take his power away from him.”

Brett started nodding. “Yeah, okay.”

Emmy tried not to limp as she walked to her cruiser. She tossed her equipment belt onto the passenger’s seat, clenched her teeth as she got behind the wheel. Her left ankle had been sprained and her right hand had a two-inch gash, but she could still drive.

She backed the cruiser out of the driveway, swinging onto the road. Emmy didn’t bother turning up the speaker on her scanner. She knew that Gerald would maintain radio silence. He wouldn’t want half the town showing up, things getting out of control. There were at least twenty dive bars in Clayville. Her uncle Penley owned half of them. Emmy would drive to every single shithole until she found the right one.

Dust clouded up behind the cruiser as she sped away. She mapped the route in her head. Back toward the interstate, then fifteen minutes to the Clayville exit. Ten if she used lights and sirens. Emmy was reaching for the switches on the dash when she realized the backroads would get her there more quickly.

She wasn’t going to waste time accessing the track from the main road. She took a sharp turn, cutting across an open field, tearing up the grass. The tires bumped, the chassis groaned, she hissed out the pain in her body as she fought to keep the car straight. Her grip only loosened when the tires thrummed down the hard clay of the track. The blood on the steering wheel had turned sticky. Emmy saw the bright white fence that marked the beginning of Taybee and Terrell’s farm.

Her phone started to ring.

Emmy used her left hand, awkwardly digging in her right pocket. She tapped the button to answer at the same time she saw the Caller ID.

Hannah.

“Emmy?” Her voice was hoarse with grief. “Why are all the police going to Clayville? Have they found them? Are the girls okay?”

Emmy could still remember the tiny sprig of hope that had withered inside the empty shed. She couldn’t do that to Hannah. “I-I don’t know. You need to wait until—”

“Stop lying to me!” Hannah yelled. “Emmy, please! Have they found them? Should I go there? Where are they?”

“Hannah, I’m not lying!” Emmy was yelling because Hannah was. “Just stay home. I promise you I’ll—”

“Fuck you!” Hannah screamed. “Fuck you and your stupid promises! This is all your fault!”

The connection was severed. Emmy threw her phone across the car. Her eyes blurred with tears she didn’t deserve to cry. She let her foot off the gas. The cruiser started coasting. The whine of the V8 engine shifted down into a low purr. She slowed to a stop.

What was she doing?

She was injured. Bleeding. Probably concussed. She had ignored Madison at the park. She had ignored Millie’s calls all day. Her father didn’t need Emmy’s help at the bar in Clayville. He needed her to do as she’d been told. To go to the hospital. To be one less thing that he had to worry about. To stop trying to be the hero of this terrible, tragic story.

Emmy had criticized Lionel Faulkner’s interview technique, but the textbook assumed the suspect was guilty. Gerald would bring in the right man. Faulkner would eventually break Adam Huntsinger. The raping murderer would give a full confession. He would explain everything that had happened. And eventually, hopefully, for Hannah and Paul’s sake, for Ruth and Felix’s sanity, he would tell them where to find the bodies.

The river. A park. A ditch. An old logging road. Emmy had recited the statistics to Gerald a few hours ago. Most victims are found within twenty miles of the abduction site in a place familiar to the perpetrator. The bodies are usually concealed in some way—covered with leaves, buried in a shallow grave, submerged in water, hidden in an abandoned building or shed, disarticulated and disposed of in a landfill.

Had Adam placed Cheyenne in a shallow grave? Had he taken Madison deep into the forest? Had she found herself underneath yet another tree? Had she looked up at the towering canopy, the latticework of leaves, and thought about what Emmy had told her? That sometimes, you miss the big picture because you’re too focused on the little stuff. Sometimes, you miss the forest for the trees.

Emmy’s foot slipped off the brake. The car started to roll. She felt a thought working its way through her brain in slow, lazy arcs, the same way that Emmy and Hannah used to coast their bikes down this same backroad. She gave herself one of her father’s prompts:

What are we missing?

A place that’s well known to the perpetrator. A place where he feels comfortable. A place that he can return to so he can relive his crimes. A place where he was seen smoking cigarettes with one of his victims at eleven o’clock on the morning of the kidnappings.

Aunt Millie’s pond.

The cruiser gave a violent lurch when Emmy punched the gas. The speedometer had inched up to sixty by the time she’d reached the end of Taybee’s fence. Barbed wire ringed the pasture behind Millie’s house. Emmy broke through, dragging a fence post with her. She could see the pond up ahead. Fed by an underground spring. Two hundred yards in circumference. Up to twenty feet deep in the middle.

Isolated, contained, accessible—the perfect place to submerge a body.

Emmy slid to a stop at the water’s edge. The sun had turned the surface into a mirror. She got out of the car, shielded her eyes. She ignored her sprained ankle as she ran around the edge of the retaining wall. Cigarette butts were everywhere. Adam had left his tools on the ground. Emmy could see something floating in the middle of the pond. An interruption of light on the water. An unmoving ripple. A light blue cotton, the same light blue as the T-shirt Madison had been wearing at the park.

“No . . .” Emmy could only whisper the word. “No . . .”

She dove into the deep end of the pond, slicing under the surface like a knife. She came up for air about halfway to the center. Her feet dragged because of her boots. She pulled at the laces, kicked them off as she swam. Her arms made sweeping strokes, digging into the water, ignoring the burning sensation in her wounded ankle and hand.

She was so close.

She could see the dark letters on the back of the pale blue shirt. Madison was face-down, her blonde hair floating like strands of silk. Her right arm was out, her fingers waving with the ripples along the surface.

Emmy gave one last lunge, grabbing onto her hand, pulling herself to the body. She tilted up Madison’s head from the water. Her face was bloated, eyelids closed, lips as white as cotton. Hannah’s girl. Her most precious thing. Emmy could feel that the bones in the girl’s hand were crushed. She gently pressed it to her heart, kept the girl as close as she should’ve last night when Madison was alive and annoyed and worried and clearly in trouble and needing help if only Emmy had listened.

Now, she caressed Madison’s cheek, taking the weight of her head in the palm of her hand. Water lapped at Emmy’s mouth. She could hear the sound of waves slapping the retaining wall.

She whispered, “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

Emmy felt tears sting her eyes. There was no relief from speaking words, no lightening of the load, just the heavy burden of all that had been lost.

She carefully lowered Madison’s head back into the water. Emmy was physically exhausted, but she wasn’t going to abandon the girl again. She had to figure out how get her to the edge. Something was anchoring her in place. Emmy let her hands travel along the torso. A heavy chain was wrapped around Madison’s waist. Emmy took a deep breath, then stuck her head back under the water to see what was weighing her down.

Another body. Another precious girl.

Shooting streaks of sunlight danced around Cheyenne Baker’s head. Her gold necklace had been replaced with a chain that bit like teeth into her neck. The violence she had suffered was still written on her face. Split lip. Broken nose. Gunshot wound puckering the center of her forehead. Cheyenne had seen the bullet coming. She had known that she was going to die. Emmy reached out, touching her cheek. Wanting to give some softness to the child whose last moments on earth had been filled with so much terror.

Emmy felt her breath running out. Every molecule in her brain was telling her to go up for air. She forced herself to swim deeper, following the length of chain to the bottom. It was looped around a large concrete block. The only thing holding the girls in place was the weight of the rock. Emmy wrenched loose the chain. She felt light-headed as she pushed herself back up to the surface.

“Emmy Lou Clifton!” Millie was standing on the retaining wall. “What are you doing?”

Emmy couldn’t waste her breath on an answer. She would either pull the girls out now or join them in their graves. She circled behind Madison, hooked her arm around the girl’s chest, then reached overhead with the other arm to start the arduous backstroke toward the edge.

As a deputy, Emmy had performed water rescues, but never with two bodies. Her form was choppy. Her left foot was useless. Cheyenne kept rolling to the side. Their combined weight grew heavier in the shallows. Emmy crawled out of the pond on her knees, dragging the bodies behind her. She could only manage to get them halfway onto the grass. She fell onto her back. Looked up at the sky. Her lungs shook. She coughed. She was surrounded by air but could barely breathe.

“Poor little things.” Millie was standing above them. She started to shake her head. “They look like two broken angels.”

Emmy covered her face with her hands and started to cry.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Twelve Years Later

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Eight

Emmy Clifton sat at the kitchen table staring at the front page of the North Falls Herald on her phone. The photo showed Adam Huntsinger walking out of the courthouse with his fist raised in triumph. A crowd had gathered to cheer him on. The headline felt like it was stabbing her in the face.

BROKEN ANGELS KILLER FREED

She couldn’t read the article. Didn’t need to. The chain of events that had led to this horrible moment was seared into her brain. Instead of torturing herself with the past, she studied the photo. Death row hadn’t taken Adam’s life, but it had clearly taken something. At sixty-one years old, he looked like every moment of the last twelve years had shaved a layer off his soul. He was smiling, but his expression was haggard. His acne-scarred skin looked dry and flaky. His dark hair had turned completely gray. His cheeks were sunken. His eyes had a haunted look behind thick prison-issue glasses.

There were probably people looking at this same photograph right now who felt sorry for him. Or worse, they were one of the mindless hordes who’d listened to Jack Whitlock’s Misguided Angel podcast and felt the elation of a fan whose team had just won the game. Mr. Pocket Pussy himself was beaming with pride as he stood behind the man he’d identified as the Perv twelve years ago. Everyone in the crowd was looking at Adam as if he was a hero. What Emmy saw was a monster who had gotten away with a double murder. A man who’d probably spent the last twelve years reliving the sexual pleasure he’d derived from his heinous crimes. A pedophile who was without a doubt going to hurt another child again.

She zoomed in on Adam’s upraised fist. The snake tattoo wrapping around his forearm had faded from black to blue. His body had turned thin and ropey from having endless amounts of time for push-ups, crunches and jumping jacks while he was caged inside a seven-by-thirteen foot cell for nearly twenty-four hours a day. The veins seemed to pulse beneath his skin.

If only the executioner’s needle had pierced one of them.

Emmy made herself put the phone face-down on the kitchen table. She held her coffee mug in her hands, let the steam rise into her face. The last time she had seen Cheyenne and Madison’s killer was from the witness stand. Her testimony had been pivotal because she’d been there at every twist and turn of the case. Emmy was the last known person to talk to Madison at the park. She’d seen all of the evidence on the soccer pitch. She’d been the one who’d gotten the information from Aunt Millie. She’d examined the damaged Jetta in the Huntsinger driveway. She had spotted Cheyenne’s necklace in the grass near Adam’s basement apartment. Most importantly, she had pulled both girls from the pond.

Her eyes closed and she was back in the water. Cupping her hand to Madison’s face. Staring at the beams of light shooting around Cheyenne’s head. Emmy’s dreams had been haunted by both girls since that fateful afternoon. There was no before in her mind, only the terrible things that had come after.

“Hello?” Myrna called from the top of the stairs. “Is there coffee?”

Tension clenched every muscle in Emmy’s body. “Yes, ma’am. Do you need help?”

“No, I don’t need any of your damn help.”

Emmy felt her teeth grit. Myrna’s labored movements sounded like a sidewinder slapping its way down the stairs. Emmy didn’t have to turn around to see what she was doing. Her mother would be gripping the railing with both hands, one foot down, then the other foot on the same stair, then down, then over and over again until she either fell the rest of the way or managed to make it on her own.

There was no use trying to stop her. Or asking her to use a cane. Or suggesting they turn the den into a downstairs bedroom. A screaming argument would not make any difference to the outcome. Myrna would sit on the stairs like a toddler until you gave up and left her alone. The specialist in Atlanta claimed this stubbornness was nearly universal in late-stage Alzheimer’s patients, but Emmy knew from personal experience that her mother’s irritating intransigence was the one characteristic that could not be blamed on her diagnosis.

“Well, I made it down in one piece.” Myrna pressed a heavy hand on Emmy’s chair as she passed behind her. “Despite what you were rooting for.”

Emmy slowly let out the air that had been trapped inside her lungs. Her body felt shaky. She’d spent most of the night trying to recover from another bout of Myrna’s night terrors. The bloodcurdling screams had been bad, but the hallucinations had gone on for hours. Myrna had finally settled around five o’clock, but Emmy hadn’t bothered going back to bed since she had to wake up in an hour anyway.

Now, she watched her mother move around the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee, taking out eggs and bacon from the fridge, then finding the bread in the pantry. She was wearing a house dress, her ghostly gray hair down past her shoulders. As she moved in and out of the sunlight, her face took on different masks. One angle had her looking old and grouchy, the next angle washed away the years, then yet another angle showed the slack-jawed confusion as she tried to remember how to turn on the stove.

Myrna’s hands fumbled at one knob, then the next, the labels clearly not making sense. She gave the last one a violent twist. Nothing happened. No lights came on. No clicking of the starter, whoosh of the gas igniting.

She told Emmy, “The stove isn’t working.”

The stove had been disconnected last October when Myrna had almost burned down the house. “I’ll get Cleet to come fix it.”

“Tell him I need an exact time. I don’t have all day to wait around.”

Cleet had died fifteen years ago, but Emmy picked up her phone anyway. “I’ll text him right now.”

She mimed her thumb moving across the screen, but all she saw was Adam Huntsinger’s pinched features. Emmy swiped right, and the previous page loaded with a close-up of another haggard face, this one in profile. The woman was sitting in a church pew with her head turned up toward the cross. The caption read:

Barbara Jericho, the Real Broken Angel.

A text notification came through. Then another. Then another. Emmy suppressed a groan she would never be able to explain to her mother. Taybee had put out a call to the girl cousins to organize a baby shower for her daughter Kaitlynn. One cousin had already complained about not being able to bring her husband. Another had privately texted Emmy about how tacky it was to put an 800-dollar stroller on your wish list. Yet another had darkly joked about bringing a clothes hanger and a bottle of gin.

“Lordy, my arthritis is bad today.” Myrna flexed her hand, ignoring the angry red scar tracing down the back of her thumb. She had no memory of putting her fist through a window last month and almost slicing a tendon. “I hate when you’re on that thing when I’m trying to talk to you.”

Emmy put her phone down again. She knew better than to take the admonishment as a sign that Myrna had somehow managed to anchor herself in the present. “What do you want to talk about, Mom?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not your mother,” Myrna huffed. “Who’s in the driveway?”

Emmy was about to chalk up the question to her mother’s paranoia, but then she heard car wheels crunching gravel. She went to look out of the kitchen window. Kaitlynn was early today. Millie was already launching herself out of the red Mercedes. She slammed the door, then staggered across the driveway with a determined scowl on her granny-apple face. At ninety-two, she had taken the title of Oldest Living Clifton and was in no hurry to relinquish the crown.

Emmy told her mother, “Aunt Millie is here.”

“I don’t know that I’m up for talking this morning.”

Emmy didn’t think Kaitlynn was either. The engine revved as the Mercedes screeched out of the driveway. The girl had followed in her mother’s footsteps at UGA and had been practicing law for the last two years, a fact that made Emmy feel exactly eleventy billion years old.

“Millie Clifton!” Millie announced, banging open the screen door before Emmy could get to it. Millie tossed a paper sack in her direction. Emmy said a silent prayer of thanks to Taybee for sending breakfast.

“Well don’t help me or nothing,” Millie complained.

Emmy couldn’t win with these old women today. She passed her mother the paper sack as she helped Millie to the table. The tote bag was so heavy that Millie’s skin had sagged into a puddle around the straps. Library books pressed sharp creases into the corners along with a copy of the 1978 North Falls Whitepages. The books were just for show. Myrna couldn’t follow a story anymore. They would spend the morning reading down the alphabetical list of names, Millie gossiping and laughing about people who were either dead or just as good as, none of whom Myrna could remember anymore.

“Did you see this garbage?” Millie grabbed a rolled-up newspaper from the tote and brandished it like she was threatening a dog. “The Perv on the front page. The whole town’s in an uproar. Got people calling me night and day. They’re ready to go out there and take matters into their own hands.”

“Tell them to calm down.” Emmy busied herself putting away the eggs and bacon. “Adam’s not gonna be out of prison for long.”

“I should hope not,” Millie snapped. “What you need to do is drag that jackal out behind the barn and shoot him in the head. Let a bunch of crows peck out his eyeballs.”

“Aunt Millie,” Emmy tried to redirect her, “it’s not a bunch of crows. It’s a murder of crows.”

“No,” Myrna chimed in. “It can’t be murder without probable caws.”

Emmy gave a stunned laugh, then she had to look away to hide her tears. After six years of grueling, relentless decline, there were so few moments lately that Myrna was truly herself. These tiny sparks of personality were starting to feel more like callous reminders of all that had been lost. Emmy opened the drawer and found a packet of tissues. She blew her nose.

“What happened now?” Myrna sounded annoyed. “For god-sakes, Martha. Stop crying.”

Emmy bit her lip, begging the tears not to flow. This wasn’t the first time Myrna had confused her children. It was like holding onto a wrecking ball as her mother’s mind arced between comprehension and confusion.

“Myrna Louise Clifton!” Millie shouted, her tone firm. “That’s not Martha. That’s Emmy Lou, your baby daughter.”

Myrna’s confusion did not abate. “What happened to Martha?”

Even Millie didn’t have the heart to tell her that Martha had died over four decades ago. “You remember when you told me you were pregnant with Emmy Lou? We were on that trip visiting the Coleman cousins up in Maryland, and you slipped on that sheet of ice in Beulah’s driveway and broke your leg in two places. Remember?”

Myrna’s slow nod made it clear that she didn’t buy the story.

“Never been so cold in my life,” Millie continued. “And the doctor said you needed to stay up there for a few months while you healed, but then Gerald came to fetch you. Said you could recover at home. You missed an entire school year. Don’t you remember?”

Myrna kept nodding, but she was obviously still dubious. “Yes, I remember.”

Emmy was saved further pain by Cole walking down the stairs. He was already dressed in his deputy uniform. The green cargo pants and light khaki shirt were far more flattering than the previous brown, which had resembled a hot dog left out too long in the sun. Gone too were the heavy equipment belts that could herniate a disc. Cole’s ballistic duty vest was hanging beside Emmy’s on the hooks by the door. She never looked at it without remembering the tiny pajama sets she used to pack when Cole went on sleepovers. Now he was nearly a foot taller than her, and packed solid with muscle.

“Morning, ladies.” Cole had the same charming, easy grin as his father with none of Jonah’s bullshit. He kissed Millie on the head, flashed a smile at Myrna, then bumped his arm against Emmy’s as he poured a cup of coffee. “All good?”

He was referring to Myrna’s night terrors. Emmy had to get her son out of here. A twenty-three-year-old man shouldn’t be living like this. “All good.”

“I thought I’d drive up to Atlanta for the Dogwood Festival this weekend.”

“Are you telling your mother or asking your boss?”

“Depends.” He turned up the full wattage of his smile. “Was it my mom or my chief who told me that I need to develop interests outside the job?”

“Both of them were right, but let’s see how today goes. Papa’s waiting for us in his office.”

Cole slurped a mouthful of scalding coffee, then rinsed out his cup in the sink. Millie opened the phone book to start the morning. Emmy was closing the screen door when she heard her mother’s faint voice ask, “Who was that handsome young man?”

Her jaw clenched again. She tried to make it release as she walked down the stairs. Myrna probably wouldn’t eat breakfast. In the last week, she had stopped recognizing food, lost the hunger mechanism that compelled her to eat. The doctor had said it was only a matter of time, but that was what all the doctors said when they had no idea how long it would take.

Cole said, “Bad night.”

“Yep.”

Emmy headed across the driveway toward her father’s home office. She silently focused her thoughts on what her day would look like. There were assignments to be made and roll call to get through and all the other administrative duties, but Adam Huntsinger had to be dealt with first. Millie was right that the town was riled up. Emmy had read a lot of angry comments under the Herald story. She had found herself agreeing with some of the sentiments. The thought of Madison and Cheyenne’s killer being in North Falls again sent a familiar knot of stress twisting inside her stomach.

Fortunately, Adam was not completely free. He was technically on parole, which limited his rights considerably. He was living at his parents’ house in Elsinore Meadows. The green Chevy truck was still his registered vehicle. According to his terms of parole, he would have to find a job soon, submit to random searches, and comply with drug screening. But hoping and praying and waiting for Adam to violate one of those conditions so that he was sent back to prison was not going to make the town any safer.

Emmy’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She tapped open the notifications. The cousins had started to coalesce around a time and date for the baby shower. She scrolled down, only now admitting to herself that she had been secretly hoping for a text from Hannah. Not a mending of fences or an opening for reconciliation, but an opportunity for Emmy to be useful, to tell Hannah that she wasn’t giving up, that this wasn’t the end, that she would find a way to send Adam Huntsinger back to prison if it killed her.

But there was no text from Hannah and no way for Emmy to make the first move. She had stuck by Hannah’s wishes over the last twelve years. They hadn’t had a real conversation since that harrowing day that Emmy had found the girls in the water. They occasionally nodded if they saw each other out at a restaurant or the bar. Once, they both happened to be in the produce aisle at the grocery store, and Hannah had said, “Peaches are good this year.” Another time, Emmy had been waiting for a prescription at the Good Dollar and realized that both she and Hannah were humming along with the muzak version of “Complicated”. If Hannah was thinking of the hours they had spent trying to smudge their eyeliner like Avril Lavigne, she didn’t say.

“Mom, you sure you’re okay?” Cole asked. “No offense, but you look like shit.”

“That’s real sweet, baby. Why don’t you needlepoint that onto a pillow for me next Mother’s Day?” Emmy caught his grin when she bumped him with her hip. “Did you have a chance to look at that apartment complex over in Verona? Your uncle Penley said he’d give you a good deal.”

“It’s on my list.”

Emmy knew there was no list. She also knew that everything that irritated her about her son—his stubbornness, his dogged loyalty, his blind sense of duty—were things that irritated her about herself.

She reached for the door to Gerald’s office, telling him, “Button your collar.”

Her father looked up from his desk when they entered. He was writing on a sheet of lined notebook paper. Sunlight sliced through the narrow windows behind him. He’d converted the old equipment shed into an office when Emmy and Cole had moved in after the divorce. Filing cabinets lined one wall. Two framed photographs of his children were by the window, one of Emmy as a toddler holding a kitten, another of her nearly grown siblings standing at the bottom of the Falls three years before she’d been born. Two years before Henry had died. One year before Martha was gone. Tommy looked tall and lanky in his bathing trunks. He was a freshman in college. His hair had been nearly as long as Martha’s.

“Mornin’ boss,” Cole said.

“Deputy.” Gerald capped his pen, slid the paper into a folder. He looked up at Emmy. “How’s today?”

He was asking about Myrna. Gerald had walked the floors with her last night, too. There was a faint, red line across his cheek where Myrna’s fingernail had caught the skin when she’d slapped him.

This wasn’t the only visible mark of Myrna’s disease. If her mother had been aged by her diagnosis, her father had been dragged to the edge of hell. He was eighty-six now, but he looked ten years older than Millie. His face was gaunt. He’d lost too much weight too quickly. His uniform hung off his shoulders like a paper sack. In many ways, it was harder for Emmy to watch her father deteriorate than her mother.

“It’s an okay day,” she said, because okay and bad were the only two options. “Millie will spend the morning with her, then Tommy will swing by at lunch, then the home health aid will come until you or I can leave the station.”

“I can help,” Cole said.

“No, you can’t.” Emmy looked at her father. “Run it down?”

Gerald nodded. “Okay.”

Emmy was relieved to move on to work. She pointed for Cole to sit down, then touched her own collar to remind him again to do the button.

“What do we know?” she started. “On the morning of the murders, Adam Huntsinger was seen talking to Madison at the pond around eleven o’clock. Cigarette butts at the scene matched Adam’s and Madison’s DNA. Adam’s fingerprints and DNA were on the inside of the Ziploc bag of pot that was found in Madison’s pocket, as well as on the bag of pot located in Cheyenne’s lockbox. His father’s Jetta had scuffs on the left front bumper consistent with hitting the bicycle tire. The charm from Cheyenne’s broken necklace was found outside his basement apartment with Adam’s fingerprints. There were guns in the house consistent with the gun used to murder Cheyenne. Impressions taken from the soccer pitch and from the backroad are consistent with the brand and type of tire that’s standard on the year and class of Walton Huntsinger’s Jetta. Prints from size eleven work boots were found on the backroad, the soccer pitch, and at the pond. Adam Huntsinger wore a size eleven boot.”

Emmy waited for Cole.

He said, “On that same night, Barbara Jericho was a twenty-two-year-old exotic dancer working in a club outside of Macon. She met a customer who offered to drive her to Savannah to watch the fireworks. Later the next morning, she was found by a Candler sheriff’s deputy, wandering the streets of Metter over a hundred miles away. She told him that she’d been sexually assaulted. She was driven to the hospital where a rape kit was performed. Fast forward to last year. Jericho was listening to the Misguided Angel podcast. She started looking at photos online and recognized Adam Huntsinger as the man who’d attacked her. She contacted the Candler sheriff’s office and found out that the rape kit had never been processed. After some back and forth, they got the GBI to process the kit and the DNA was matched to Adam Huntsinger. The rape gave him an alibi for the night of the kidnapping and murder. He was freed from death row two days ago. He’s on bail pending trial on the rape charge.”

Emmy asked him, “What do we think we know?”

Cole’s tongue darted out the same way it had when he was eight and thought he was being clever. “You guys still think that Adam Huntsinger is guilty.”

“Okay.” Emmy glanced at her father for support, but his expression was as stony as his silence. She told Cole, “Tap the weak spots.”

“I mean . . .” Cole shrugged, but he’d practically memorized every word of Jack’s podcast. “Adam said his fingerprints were on the necklace because Madison asked him to fix it for Cheyenne. She could’ve dropped the chain on the backroad on her way to buy pot from him at Millie’s pond. You never found the murder weapon. You never found Cheyenne’s flip phone with her initials scratched onto the case. There was no DNA matching the victims inside the Jetta. The plastic tarp the divers found at the bottom of the pond could’ve been used to line the trunk, but it didn’t have any DNA or fingerprints on it. What you just said about the tires and the boot prints and the scuff mark on the front bumper—there’s a lot of consistent withs and not a lot of matched exactlys.”

Emmy asked, “They teach you at the academy that every piece of evidence always comes up one hundred percent?”

“They taught me that DNA is the gold standard.”

“How long can DNA stay inside of a woman’s reproductive tract?”

Cole shrugged again, but said, “Up to five days.”

“So, it’s possible that Adam had unprotected sex with Barbara Jericho up to five days before she was attacked. It’s possible that her real attacker wore a condom. It’s possible that by her own admission, Barbara being high as a kite during the assault means that she was confused about timing.”

Cole didn’t shrug, but he had a faint wisp of a grin. “You didn’t buy that logic on that rape case last year.”

“I didn’t hold two dead children in my arms last year.”

Emmy saw him flinch. She wasn’t going to take back her words. She was his chief deputy right now, not his mother. “I attended the autopsies. Cheyenne was beaten and shot in the head. The bones of Madison’s hands and feet were systematically broken, probably with a hammer. Adam kept her alive anywhere between twelve to eighteen hours. She couldn’t fight back. She couldn’t make a run for it.”

“But you never found the hammer, either.”

“Explain to me what the term preponderance of evidence means.”

Cole bristled, but still answered, “That something is true more likely than not.”

“And what does beyond a reasonable doubt mean?”

“That there’s no other reasonable explanation for the evidence presented.”

“Tell me a more likely explanation than Adam Huntsinger is the murderer. And don’t go by Jack’s stupid podcast. He was talking out of his ass ninety-nine percent of the time. Dale Loudermilk didn’t drive a Jetta. He drove a Ford truck and his wife drove an Audi. He doesn’t wear a size eleven boot. His DNA isn’t anywhere on anything having to do with the girls.”

“Dale borrowed his wife’s Audi all the time,” Cole said. “He was seen washing it out with bleach eight hours after the kidnapping.”

“Seven hours after, and no one ever claimed that the girls were never in the Audi. Dale admitted to it in the first interview. During the trial, Adam’s lawyer cross-examined Ruth Baker on the stand. She testified that she’d allowed Dale to drive Cheyenne home. Hannah said the same thing about Madison.”

Cole didn’t back down. “What about the money and the hard drugs?”

“Great question,” Emmy said. “It’s curious that none of the grown men who were paying a fifteen-year-old girl for sex and supplying her with coke to sell ever came forward.”

He snorted in frustration. “Alma Huntsinger testified that she scuffed the left bumper on the Jetta back when she was still able to drive.”

“Alma Huntsinger was trying to keep her son off death row. The jury sat through three weeks of testimony and saw all the evidence and found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Emmy gave Cole one of his own shrugs back. “Weigh it out for me, pal. What other explanation is more reasonable?”

Cole held up his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say, chief.”

Emmy heard another car in the driveway. She looked out of the window and saw Tommy’s blue Honda nosing into its usual space under the magnolia. She heard him whistling as he walked toward the kitchen door. Emmy checked the time. Her brother was going to be late to school.

“Cole,” Gerald said, “need a minute with your mother.”

“Yes, boss.”

Emmy waited until he’d left. “I don’t need a lecture, Dad. I know I’m being too hard on him, but he thinks he knows everything, and he doesn’t. His DFR is more WTF.”

“Okay,” Gerald said. “What’s the plan?”

Again, she was relieved to fall back into work. “We need to pay Adam Huntsinger a visit. Millie says she’s been getting phone calls, people burning hot to do something stupid. The online chatter isn’t great, either. I don’t know if it’s just idiots blowing smoke, but Walton’s in his seventies and Alma can’t see two feet in front of her. We have a duty to warn.”

Gerald didn’t acknowledge anything she’d said. He only repeated, “What’s the plan?”

The knot twisted inside her stomach again, but for an entirely different reason. “My plan is to do my job as chief deputy as best as I can.”

“And then?”

Emmy shrugged as flippantly as Cole. “Dad, the Houston County sheriff made it to ninety-one when he finally retired. You’re not running and gunning. You’re using your brain to lead the force. You still have the confidence of the county. They’ll vote for you as long as you run. There’s no reason to—”

“There’s a reason.”

Emmy smoothed together her lips.

He said, “You should run.”

“It’s almost half-seven. The only thing I’m running is to work.” She stood up from her chair. “I’ve got too much on my plate right now to take on trouble. You need a ride?”

“Nope,” he said. “Talk it out.”

“Dad—”

Gerald held her in his gaze like a tractor beam pulling her toward the chair.

Emmy let out a long, frustrated sigh as she sat back down. They had started to do this when they were alone in his office, just the two of them, the people who never talked to anybody would talk to each other.

She tried, “Cole’s just spinning his wheels. I keep telling him to move out. He doesn’t need to be tied to his mother. He needs to get on with his life.”

“Set an example,” Gerald said. “Run for sheriff.”

“Dad.” She tried to think of a way to deflect him, but the words spilled out on their own. “I’m already losing Mom. The thought of losing you . . .”

“Still here.”

“But I need you here.” She put her hand to her chest, indicating not just her heart, but the chief deputy star that her father had pinned on her shirt when Virgil Ingram had retired. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, baby. But change doesn’t stop just ’cause you’re standing still. It’s gonna happen. You know that as well as me. Turn it into a good thing. Fresh blood. New ideas. Computers. Internet. Podcasts. Snapchat. Tic Tac.”

Emmy laughed. “Now you’re just listing things you hate.”

“Doesn’t make me wrong.”

“I don’t want it, Dad. I don’t know how to run a campaign. I don’t know how I could possibly ever replace you.”

“Somebody will,” he said. “Eventually.”

“Hey-hey-hey!” Tommy rapped his knuckles on the door as he sauntered into the office. He was filled with the relentless positivity of a teacher close to retirement. “What’s up, family?”

Emmy forced a smile. “Are you ever not a dork?”

“Are you ever not a brat?” Tommy’s hand rested on her shoulder. He wasn’t fooled. “Everything okay, kid?”

She nodded, but she felt ambushed. Tommy wasn’t here by happenstance. Obviously, Gerald had asked him to swing by before work. Emmy thought about the letter her father had been writing when she’d walked into his office. Was he resigning? Was he going to push her into making a decision? There was no way Emmy was ready for this conversation. Not on two hours of sleep with a mother who was losing her mind and a son who thought he was Encyclopedia Brown.

“Okay,” Gerald said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Emmy’s eyes found Tommy’s. He shook his head. He didn’t have a clue what this was.

He asked, “What’s going on, Dad?”

“Sit.” Gerald waited until Tommy was seated. Then he waited some more. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “It’s time.”

Emmy felt a different kind of tightness in her chest. This wasn’t about her. It was about Myrna.

“I broke my promise,” Gerald said. “Your mother told us what she wanted.”

The tightness turned into a crushing force. Emmy looked at Tommy again. He’d always called her the Dad Whisperer, but this time, they both knew exactly what Gerald was talking about. The day after Myrna’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis was confirmed, she had called a family meeting. The request she’d made could not have been more clear—

“Promise me that you won’t try to keep me at home when it gets bad,” Myrna had begged. “Put me in a facility. Stick me in a shipping container and send me off to sea. I won’t know the difference, and I don’t want any of you living with me that way.”

“Dad . . .” Tommy’s eyes were wet with tears. “We can’t.”

Emmy opened her mouth to agree with him, but all the excuses were drowned out by memories of last night’s episode. The senseless, bloodcurdling cries that sounded like a siren. Emmy jumping out of bed. Gerald careening down the hallway. Cole rushing in to help. Emmy holding her mother while she sobbed, then standing with her back against the door when Myrna had started railing against the strangers who had broken into her home.

She hadn’t recognized any of them in over three months.

Myrna had known that this would happen. She’d been an English teacher for over fifty years. She knew how to research a topic. She’d become an expert in the stages of Alzheimer’s. She knew the horrors that the late stage could bring. Emmy could still remember her mother reading aloud from the list she’d made in one of her school notebooks. Myrna had catalogued all the things she did not want for herself or for her family: juggling their schedules, rushing around, changing plans, taking time off work, skipping celebrations and milestones and time with their families and friends, figuring out the medications and doctor appointments and tests, pushing through the stress and the worry and the sleepless nights and the demanding physical labor. Helping her bathe. Changing her diapers. Changing her sheets. Her clothes. Worrying that she would wander off. Searching for her when she did. Watching her spin out of control. The hyper-sensitivity, the delusions, the paranoia, the projection, the night terrors with their bloodcurdling screams that were coming closer and closer together now, so much so that Emmy could barely lay her head on the pillow without tensing her body in anticipation of the next time it would happen.

I would rather drop dead right now than become a burden on you in the future.

Gerald opened the top drawer of his desk and slid out a pamphlet. Emmy recognized the logo from the nursing home they had visited last year. The Azalea Place Memory Care Center was a ten-story building that was somewhere between a psych ward and a supermax. Tommy and Emmy hadn’t been able to finish the tour. They’d both slipped out after ten minutes, then gone to their respective cars in the parking lot and cried.

Now, her brother said, “Celia and I have been talking about this. I can take early retirement. Mom can’t have much time left.”

“Son.” Gerald’s tone was the softest that Emmy had ever heard him use with her brother. “How much time do you have left?”

Tommy bowed his head. He wasn’t a young man. There were more years behind him than in front.

Gerald said, “Your mother was completely herself when she told us what she wanted. We can’t take that away from her now that she’s not.”

Tommy pressed his fingers to his eyelids. “I don’t agree to this.”

“Don’t have to,” Gerald said. “It was her decision. Now it’s mine.”

Tommy took a sharp breath. He knew there was no point in arguing. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Emmy covered her mouth to trap the sob that wanted to come out.

“I can—” Tommy sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll take time off work to help pack.”

“No need. She doesn’t remember her things. Doesn’t remember us. Our faces. Our voices. We’re all strangers. She’s as good as dead.”

Emmy slowly dropped her hands back in her lap.

Gerald tapped his finger on the brochure with the finality of a judge banging a gavel. “Ambulance will come at seven thirty. I’ll follow behind. You kids will be at work. How you get through this is you keep your heads down and do your jobs. Understood?”

Tommy already had his head down, but he nodded.

Emmy nodded, too. She smoothed her thumb into her palm. Her eyes blurred with tears as her brother tried not to openly weep. She felt broken. She felt robbed. She felt deeply ashamed, because part of her—not even a small part—was so fucking relieved.

The phone on Gerald’s desk started to ring. She looked up at her father. He’d taken out his handkerchief to dry his eyes. He passed it to Emmy before punching the speaker button on the phone.

“Brett.” Gerald cleared his throat, transforming from grieving husband and father back into the sheriff of Clifton County. “You’re on speaker.”

“Sorry to bug you this early, boss, but something bad’s going down.” Brett’s tone was clipped. “I’m standing on the backroad on the other side of Millie’s. There’s a girl’s bicycle. Back tire’s bent. Chain’s off. Looks like there’s some blood, too. Girl’s nowhere to be found.”

The description sent bile into Emmy’s mouth. The crushing conversation about Myrna was pushed into her periphery. The world had shifted twelve years into the past. Emmy was standing on the backroad with Gerald. Michael Berry-Lawhorn was walking them through the crime scene where Cheyenne Baker had been taken.

Now, Emmy locked eyes with her father, knew that he was thinking the exact same thing. Gerald said nothing. He held her in his gaze, shoring her up. Then he nodded, because she had a job to do.

Emmy took a deep breath, forcing air into her lungs so that she could speak. “Brett, do you know who the bike belongs to?”

“Yeah,” he said, and she realized his clipped tone wasn’t from excitement. It was from fear. Brett had worked the Adam Huntsinger case, too. He’d seen Madison and Cheyenne’s broken bodies. He knew what could be happening to another lost girl. “There’s a class project or something in the bike’s front basket with a name inside. Paisley Walker. Fourteen years old. I called her house. Mom answered. Dad was already at work. They live on Coleman Ave. Mom says the girl left for school on her bike a little before seven. School hasn’t seen her, either.”

“Paisley Walker?” Emmy checked in with Tommy. He shook his head. He didn’t know her. She asked Brett, “Who called it in?”

“Sylvia Wrigley. She’s still on the scene. I think—” The phone crackled as he muffled his voice. “I think she took pictures.”

Emmy shared Gerald’s flash of irritation. Sylvia Wrigley was the editor of the North Falls Herald. She had probably posted the photos on all her socials. The town was already a powder keg. They didn’t need Sylvia providing a spark.

She asked, “Did you call the hospital? Emergency clinics?”

“Me and the mom called everybody. We got nothing.”

“Okay.” Emmy’s hands were already sweating when she took out her phone. She talked as she texted. “I’m sending backup to secure the scene. Patrol will retrace the route she took on her bike. I want you to talk to the mom. We need Paisley’s description. Find out what she was wearing. Ask for a recent photo. Text everything to me.”

“Yes, chief.”

“Wait,” Emmy stopped him from ending the call. Her mind was furiously trying to come up with explanations other than the bad one. In nearly half of all missing children’s cases, a parent was responsible. “Keep an eye on the mom and dad to see if either of them is acting strange. Try to get an idea about the marriage. Get permission to search the house top to bottom. Look inside the cars, too. Make sure Paisley’s not hiding somewhere.”

“Chief.” Brett hesitated. “I don’t think she’s hiding.”

Emmy didn’t think she was either, but they had to consider everything. Like the fact that in twenty-seven percent of all missing children’s cases, a relative or acquaintance was responsible.

She said, “Get the parents to call relatives, friends, anybody Paisley has a relationship with, no matter how loose. Same with the middle school. Counselors, teachers, aides—ask about any electives she’s in—yearbook, chorus, whatever. She was doing that class project for somebody.”

“Okay, chief. What else?”

Emmy felt her stomach twist tightly. The what else was the worst possibility. A stranger. A predatory kidnapper who had randomly seen a child and decided to take her.

She said, “Look around the neighborhood. Are any houses being remodeled or under construction? Is there a neighbor with a babysitter or visiting relative or friend? A new substitute teacher or maintenance worker at school? We need to be talking to everybody, Brett. I want all hands on deck. Nobody sleeps until we find Paisley.”

“Yes, chief. Backup just got here. Anything else?”

“Go.”

Gerald hung up the phone. He grabbed his jacket off the chair. Emmy squeezed Tommy’s shoulder as she left the office with her father, ping-ponging from one tragedy to another.

Paisley Walker. Fourteen years old. Riding her bike on the backroads. Was there another child, a second victim? Was the pattern repeating? Had the girl been taken to a secluded location where she would be raped and tortured, the bones of her hands and feet shattered so that she couldn’t fight, couldn’t run away?

“Mom!” Cole ran out of the house with their duty vests. “I just heard—”

“Get in the car.”

The sun was blinding as she crossed the yard. Emmy could hear her father struggling to keep pace. Her eyes started to water. She felt as if she was going to vomit. This couldn’t be happening again. Not with Adam out of prison. Not with her mother spiraling, her father fading away, her life falling apart. She felt shaky and sick as she opened the door to her cruiser. Cole jumped into the back. Emmy wanted to slow things down, to take a second to catch her breath, to keep her mind from racing to all the bad places, but there wasn’t time.

Gerald flipped open his phone as Emmy sped up the driveway. She watched him dial the number for the GBI. Time was of the essence. They needed to cue up a Levi’s Call, Georgia’s equivalent of an Amber Alert.

She told him, “Sylvia Wrigley got thousands of followers after she was interviewed for Jack’s podcast.”

“Yep.”

Emmy slipped her phone out of her pocket. There were half a dozen notifications from the Herald. She swiped them away, then pulled up the private WhatsApp group of female law enforcement officers in the area. She typed with her thumb—

Poss abduction 14yo girl details incoming BOLO

“Mom,” Cole said. “Where are you going?”

Emmy had bypassed the road to the station. “Adam Huntsinger’s house.”

“But—” Cole grabbed the metal partition to hold on. “If Adam kidnapped this girl, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to take her to his house.”

“Put your seat belt on,” Emmy ordered. “I know Adam’s not that stupid, but other people are.”

She took another sharp turn, slinging Cole to the opposite side of the car. He finally put on his seat belt when she reached the interstate. Emmy looked at her watch, doing the math. Millie’s part of the backroads was a ten-minute bike ride from Coleman Avenue. Sylvia would’ve called in the bike as soon as she saw the blood, then Brett would’ve rushed to the scene, then he’d called the parents, then the school and hospitals, then finally Gerald.

That gave them a fifty-minute window during which something bad could’ve happened to Paisley Walker. Emmy let her mind carousel through all the possibilities one more time. A parent. A family member. An acquaintance. A stranger.

Fewer than one percent of child abductions were committed by predatory kidnappers. The victims tended to be almost exclusively females with the aggregate age of fourteen. They were more likely to be taken in an outdoor setting and to be coerced with a firearm. The kidnapper was more often than not driving a car. In forty-four percent of cases, the victim is murdered within the first hour. Seventy-eight percent die within the first three hours.

Within twenty-four hours, virtually all of the victims are dead.

“Sherry,” Gerald said into the phone. “Need your help.”

Emmy tuned out her father’s voice. She kept the carousel spinning in her head, running through the innocent explanations. Paisley had spun out on her bike. She was walking to get help. Or going somewhere to hide so she wouldn’t get in trouble.

Paisley’s bike had been hit by a car. The driver had taken her to the hospital. Or an emergency clinic. The staff had changed over. Her chart had been lost in the shuffle. Nobody remembered seeing her. She was already on her way home.

Any of these scenarios was possible, but none of them felt right. Adam Huntsinger had been back home for two days. Half the town was ready to string him up. The other half wanted to put him on a pedestal. That was a lot of attention for a man who’d spent virtually every hour of every day alone for the last twelve years. In studies of paroled pedophiles, stress was the number one contributing factor to re-offending.

“Will do.” Gerald closed his phone. “GBI cued up the alert. Give me the timeframe.”

“Paisley left the house around seven. Sylvia called it in around seven thirty. Brett called you about twenty minutes later, and now—” Emmy looked at the clock on the dash. Her heart sank. Paisley’s chance of survival was about to be split in half. “She’s been gone for fifty-eight minutes.”

“Set a timer. Thirty minutes.”

Emmy’s hand went to her watch as she kept the other on the steering wheel. She knew her father didn’t believe in statistical probabilities. “What are we counting down?”

“Calling the FBI,” Gerald said. “Made a mistake last time. Waited too long.”

Emmy dialed in the timer as she exited off the interstate. In the last four months, they had spent hours talking about the case, picking apart the discrepancies in Jack’s podcast, reviewing the evidence, discussing what they could’ve done differently. In all those conversations, Gerald had never once expressed any regrets about not requesting FBI assistance sooner.

There was no time to ask him about it now. The road turned from asphalt to gravel. Dust kicked up behind the cruiser. They had finally reached Elsinore Meadows. Emmy glanced at Cole in the rear-view mirror. He was staring straight ahead, his jaw set. She could tell this was feeling very real for him now. It was one thing to listen to a podcast on your morning run, quite another to be flying blind in an investigation where every decision you made, every step you took, could mean the difference between the life and death of a child.

Fighting with Jonah. Ignoring Madison. Not returning Millie’s incessant calls. Emmy would never get those small moments of bad decisions back. All she could do was vow never to make them again.

“Shit,” Cole whispered.

Emmy muttered her own curse. Sylvia Wrigley’s breaking news had done exactly what they’d feared. Abandoned cars were parked twenty deep on either side of the road. A crowd of at least two dozen people had gathered at the top of the Huntsinger driveway. They were shouting, shaking their fists, spoiling for a fight. Emmy whooped the siren a few times on approach, but they didn’t disperse. They were too angry and too scared and too desperate for revenge.

Emmy slowed the cruiser, telling Cole, “Block off the end of the road. Call for immediate backup.”

“Yes, chief.” He started to get out of the car.

“Cole,” she yelled. “Get your fucking vest on. Strap it down tight.”

Emmy didn’t pull away until he was tugging at the Velcro straps. Her foot went to the gas. The cruiser lurched. This wasn’t the time to make a soft entrance. She hit the brake, swerved the car, and came to an aggressive stop.

“Back up!” Emmy shouted as she got out of the car. She grabbed her ballistic vest from the back seat and strapped it down. Her eyes swept the crowd, checking hands and hips. Cell phones filming her every move. Faces contorted in rage. Two Glocks, one Sig Sauer, a Smith & Wesson revolver, a liquor bottle with a dirty shop rag sticking out of the top. No one had unholstered a gun or set anything on fire, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way.

“I said back up!” She put one hand on her gun, one hand in the air, pointing them across the road. “Back up! Now!”

There was movement, but not enough. Gerald slammed the car door shut. He started walking toward the crowd. No vest. No sidearm. Twelve years ago, they would’ve parted like the Red Sea. Now, they stood their ground, screaming, yelling, raging, wielding the cameras in their phones like weapons.

“This is your fault!”

“Fucking cops!”

“Why the hell do I pay my taxes?”

Gerald waited for their silence. “Need you to go home.”

“Fuck that,” a woman said. “You let a pedophile out of prison. Now he’s snatched another girl.”

“Yeah!” a man yelled. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Gerald waited for another lull. “Gonna knock on the front door.”

There was no response. They weren’t so far gone that they could argue with a simple solution. One person moved out of the way. Then another. Then finally, there was a clear path for Gerald to walk down the driveway. Emmy watched his slow progress. The house was no more than fifty feet from the road, but she didn’t let herself breathe until he’d made it to the front porch. The door opened before he could knock.

Gerald disappeared inside.

She took another deep breath before she let herself check on Cole. He was holding back a line of cars. He couldn’t stop the people who were on foot. Emmy was about to look away, but then she recognized one of the women walking toward her. Blonde hair pulled back. Light make-up. Hannah’s anxiety was palpable. Her hands were clasped together. She was still wearing the diamond ring Emmy had helped Paul Dalrymple pick out for her.

Paul was a full-on alcoholic now. For years, Emmy had heard gossip around town. Paul found passed out at work. Paul making a scene at one of Davey’s baseball games. Then there were the citations and tickets in the patrol logs. Public nuisance. Reckless driving. Two DUIs. His license suspended. His business almost in bankruptcy. Before Madison had been stolen away, he’d been nerdy and sweet. Now, he was bitter and damaged. Paul never missed an opportunity to glare his hatred into Emmy on the rare occasions they saw each other in town.

Hannah lifted her chin to acknowledge that they had seen each other. Then she stood a few feet away from Emmy and looked out at the crowd. Emmy looked, too, but not out of curiosity. Backup hadn’t arrived yet. Cole was half a football field away. Her father was alone inside a house where a double murderer lived, and there was a mob of people who’d been shouting for blood ten minutes ago.

And a fourteen-year-old girl named Paisley Walker was still missing.

Emmy took out her phone, pretended to check her messages. She swiped up the camera so that she could record all of the faces. Moms in leggings. Men in factory coveralls. A few stragglers in business casual. Then there was Ashleigh Ellis and Brandi Norton, who’d rounded out the popular girls with Kaitlynn back in high school. And Dervla Culpepper, who’d been stuck in the Miata on the soccer pitch the night the girls had gone missing, then twelve years later lied her ass off when Jack had interviewed her for episode one of the Misguided Angel podcast. Dervla was filming the spectacle with her phone, probably hoping to drag out another ten minutes of fame.

In all, Emmy counted twenty-six people with more on their way. She knew that violent criminals often tried to insert themselves into investigations. They pretended to be witnesses or concerned citizens or spectators. The backroads were not that far from where they stood. Densely wooded forests lined the roads in between. It would be easy to dispose of a body along the way.

Hannah cleared her throat.

Unthinking, Emmy turned toward her, looking directly at Hannah’s face for the first time in over a decade. She was caught for a moment by the sight of laugh lines fanning from her eyes, the strands of gray showing in the part of her hair. Emmy knew that Hannah was noting the same changes. Time had moved forward, even if their friendship had not.

Hannah asked, “Do you think Adam took Paisley?”

Emmy was shaken by the sound of Hannah’s voice, as recognizable to her as Tommy’s or her father’s. She used the phone as an excuse to look away from Hannah, filming the cars parked on the side of the road. She checked on Cole again. He was leaning against the hood of a parked car. His thumbs were hooked inside his vest. The straps hung down.

She told Hannah, “If Adam took her, he wouldn’t bring her here.”

“No,” Hannah said. “Even a caged animal doesn’t forget how to hunt.”

Emmy noted the dispassion in Hannah’s tone. There were dark circles under her eyes. She probably hadn’t had a restful night’s sleep since Jack’s podcast came out. Even before Madison’s murder, Paul had been a hectoring type of husband, the kind who wouldn’t let things go. Everyone in town knew that his drinking had gotten out of hand. He’d shown up drunk at one of Davey’s baseball games a few weeks ago. Hannah was probably the only thing holding the family together right now.

Murmurs spread through the crowd. The front door had opened. Emmy tucked her phone into the breast pocket of her vest. Gerald stepped onto the porch. She recognized Walton Huntsinger by his build. And then she realized that she wasn’t looking at Walton. She was looking at Adam.

Hannah realized it, too. Her breath caught. She grabbed Emmy’s hand. Neither one of them spoke, but Emmy could pick out the ripple of vitriol from the people around them—

Cocksucker, murderer, I hope he got what he deserved in prison.

Adam pulled the door closed. Emmy watched her father wince as he walked down the porch stairs. His knees were down to the bones. His spine was bent like a shepherd’s crook. If he kept losing weight, he would disappear before Myrna did.

Hannah squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

Emmy smoothed her lips together. Both of her hands should be free in case something bad happened, but the physical contact with Hannah, the familiarity, felt like the only solid thing in her life right now. She blurted out the first words that came to her mouth.

“She still hasn’t forgotten you broke her china set.”

Hannah huffed a laugh. “Fucking Myrna.”

Emmy blinked her eyes to clear them. Gerald was making his way up the driveway. His shuffle was more pronounced. His pants needed to be taken in. She had always known her father to be old, but only now did she understand that he was failing.

Hannah could see it, too. That was why she was holding Emmy’s hand. She had come to Adam’s house because she was scared, because her heart was broken, because another precious thing had been taken from another terrified mother.

And then she had fallen back into her old role of trying to comfort Emmy.

“Okay.” Emmy let go of Hannah’s hand as she walked toward her father. He’d rested his elbow on the mailbox. He was short of breath. Emmy wiped her eyes. Tried to get her shit together. She motioned for the crowd to move back so that her father had some space. Only Dervla Culpepper didn’t comply. She was waving her phone around like an Access Hollywood reporter. Emmy wanted to block her, but she took her usual position to her father’s right.

Gerald waited for silence, then told the crowd, “The girl isn’t here.”

“How do you know?” a woman demanded. “Did you go into the basement?”

“Yes,” Gerald said, which Emmy knew to be a lie. You couldn’t access the basement from the house. “Paisley Walker is not here. Go home. Let us do our job.”

No one moved until a man in coveralls threw up his hands and walked away. A few more followed. Then a few more. Emmy felt her watch tapping her wrist as the timer hit the thirty-minute mark. Gerald was right. They should be calling the FBI right now, not play-acting would-be vigilantes and ghouls.

“Sheriff?” Dervla had shoved her phone in Gerald’s face. “How does it feel to know that you and your daughter ruined Adam’s life with your lies?”

“Ma’am.” He sounded tired. “The case against Adam Huntsinger is—”

“Paul!” Hannah screamed.

Emmy flinched.

The panic in her voice, the visceral terror, set every nerve in Emmy’s body on fire. She spun around. Time slowed to a crawl. All of her senses faded but one. No hearing, no taste, touch or sound. Emmy saw the rage in Paul Dalrymple’s eyes as he aimed a Smith & Wesson revolver directly at her chest. Then Hannah was lunging for the gun with both hands. Cole was running in the distance. His vest was flapping because he hadn’t strapped it down tight like Emmy had told him.

Why didn’t he listen why didn’t he ever listen?

Cole disappeared as Hannah cascaded into Emmy’s line of sight. Her face came into sharp focus. The fear in her eyes. Mouth opened in a scream. The revolver was still aimed in Emmy’s direction. She pivoted seconds before the muzzle flashed. Smoke flowered from the barrel. Emmy’s lips parted. She breathed in. Prepared herself for the impact. There was a low whistle as the bullet whizzed past her head. Then she felt a great cleaving behind her; an iceberg breaking off, a mighty limb splitting from a tree. She turned again and watched her father collapse to the ground.

Time snapped back with a vicious clarity.

“Dad!” Emmy dropped to her knees beside him. The bullet had ripped a hole in his chest. She clamped her hands to the wound. Tried to stop the torrent of blood leaving his body. “Dad, hold on! Please hold on!”

“Papa!” Cole was running down the street. “Papa!”

“Call an ambulance!” she yelled. The crowd had frozen around them. Paul was sitting in the middle of the street. Hannah was on her knees. The revolver was on the pavement. No one was moving. No one was doing anything. “Somebody call a fucking ambulance!”

“Em . . .” Gerald’s teeth were chattering. His hand shook as he placed it over hers. “Em-m-m . . .”

“Hold on, Dad.” She pressed her weight into his chest. Emmy could feel the sharp edges of a shattered rib. His blood pulsed through her fingers. His face was losing color. His lips trembled. “Please hold on. Please.”

“Em . . .” His eyes tracked in confusion. “Emmy Lou?”

“I’m here, Dad.” She leaned down so he could see her. “I’m right here.”

“FBI . . .” he whispered.

“We’ll call them Dad. As soon as you’re in the ambulance I’ll—”

“N-need . . .” He coughed. Blood slid from the corner of his mouth. “N-need to . . . talk it out . . .”

Her throat squeezed so tightly that she could barely answer. “We’ll do it later, Dad. Okay?”

She saw a tear roll down his face. He didn’t speak, but he was looking at her, forcing her to understand. He had asked to talk it out. She had to listen.

Emmy felt a stillness wash over her body, a kind of calmness that she had never known. Everything else melted away. It was just the two of them now, the people who never talked unless they were talking to each other.

She cupped her hands to his face. “Go ahead, Dad.”

“Your m-mother . . .” he whispered. “T-tell her . . . I’m sorry . . .”

“Okay.” Emmy used her thumb to wipe his tears. “I’ll tell her, Dad. I promise.”

His eyelids started to flutter. Emmy smoothed back his hair. She could feel his body trying to hold on, even as the torrent of blood was reduced to a trickle.

“Please, Daddy.” Emmy held him in her gaze the way that he’d always held her in his. “Please stay with me. I’m not ready to let you go.”

For just a moment, for Emmy’s sake, he seemed to hold on. She felt the comfort of his presence, the certainty of his love. But then he let out a low, mournful sigh. His eyes lost focus. She could feel his body start to relax. His face went slack. The worry disappeared from his brow. The pain was gone. The burdens were lifting. His struggle was coming to an end. She watched the trickle of his heartbeat slowly ebb away to nothing.

Then he closed his eyes, and he was gone.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Nine

Jude Archer stood at the back of the conference room as Special Agent Raheem Davidson walked the Talbot family through the FBI’s two-decades-long case against Frederick Arnold Henley. The room was dark, the only light coming from the monitor at the head of the long table. The blinds were all closed over the large windows that overlooked San Francisco’s Civic Center. The muffled sound of car horns and street vendors penetrated the thick, blast-proof glass of the Phillip Burton Federal Building as Golden Gate Avenue came alive.

Inside the room, there was nothing but talk of death. Nineteen family members were present and twelve more followed via a secure link. Some were taking notes. Some looked down at their hands. Others were silently following the laser pointer as Raheem indicated areas of interest on a map. Hiking trails. Climbing routes. Nesting areas. Caverns and talus caves that served as home to at least thirteen different species of bats.

“As you know,” Raheem said, “Freddy Henley admitted to murdering twelve girls between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. Without the perseverance of Special Agent in Charge Jude Archer, we wouldn’t know where any of these victims are today.”

Jude kept her expression neutral as they turned to look at her. Raheem had gone badly off script. Family meetings were designed to provide information, to answer questions, to make loved ones feel heard. This was a somber moment, not one for recognition or applause. Particularly where Freddy Henley was concerned. He’d murdered his first victim in 1993. The local police hadn’t put it together that he was a serial until 1996. The FBI had arrested him on December 22, 1999, and it wasn’t until sixteen days ago that they’d finally located the remains of a seventeen-year-old girl named Darlene Talbot who’d disappeared on March 12, 1995. She’d been Freddy’s third victim, but her remains were the last of the twelve they’d found.

“Let’s continue.” Raheem waited for the family to turn their attention back toward the monitor. He used the laser pointer again. “A lot of you have probably seen this already, but in the interest of transparency, I’ll go through the list. Valerie Lydelle was found in the southern portion of the Machete Ridge rock formation. Jennifer Wu was located here, in the canyon along this creek. Kayse Nguyen was located further up under a stand of cottonwoods. Steph Haver was inside the Balconies Cave here.”

Jude checked in on the family. Hearing the names was overwhelming. The family knew intimately the grief that was attached to the loss of each girl. All of the pens were down now. A few of them had started to cry. There were so many more names to get through. Tanya Butler had been buried in a shallow grave near the dam. Honora Rios was disposed of in the reservoir. Natalie Daniels. Wanda Trochek. Mary Kay Morris. The Resurrection Wall. Frog Canyon. Hawkins Peak. Freddy had taken advantage of every scenic location spanning over 26,000 acres of land.

Pinnacles National Park was located in Central California, a roughly two-hour drive from San Jose and less than half that distance from San Francisco. Vehicles could only access the park from two different directions. The east approach led to the visitor center. The west was favored by rock climbers. Each of the roads hit a dead end on either side of the eroded remains of an extinct volcano whose rust-colored pinnacles had inspired the park’s name. If you chose the wrong route, you could burn through an hour finding your way back.

Jude had wasted multiple hours, then days, then months, years, and eventually two decades searching the park, driving down to Folsom Prison, returning to the park, following the scant clues that Freddy kept feeding her. Occasionally, he would tell the truth. Occasionally, Jude would stick a shovel in the ground, shine a flashlight in the right spot inside the right cavern, and find the remains of one of his victims. The relief of discovery had always been overshadowed by the crushing realization that only Jude could locate the rest.

Freddy wouldn’t talk to anyone but her. There was a prison log somewhere that held an exact record of the hours Jude had spent with him. It said a lot about the state of her life that the longest relationship she’d ever had was with a sadistic serial killer. Maybe the most sadistic serial killer she had ever spoken with.

Like many psychopaths, Freddy had delighted in reliving the details of his crimes. His bloodlust hadn’t been satiated by rape and murder. He’d tortured his victims for days. Desecrated their bodies. Sent harassing emails to their families. Posted horrific photos on the dark web. Texted their mothers and called their sisters and even stalked some of them until they were pushed to the edge of sanity.

They were the people that Jude had thought about as she’d sat across from Freddy Henley at Folsom Prison. She’d kept her expression passive, her body still, as he’d tried in vain to elicit a reaction. He craved a look of horror or disgust. A fleeting flash of terror. He’d thought he would break her. What he didn’t realize was that she was slowly breaking him.

Like Freddy, Jude had come from the world of academia. She knew how to communicate in his language, had a deep bench of knowledge about what made him tick. She had studied not just his crimes, not just his modus operandi or his perfectly normal childhood or his spotless high school discipline record. She had studied his interests. Freddy had received his doctorate in earth sciences from UC Santa Barbara. The rock formations at the Pinnacles were his area of expertise. His dissertation investigated how the shifts in the San Andreas Fault over millions of years had moved the westernmost half of the Neenach Volcano 200 miles from the Pacific Coast Ranges.

He could talk about the Pinnacles for hours. His family had vacationed there for generations, well before the land was officially designated a national park. As a teenager, he’d volunteered at the park. As a student, he’d taken soil samples from the park. He’d camped at the park. He’d hiked at the park. He had a photographic memory of every nook and cranny, every ridge and peak. And for twenty years he’d used that knowledge to play cat-and-mouse games with Jude over the locations of the bodies of twelve young women and girls.

She let her gaze travel back toward the monitor on the wall. Raheem was still going down the list of victims. They were all as familiar to Jude as her own family tree. Teenagers with braces and pimples and hopes and dreams and plans for a future that Freddy Henley had ripped away.

On October 22, 1993, Mandy Crull had been abducted from a Santa Barbara department store. Her mother had sent her to find a shopping cart, and the fourteen-year-old had never returned. Freddy had tortured and raped her for two days before taking her to the park, burning her body, then burying her in a shallow grave on a scenic overlook favored by picnickers.

Jude had found her body on December 20, 2004.

On January 6, 1994, Johna Blackmon was walking the family dog in her neighborhood. The dog returned to the house. Johna did not. Freddy had abducted her in his van. He had taken her to the Pinnacles and raped and tortured her for three days. He had dismembered her body, then scattered the pieces around the reservoir.

Jude had sent divers down to find her on March 11, 2007.

The others came later, spread out over the years. Freddy only hunted victims in the spring or fall because of the park’s dangerously hot Mediterranean climate in summer, and he was more likely to tell Jude where to find a victim during the more moderate months.

You oughtta be appreciative doll I don’t want that pretty face of yours getting sunburned.

Raheem changed the slide on the monitor. Someone gasped as a photo of Darlene Marie Talbot filled the screen. Frozen in time. Never forgotten. Daughter to Lara and Danny Talbot. Big sister to Thalia, Ronny, Jimmy, and Daniel, Jr., granddaughter to James and Miriam. Niece to so many uncles and aunts that Jude had to record them all in her notebook so she could keep them straight when they called. And called. And called.

Where is she why haven’t you found her you found the other girls don’t you care?

Darlene had been on a kayaking trip in the Bear Gulch Reservoir with some friends when she’d disappeared. One girl thought she’d walked to the bathrooms. Another thought she was catching a break on the shore. In truth, Darlene had accidentally dropped her hat on the trail. She’d jogged back to retrieve it, then Freddy Henley had jumped out of the woods and hit her in the head with a climbing ax. The drag marks through the forest had been soaked with her blood.

Sometimes it’s better when they’re unconscious, doll. You know what I’m saying? It makes it easier to do what you need to do.

“Which brings us to two and a half weeks ago.” Raheem tapped the keyboard on his laptop. Another map filled the monitor. Crudely drawn. Not much detail. Jude had watched Freddy mark the X in the middle with a shaking, arthritic hand. They were in the hospital wing at Folsom. Jude had pulled a chair up to his bed. For the past year, she had watched the cancer eat away at his body. Maybe if Freddy had been on the outside, there would have been aggressive treatment options, but he was inside, so there weren’t, which meant that it was all over but the dying.

She hadn’t asked him to clear his conscience. He was a psychopath. He didn’t have a conscience. But he didn’t want to be alone, and Jude was there, and that had meant something. An hour before he’d passed, he’d waved her to come closer. Asked for a pen and a sheet of paper. She could feel his reluctance like a sickening miasma, but in the end, he’d resigned himself to the inevitable.

All right, doll, I guess what they say is true. All bad things must come to an end.

Now, Raheem pointed to the shakily drawn X on Freddy’s deathbed map. “This is at the mouth of Bear Gulch Cave. As you know, Darlene’s remains were located between small pockets of talus boulders.”

Jude looked down at the carpet as the sound of weeping filled the room. She could hear the distant whir of a drill from the end of the hallway. She tried to remember how many times during her twenty-seven-year career at the FBI the building had been remodeled.

They were upgrading the electrical system for desktop computers the first time she’d walked into the San Francisco field office. Jude had been a thirty-two-year-old smartass fresh off her PhD and sporting a black checkered skirt, a leather biker jacket and chunky Doc Martens. Bill Clinton’s photo was on the wall. The Olympic Park Bomber was still on the loose. The Ramones had performed for their last time at the Palace.

As an academic, she’d had no clue how to work within the rigid FBI system. Jude dressed too grunge. Talked too bluntly. Wore too much make-up. She’d mouthed off to the wrong people, pissed off her boss, then his boss, then nearly gotten fired, then leveraged the fact that she was one of the few women in the building to hang on, then been relegated to kidnappings and missing persons in hopes that she would either put a gun to her head or end up on a milk carton. There was no one more surprised than Jude to find that she was actually good at the job.

Not just good. She fucking loved it.

The monitor showed a slide of DNA matches. Raheem was reaching the end of the briefing. Jude caught his attention, holding up her phone, pretending she had to take a call. He looked nervous when she left. Jude silently made a note to shore him up later. Then she realized there wasn’t going to be a later. This was the last day she would walk the halls of the thirteenth floor of the Phillip Burton Federal Building. The mandatory retirement age for the FBI was fifty-seven. Jude had managed to get another two years out of them, but there was no more negotiating. The Freddy Henley case was finally closed. They were putting her out to pasture.

“Jude?” Darlene’s mother had followed her out of the room. Lara was gripping a tissue in her hand. She looked distraught.

Jude asked, “Too much?”

“No, I needed to know. They needed to know. It’s good to understand what happened. What you did.” Lara pressed the tissue to her mouth. “I’m sorry, Jude. I should’ve trusted you. I should’ve listened when you promised you’d find her.”

Jude remembered making that promise. It was the kind of rookie mistake that years of experience had taught her never to do again. “We really got down to the wire.”

“But you did it,” Lara insisted. “You found her. You found my baby. And I treated you so bad. I hated you. Why did I do that? Why did I blame you?”

“Listen,” Jude said, “there’s no wrong in these situations. Everything you did was exactly what you were supposed to do.”

“I screamed at you. I wrote hundreds of letters trying to get you fired.”

“It’s good to write things down. Gets it off your chest.” Jude knew her bosses had never cared about the letters. The multiple warnings in her file were for violating the FBI’s dress code and swearing like a sailor. She nodded toward her office. “Let’s go in here.”

She felt a moment of surprise when she saw the empty room. The furniture remained, but all of her personal items had disappeared. The shelves were bare. The photos had been taken off the walls. Her record player was gone. Only her purse hung on the coat rack. Everything else had been packed up by security to ensure she didn’t purloin a stapler.

“What’s this?” Lara asked. “Are you being promoted?”

“I’m taking retirement. Today is my last day.”

Lara’s quizzical expression quickly turned to heartbreak. “You waited until you found my baby?”

Jude reached into her purse for a packet of tissues. “You know what? I was just thinking about the first time I walked into this building. Thirty-two years old. Thought I was a hotshot. There was a bunch of old farts telling war stories about Patty Hearst and Jim Jones. That’s why I’m leaving. I don’t want to be the old fart to this new batch of hotshots.”

Lara made a tutting noise as she dried her eyes. “Please, talk to me when you’re my age.”

Jude knew that they were around the same age, but Lara had been worn down by nearly thirty years of stress and uncertainty. She asked the woman, “What about you? What now?”

“What now?” Lara let out a heavy sigh as she sat down on the couch. “I don’t know, to be honest. Who am I without the struggle to bring Darlene home?”

Jude leaned against her desk. She knew that Lara wasn’t looking for an answer.

“I’ve always had hope. That’s what’s kept me going.” Lara’s voice took on the tone of a confession. “Even after Freddy admitted that he killed her, even after you told me about those photos he took. It’s not that I didn’t trust you, but there wasn’t a body. All the other girls were found, but not Darlene. Every time there was a new one, every time it wasn’t her, it gave me hope that she was still alive.”

“I know,” Jude said. Lara Talbot wasn’t the first mother to tell her this secret.

“Everyone keeps talking about closure, or forgiveness, or moving on, and I just want to scream in their faces. Freddy Henley doesn’t deserve forgiveness.”

Jude told her the brutal truth. “He’s dead, and even when he was alive, he didn’t care whether or not you forgave him. He never thought about any of you.”

Lara nodded, but not in agreement. “He told you how to find her. There’s redemption in that.”

“He didn’t do it for redemption. He did it because we played a game, and I won because he was dying.”

She looked stunned. “It’s that simple?”

“Psychopaths don’t worry about right and wrong. They make their own rules. Freddy was transactional. I visited him. I talked to him. I was interesting. He gave me enough information to keep me coming back.”

“How did you do it all these years? I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with that maniac.”

Jude never shared personal information on the job, but this was her last day, and she had spent almost the entirety of her professional career working to bring this woman’s child home.

She sat down on the couch beside Lara. “My brother died when I was little. He drowned in the river.”

Lara’s lips parted in surprise.

“His friends saw him go under. He didn’t come back up. The current took him away.” Jude felt a rustiness in her throat. She hadn’t told the story in years. “There was no doubt that he’d drowned. But it took six days to find the body.”

Lara’s bottom lip started to tremble. “So, you know.”

“I know what those six days felt like,” Jude said. “I was sick with hope. We all were. Without a body, there was no proof. What if he managed to grab a branch downstream? What if he was stranded in the forest? What if he was injured and alone? My mother fell completely apart. My father drank himself into a stupor. Everything was so dark and oppressive. Like a boulder was pressing down on each of our chests. The not knowing felt like it was going to suffocate us to death.”

Lara had started nodding. It was a terrible club to be in.

“When the police finally found him—I don’t know. It’s almost indescribable. The weight came off. We were still devastated, but we could breathe again. My father backed off his drinking. My mother got out of bed. She showered. She started to arrange the funeral, pick out what to dress him in. I heard my aunt ask her how she was managing to carry on, and Mom said, ‘I just needed a place to bury my grief.’”

Lara’s tears ran freely.

“That’s how I was able to stand being in the same room with Freddy Henley. I wanted you and the other families to have somewhere to bury your grief.”

Lara dabbed at her eyes with the tissue. “I hope your mother is proud of you.”

“I like to think she would’ve been.”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry she’s gone.”

“Me, too.” Jude stood up from the couch. Raheem was probably finished by now. “You want me to walk you back to the conference room?”

“No, you’ve done enough for me already.” She started to leave, then turned back to Jude. “God bless you.”

Jude smiled, but she regretted telling the story. The families who had lost children to Freddy Henley were a close-knit group. They spoke to each other almost daily. There were Facebook pages and private chat groups, and they met at the Pinnacles once a year to hold a memorial service. Lara would probably pass on Jude’s private information in a well-meaning sort of way. Then someone would tell someone else and a month from now Jude would have a Dateline producer knocking on her door asking about her childhood loss.

She shushed out a long breath as she returned to her empty office. Instead of going to her desk, she stood at the window and looked down at the traffic on Turk Street, which ran behind the building. The cars and vendors and people straggling through the last few minutes of morning of rush hour. The distant wail of sirens from the Tenderloin. The pigeons taking up perch on the parking deck across the way.

Jude had seen the sun peering up over the Golden Gate Bridge when she’d driven in. Now, it bathed the wall across from her desk in a warm light. She traced her finger along the dark rectangle where a picture frame used to be. There were twelve ghostly shadows from the twelve photographs of young women aged fourteen to seventeen. You could’ve tracked the time periods by their hair styles and make-up, and the cultural transition between teenagers yearning to look older and the sudden desperation to appear young.

Freddy Henley hadn’t been the only case Jude had worked, but it was the case that had defined her career. Now that her career was over, she found herself asking the same question that Lara Talbot had asked herself: who was she without the struggle to bring all of Freddy Henley’s victims home to their families?

Jude would leave the question for another day. This afternoon, she was expected to give a speech at her retirement party. Then she was supposed to have a dinner where, judging by the multiple other retirement dinners Jude had attended, they would give her a Special Agent in Charge of DGAF T-shirt and a coffee mug that read Time to Give it Arrest!

The thought was so depressing that she was tempted to sneak out the back door right now. Instead, she sat down at her desk and woke up her computer. She wasn’t going to leave her inbox full. There were scores of farewells. Jude went through them all, giving her private email to the people she didn’t want to lose touch with and being very diplomatic with the people she hoped never to see again. She was about to check on Raheem back in the conference room when her desk phone rang.

She picked up the receiver. “Archer.”

“So, is it going to be pottery classes or bird watching?” Chaz Hollister asked.

Jude gave an audible sigh. Her boss was in his mid thirties, blind to the fact that he was on the precipice of a cliff that everyone eventually toppled over. “I thought I’d try macramé.”

“I have no idea what that is.” He laughed with the ease of a man who’d never questioned his own intelligence. “Seriously, Quantico would love to have you.”

“Noted.” Jude took off her reading glasses. She didn’t want to go back to teaching. Nor did she want to do consulting work, private investigations, security, or any of the other options available to retired agents. “You’ll have Raheem’s after-action on the Talbot briefing by noon. He’s wrapping up with the family now.”

“Good,” Chaz said. “But that’s not why I was calling. I heard HBO’s doing another documentary about the Pinnacles Killer. They know you’re the one who broke it wide open.”

Jude tilted down the receiver so he wouldn’t hear her curse. Then she remembered her paperwork had already been processed. “Sweetheart, they don’t know shit about fuck.”

Chaz laughed good-naturedly. “I get why you wouldn’t go on camera before, but Freddy Henley’s dead. He’s not gonna see you on TV. Now that you found the last one—”

“Darlene Talbot.”

“Right,” Chaz said. “But what I’m saying is, it could be good for the agency. Celebrate our wins.”

“Twelve young women are dead, and it took us over two decades to bring them home. That’s not a win.” Jude saw a bulletin flash on her computer. The bright green banner indicated a confirmed child abduction. She reached for the mouse, but she hesitated when she saw the origin of the notice.

FBI: ATLANTA — GEORGIA BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION: North Falls, Georgia (Clifton County; SW) Missing minor female 14 yo — possible

stranger abduction

“Look at it another way,” Chaz said. “It could help you launch your second act. You’d be rolling in the Bens on the speaking circuit. Strutting onto the stage in your leather jacket and your badass swagger.”

“You don’t have to swagger if it’s true.” Jude slipped on her glasses. She clicked open the notice. Scrolled through the details. Paisley Walker. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. 5’2” 110 pounds. Last seen wearing a long-sleeved Taylor Swift Eras Tour blue hoodie with black leggings and white Skechers sneakers with pink laces. Left the family home by bike. Disappeared between the hours of seven and seven thirty.

Jude looked at the time. San Francisco was three hours behind Georgia. The girl had been missing for five hours. Hopefully the Atlanta bureau already had boots on the ground. North Falls was a small community in the south-western part of the state. They didn’t have the resources for this kind of investigation.

Chaz continued, “From what I’ve heard, if you sign up with a speaker’s agency—”

Jude turned the receiver away from her ear as she clicked on a link to the local newspaper. The front page of the North Falls Herald filled the top half of the monitor.

PAISLEY WALKER STILL MISSING COP KILLER IN CUSTODY

Her heart felt like a fist pounding inside of her chest. She had to open her mouth to breathe. The photograph below the headline wasn’t of the missing girl, but of a sheriff’s deputy. The woman was leaning over the body of an elderly man. Blood had sprayed into her face. There was something haunting about her expression. She looked utterly alone. Jude read the caption—

Despite witnessing the murder of her father, Chief Deputy Emmy Lou Clifton is still leading the search for Paisley Walker . . .

“Jude?” Chaz said.

She took off her glasses. Her hand was shaking. “What did you say?”

“I asked if there’s anything I can help you with.”

“Yes.” Jude studied the photo again. “Who’s our guy in Atlanta?”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Ten

Emmy sat across from Elijah Walker, Paisley’s father. They were in the police station this time instead of the family’s home in west North Falls. The insurance broker was dressed in the white button-up shirt and dark gray pants he’d been wearing when he’d left for work yesterday morning.

“I can’t—” Elijah’s voice caught. “I can’t remember anything about him.”

She looked at her watch. It was twelve-sixteen in the morning. They had passed the seventeen-hour mark since Paisley had been taken.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Elijah said.

Emmy found herself incapable of looking away from her watch. Dried blood was caked into the crown. Fifteen hours had passed since her father had died. She could barely blink without seeing his face.

“Ms. Clifton?” Elijah asked.

Emmy took a deep breath before looking back up. “It’s Chief Clifton, Mr. Walker. I need you to walk me through your morning again.”

He shook his head. “What’s the point? I’ve told you this same story a million times. You should be out looking—”

“Everyone is out looking for Paisley. The entire sheriff’s department, every force in the quad-city area, the fire department’s search and rescue, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Highway Patrol, and every jurisdiction within a 500-mile radius.” Emmy clasped her hand over her watch. She could feel the heat from the glass against her palm. “I’m here talking to you because what you saw yesterday morning could end up being very important.”

“I don’t know if I even saw—” He rubbed his face with his hands. “It might not even be his truck. Do you know how many trucks—”

“Mr. Walker.” Emmy made herself let go of her watch. She placed her hands flat on the table. Her leg started shaking. She struggled to get her anxiety under control. “We need to reset here. I know you’re frustrated, and I know you want your daughter back, but I promise you, the best way to make that happen is to walk me through what you saw yesterday morning.”

“It was—” He shook his head again. “A black truck. An older model with a bad muffler.”

Emmy could only think of Adam’s truck, but it was light green and very distinctive, with a front end like Tow Mater from the Pixar Cars movie. “When you say older model, do you mean like last century or—”

“I’m not a truck expert. I wasn’t even paying attention. I was on my phone.”

This was new information. “Who were you calling?”

“Nobody. I was listening to my messages from overnight. Clients call me when they have accidents. I call them back and we go over details. I glanced down for a second. Then I looked up and he was there. I almost hit him.”

Another new detail. “Did you see his face?”

“I couldn’t see through his windshield. It happened fast. But I remember thinking that the truck was like the guy’s truck. Anthony, I think. Something like that.”

“Good.” Emmy was careful not to say the name back to him so it didn’t imprint. “Tell me about the driver.”

Elijah gave another frustrated sigh. “It was four months ago, okay? I don’t remember the details. I was getting the mail and he pulled up, told me he’d been working on the street. I don’t know whose house. But he said he had some leftover pine straw from another job and he could spread it around the flower beds if I wanted.”

“Okay.” Emmy assumed the man had been driving around with bales of straw hoping to snag some cash. “Did he get out of the truck to talk to you?”

“No, he was leaning his arm on the window.”

“Was he at eye-level? Was he higher or lower than you?”

“Eye-level, I guess.”

Emmy guessed that meant the truck was mid-sized, which eliminated Adam’s 1982 Chevy. “Do you remember how much he charged?”

“Do you know how many people I pay during the year?”

She tried another tack. “You’re at the office during the week, right? You never work from home.”

Elijah looked surprised, like maybe she knew what she was doing. “Right, so it would’ve been a Saturday or Sunday.”

Emmy nodded to keep him going. “Can you try again to remember what he looked like?”

“I told you, he looked Mexican. Dark hair. Dark skin.”

Emmy could hear the pejorative in his tone, like he was using the word as a slur rather than a place of birth. “Do you mean actually from Mexico or—”

“I didn’t ask him where he was from.”

“Did he have an accent?”

“I think so.” He thought about it for another second. “Yes, but easy to understand.”

“Was he wearing a watch or sunglasses or a hat?”

He shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “I can’t remember.”

“No tattoos?”

More head-shaking and shrugging. He was getting frustrated again. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s all right. Let’s just take it slowly.” Emmy pressed her hand on her leg, tried to stop it from jiggling up and down. She was getting a cramp in the arch of her foot. “How was he dressed?”

“Like a landscaper. I didn’t look at what he was wearing. What does that even mean? Clothes. He was wearing clothes.”

“Boots?”

“Probably?”

Emmy waited another beat, then asked, “Was your wife home?”

“No, Carol put on a few pounds over the holidays. She was at her spinning class.” Another revelation. He snapped his fingers, pointed at Emmy. “That means it was Saturday. Her class is at ten, then she gets her nails done, then she has lunch with her Bible Study group, then she goes to the grocery store. She’s usually home by two or three at the latest.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, of course I am. I wouldn’t be home alone with Paisley otherwise. We spend every Sunday together as a family. Morning mass, then the fellowship supper.”

“Okay.” Emmy gripped her thigh in a vain attempt to stop the shaking. The muscles were tight. She couldn’t get her brain to send a signal to stop it. “So, you tell the man in the truck yes, that you want the pine straw, then he starts spreading it around, and then what?”

“I went back inside. I checked on Paisley. I thought she was still in bed, but she wasn’t in her room. She was talking on her phone on the back deck.”

“Talking to whom?”

“Not talking—kids don’t talk. She was texting or doing Snap. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I just told her to turn down her music.”

“Did she?”

Elijah shook his head again, but said, “I guess? I took a shower. When I came out, the music wasn’t on. She was talking to him. That Anthony guy.”

“Where was he standing?”

“In the backyard by the monkey grass area that rings the tree. He had some pine straw in his hands, but he was looking up at her, and I remember thinking that I didn’t like that. Didn’t like the way he was looking at her.”

Emmy crossed her legs at the knee, but she could still feel the tremble in her legs. “Was Paisley standing or sitting on the deck?”

“Leaning on the railing.” Elijah started shaking his head again. “I didn’t like that, either. She was still wearing her pajamas. The shorts were too tight across her bottom. You could practically see everything. Carol was going to talk to her about it. Paisley was too old to wear them anymore. I wanted her to dress more modestly.”

“How did Carol feel about that?”

“What does it matter how Carol felt?” he demanded. “You know what I was worried about. Paisley was sending the wrong signals. Look where it got her.”

Emmy tried to ease him out of that corner. “Does Paisley tend to stay in her pajamas all day over the weekends?”

“No, the rule is she has to be in real clothes by lunch.” He had another moment of insight. “That gives you an idea of the time, right? Carol left at quarter till ten, so it was after that, but before twelve thirty, which is when we have lunch.”

“Right,” Emmy said. “What about the landscaper? What was he wearing?”

“I told you I don’t—” He froze, his mouth hanging open. “A light-colored shirt. Tan, maybe. With a patch here.”

Emmy watched him touch his right hand to his left chest. “What color was the patch?”

Elijah squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember. “It had green stitching on it, like a tree or bush. And his pants were light brown, too. That’s why I thought he was legit, because he looked like he worked on a landscaping crew.”

“Okay, good.” Emmy had uncrossed her legs. She could hear the heel of her boot tapping against the floor. She leaned forward in the chair. Tried to force the jackhammering to stop. “Now go back to when you saw Paisley and the man outside. Did you hear anything they said?”

“No, but Paisley was laughing. I didn’t like how it sounded. Fake, high-pitched. And then when I opened the door and walked out, they both stopped talking.”

“Did you say anything?”

“No, I didn’t have to. They knew what they were doing.” He wiped his hand with his mouth, clearly worked up. “Anthony finished spreading the pine straw. Paisley went inside the house. I told her she didn’t need to be flirting with men like that. I was going to talk to Carol about it later, but then her worthless brother had some kind of emergency and I . . .”

Emmy watched him wipe his mouth again. She asked, “What was Paisley’s response when you admonished her?”

“She threw a tantrum. Said I had embarrassed her. That I didn’t understand. But I understood exactly what was going on. You tease a grown man, you get the consequences.” His hands had clenched into fists on the table. “And I was right, wasn’t I? She flirted with this guy and now God only knows what he’s doing to her.”

Emmy waited for Elijah to calm down, but he didn’t.

“Why are you even here?” he demanded. “Your father was murdered yesterday morning. Why aren’t you with your family?”

Emmy felt her throat clench. “My father would want me here, Mr. Walker. One of the last things he told me was to call the FBI. He wanted me to find Paisley.”

“Really?” he asked. “Like you did such a great job finding those dead girls in the pond?”

Emmy pressed her lips together.

“I listened to Jack’s podcast. He called you the Misguided Angel. Said you were so hellbent on putting someone in prison that you focused on the wrong person. What if you’re wrong about Anthony? What if Adam took Paisley out of revenge against you, and we’re here wasting time on some Mexican in a black truck?”

Emmy let the silence draw out to make sure he was finished. “You’ve got a big yard.”

“What?”

“The guy spread pine straw in the front. You took a shower, then he was still spreading it in the back when you finished. That took a while.”

“And?”

“How much cash do you usually keep on hand?”

Elijah gave an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know, fifty dollars. Carol always keeps more in her purse if I need it.”

“But Carol wasn’t there,” Emmy said. “So how did you pay him for the work?”

“I didn’t—shit.” He scrambled to get his phone out of his pocket. “CashApp. That’s what I used. Shit!”

Emmy watched his fingers tap the password to unlock the screen, then open the app.

“Okay, here it is. AntonioR45. June eighteenth. I scanned his QR code.” Elijah practically threw the phone at her. “Can you find him from this?”

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Emmy heard telephones ringing as she jogged up the hallway. She took a left turn, her gaze skipping over Gerald’s empty office. Every other desk in the squad room had an agent taking calls or following leads. She found the FBI’s point person on kidnappings and abductions in the back. Special Agent Seth Alexander was leaning over a paper map of the south-eastern United States. He was drawing another concentric circle out from North Falls. There were seventeen circles so far, each marking seventy miles of driving distance for every hour since Paisley had been taken. They reminded Emmy of the rings on a tree.

“Got something.” She handed him Elijah’s phone, careful not to touch the screen. “He said he paid the landscaper through CashApp. I didn’t touch anything. Didn’t want to mess with the history on anything else. The main password is eight-seven-twothirty-one-six.”

“Great, we’ll get into it.” Seth wrote the password on the edge of the map. “Anything else?”

“Elijah’s kind of a tight-ass. Very controlling. Didn’t approve of how his daughter dressed.”

“Join the club,” Seth said. “You like him for this?”

“He’s hiding something. I’m going to let him stew for a bit, then go back at him.”

“You should know that my regional director worked with Gerald straight out of Quantico. He’s sending down the big guns to give us a hand. He told me to tell you anything you need—he’ll make it happen.”

“Okay.” Emmy wondered if she would ever hear her father’s name again without feeling like she’d been punched in the throat. “Elijah said something about the wife’s ‘worthless brother’ having an emergency four months ago. Sounded like there’s some hostility there.”

Seth flipped back through his notes. “Reggie McAllister. Thirty-seven. Got arrested for brandishing a knife during a pick-up basketball game. Still on probation. Married, no kids. Rents a house outside of Mobile. Delivery driver for a light fixture supplier. We sent a team to knock on his door, but the wife says he’s driving to the sister’s. Left half an hour ago. I sent Alabama Highway Patrol to follow him to the border, then GHP will pick him up when he crosses into Georgia. What else you got?”

“Elijah gave me a description of Antonio. Hispanic, maybe from Mexico or somewhere south of the border. Speaks with an accent. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Wearing a tan shirt and matching tan pants. Had a patch on his chest with a possible logo. I’m going to go through the list of landscapers the neighbors use and see if any of them have uniforms.” Emmy was about to go, but she confirmed, “He unlocked his phone and gave it to me. That’s implied consent to search the device, right?”

“Absolutely. Damien’s our tech guy. He’ll get into Elijah’s emails and texts, track his location through any apps, browser history. No stone unturned.”

“Text me if you find anything.” Emmy spotted Virgil talking to one of the FBI agents working the tip line. She’d texted him for help with the search, but the truth was she’d felt like she needed somebody other than Cole on her side. Just the sight of her old mentor made her feel like some of the weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Virgil gave Emmy a sad smile as she walked toward him. The last twelve years hadn’t changed him much. He’d kept himself fit after retirement. His posture was still straight, shoulders back, chest out, the way they’d drilled him in boot camp. Emmy realized that he was roughly the same age as Gerald had been when Madison and Cheyenne had died.

She got straight to the point. “I feel like an asshole for asking you to come back and help, especially with another missing kid.”

“I was planning on volunteering anyway.” Virgil’s voice was kind. “My knees are too rusty to crawl under houses, but I’m still pretty good with a phone and a computer.”

Emmy didn’t have time to feel relieved. “Grab a desk. The FBI already looked at Paisley’s socials, but maybe someone with local knowledge might spot something that they’re missing.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He started to go, but he put his hand on her shoulder as if to brace her. “You got this, Emmy Lou.”

“I hope so.” Emmy felt some more of the pressure lift as she walked to Brett’s desk and sat down. She tapped his computer awake, entered her credentials. She was reaching for the spiral notebook in her pocket when her gaze landed on the windows to Gerald’s office.

Emmy’s office, too. Their desks were pushed together. The lights were off. Her father’s rain jacket was still hanging from the hook on the wall. The folding chair where Cole had sat to talk to him two days ago was still facing in Gerald’s direction.

Her damn leg started shaking again. She opened up a search for the first company on her list, Albright Landscaping. Emmy’s eyes blurred. It wasn’t the exhaustion that was making her feel this way. Myrna’s night terrors had trained her to get by on very little sleep. Her body was turning against her, trying to push out the grief that she kept trying to swallow back down.

Emmy’s cell phone buzzed. She recognized the number. “Brett, did you find her?”

“No, chief.”

Emmy could hear the loud beeps and diesel engines of heavy-duty equipment. Brett was at a landfill in Tallahassee. One of the Walkers’ neighbors was in the middle of a total renovation. The construction dumpster in their driveway had been emptied at seven thirty yesterday morning. Brett had made the four-hour drive down to Florida to go through the landfill in case Paisley’s kidnapper had disposed of her body.

“Chief?” Brett said, his voice concerned.

She felt her foot cramping again. “I’m okay, Brett.”

“I get it,” he said. “But your dad died right in front of you. I know you’ve got that Clifton ice water in your veins, but no one would say a word if you sat this one out.”

Emmy looked at her father’s office. The tidy stacks of folders. His favorite pen. Her laptop was open across from the framed photos he kept on the desk. Cole and Emmy in uniform. Tommy in a porkpie hat. Emmy had started out yesterday morning thinking about how strange it was that her son was a grown man. By mid morning, she was holding him like she hadn’t done since he was a child.

“Emmy,” Brett said. “Think about what the boss would want.”

Emmy knew exactly what her father would want. “The way we honor him is to do our jobs. Get back here as soon as you can. We need to find somebody who can go down into those sewers and storm drains along the route Paisley took to the backroads. I want Millie’s pond searched again, too.”

“Again?” he asked. “It’d be pretty stupid to get rid of Paisley Walker the same way as Madison and Cheyenne.”

“It’d be pretty stupid to not consider the possibility.”

“All right.” Brett drew out his response. “I’ll call back the divers.”

Emmy put the phone down, then returned to the searches. She was almost finished with the list when Cole walked into the squad room. She had a moment before he noticed her to take a close look at him. His eyes were shot through with red. His skin was pale. Like Emmy, he had wanted to keep working, to push through. Like her, he looked like even the slightest touch would fracture him into millions of pieces. The only thing holding him up was the ice water in his veins.

“Chief, no luck.” Cole had been out on one of the search parties combing the backroads for signs of Paisley. “I got a call from Celia. She said not to bother you, but Grandma’s having another bad night.”

Emmy felt the pressure come back like a noose tightening around her neck. “We’ve got a shitty lead from Elijah on a vehicle in the neighborhood yesterday morning. It might not pan out, but we need to follow it. All he remembered was an ‘older black truck’. Go through registrations and see if you can narrow anything down. He could be undocumented, but keep that part to yourself. We don’t need another vigilante group targeting innocent people.”

“Yes, chief.”

He started to leave, but she grabbed his hand. Emmy felt a tremble, but wasn’t sure if it was coming from her or Cole.

“Mom.” His voice was strained. “My chief gave me an order.”

She felt his fingers slip away from hers. She didn’t know whether to be proud or devastated that she’d raised another Clifton.

“Emmy?” Sherry Robertson, the GBI field agent for south-west Georgia, was waving her toward the back. “Need a minute.”

Emmy took a stuttered breath as she walked across the room. Her vision was jittery. The stop-motion had returned. The GBI had jurisdiction over all officer-involved shootings. Sherry was investigating the murder of Sheriff Gerald Clifton.

“Paul’s sleeping it off in the cells,” Sherry said. “Hannah asked for a lawyer.”

Emmy wasn’t surprised. She had drilled it into Hannah years ago that you never speak to a cop without a lawyer present. “Anything from the bystander videos on the scene?”

“Nothing useful,” Sherry said. “But you should know the Culpepper woman posted a video online that shows Gerald. CNN blurred out his face, but it’s pretty graphic.”

Emmy told herself that she would think about that later. “Dervla Culpepper wasn’t filming Hannah and Paul when the gun went off?”

“She couldn’t. Gerald put his arm out in front of her. He was trying to protect her.”

Emmy filed that one for later, too. “What about witnesses? There was more than two dozen people there.”

“A third of them say Hannah was holding the gun. Another third say it was Paul. And the remaining third were too panicked to see anything.”

That sounded about right. “What do you need from me?”

“Details,” she said. “I’ve got your statement, but you’ve had a while to think it over. Are you sure you couldn’t see who was holding the gun when it fired?”

Emmy had heard variations of this question at least three times now. She knew the technique, had used the same one on Elijah Walker. You kept repeating yourself because you were either probing for new information or trying to spot changes in the story.

She told Sherry, “No. I’m sorry. I had tunnel vision. I was looking at the gun, not who was holding it. The only other thing I saw was my son running down the street. And then I saw my father, and . . .”

There was a solemnity to their silence. Sherry had worked with Gerald for years. Every law enforcement officer in the state either knew of him or had worked directly with him. Emmy had ignored condolence calls from police captains, sheriffs, the state speaker of the house, even the governor.

“Emmy,” Sherry said, “I know the director has already reached out to you, but if your family needs anything from the agency, we’re here.”

She nodded. “Appreciated.”

“Has a CCAO been in touch?”

Emmy nodded again. When a cop was murdered, a Civilian Crisis Assistance Officer was immediately assigned to sit with the family and walk them through next steps—navigating death benefits, insurance claims, state and federal resources, the press, and eventually funeral procession planning.

None of which Emmy could think about right now.

She said, “Tommy already talked to him. They’re gonna meet in the morning. I should get back to work.”

“All right, let me know if you remember anything else about the gun.” Sherry gave Emmy’s arm a squeeze. “The medical examiner will be here in half an hour if you want to see your father before they take him back to headquarters.”

The noose pulled tighter around her neck. Everything was happening so fast. Gerald would be gone from town before the sun came up. “I’ll let Tommy know.”

Emmy took out her phone as an excuse to end the conversation. She sent a text to Tommy as she walked toward the hallway. He was still awake. He tapped back a thumbs up almost immediately. The emoji was Tommy’s version of their father’s okay. It could be either an acknowledgment that he’d seen the information or an indication that he would meet her at the funeral home. Emmy guessed she would find out in half an hour.

That would give her enough time to go back at Elijah. Or maybe she should talk to Carol Walker again. Brett had questioned her earlier, but when Emmy had tried to follow up, Paisley’s mother had been so hysterical that a doctor had to be called in to medicate her. Emmy assumed the Valium had worn off by now. She should ask the woman about her brother. Test the couple’s marriage. See if Elijah’s worries about modesty had caused a point of tension with his daughter.

But she couldn’t.

Emmy walked out the side door into the parking lot. It was almost two in the morning, but this was the first moment since her father had died that she’d had entirely to herself. She needed a moment to feel all the things that she’d been trying not to feel. To give in to the anxiety that was turning her body against her. To breathe in the night air and listen to the silence. She leaned her back against the wall. The rough brick scratched against her shoulder blades. She looked up at the dark sky. Closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Dad,” she whispered, “what do I do now?”

She knew what Gerald would’ve said.

What did they know?

Paisley Walker’s chance of survival had entered the single digits. The girl’s father was hostile and controlling. Her mother was catatonic. Their only lead was a Hispanic man who drove a truck so ubiquitous to the area that he might as well have been in Wonder Woman’s invisible jet.

What did they think they knew?

A full four months after Paisley’s interaction with the landscaper, Elijah was still angry about his daughter wearing tight shorts. He seemed to have the attitude that a child was responsible for a grown man’s actions. It was hard to tell if Elijah had an unhealthy obsession with his daughter or was just being a controlling asshole.

“Emmy?”

She squinted her eyes in the darkness. A tall man carrying a briefcase was walking across the parking lot. He was coming from the direction of the jail complex. She felt her heart sink when she recognized him. Dylan Alvarez was the last person she needed to see right now.

Emmy pushed away from the wall. “What are you doing at the jail in the middle of the night?”

Dylan said, “I’m representing Hannah.”

“You practice family law. She needs a criminal attorney.”

“Which is exactly what I told her, but she’s not listening to me. She’s too distraught to listen to anybody.” Dylan set his briefcase down on the ground. “Is there some way for you to get a message to her?”

“Are you serious?” Emmy struggled to rein in her temper. “You’re really asking a cop to send a message to your client?”

“You wanna dial back on barking at me like I’m an ignorant toddler?” Dylan was obviously pulling back at his temper, too. “Hannah’s fucking devastated. You know she worshipped your father. He was there when her own father died. And her mother.”

Emmy knew. She had been there, too.

He said, “I can’t even get her to tell me what happened. She just keeps saying she needs to know you’re okay.”

“So I should slip her a note in the cells with the GBI watching?”

“I know it’s a stupid idea, but I’m trying to get a resolution that doesn’t put Hannah on death row for being a cop killer.”

Emmy felt like an ax blade had lodged into her heart. She hadn’t let herself think past Sherry Robertson’s questions.

Dylan laid it out for her. “The GBI will use the same strategy they used against the father of that school shooter. The revolver that Paul brought to the scene is registered to Hannah. She kept it in a safe that she knew Paul had access to. She knew that he’d made death threats toward you and your father. She knew he was volatile and unpredictable. And unlike the father, Hannah was there at the scene standing beside a cop and said nothing. Eventually, they’re gonna find a witness who’ll testify that she was touching the gun when it went off. That’s going to be all the jury needs to send her down.”

Emmy had broken out into a sweat. She’d made Hannah buy the gun for protection when she’d moved back home after college. “She was trying to stop him. She yelled to warn me. I told that to the investigator.”

“What else did you say?”

“That I’m a shitty witness. I was freaked out. I panicked. I didn’t see whether or not Hannah touched the gun.” Emmy knew she was giving him too much information, but she didn’t care. “They can’t send her to prison if they don’t know who pulled the trigger.”

“Babe, you know how felony murder works. There doesn’t have to be an intent to kill. Just knowing about the gun, about Paul’s intentions, is enough to charge her.” Dylan’s words were stark, but his tone was soft. “Your father was lionized in law enforcement. Every eye in the county is on the prosecutor right now. She’s got an election coming up in November. You know what she’ll do.”

There was no air left in Emmy’s lungs. She hadn’t put the pieces together because she hadn’t wanted to. “Hannah’s a schoolteacher. A mother.”

“She might get a plea deal if she testifies against Paul, but even with that, the legal fees, losing her job, fighting it out in court—she’ll be destroyed.”

“Is that why Hannah is reaching out to me? She’s worried about being charged?”

“She’s reaching out to you because she’s swallowed up in grief. And she’s worried about you. We’re both worried.” Dylan’s voice grew even softer. “Your father died in your arms, Emmy. Where’s Cole? What about Celia and Tommy?”

“Cole’s working. Celia and Tommy are looking after Mom.”

“Who’s looking after you?”

She covered her watch with her hand. She thought about the blood caked into the crown. Gerald had looked after her. From the moment she was born, she had always been sure of her father.

“Babe.” Dylan’s tone was filled with kindness she didn’t deserve. “It’s not a bad thing to admit that you’re mourning. I’m mourning, too.”

Emmy felt her spine stiffen. “There’s a fourteen-year-old girl who’s probably dead right now. You want me to go cry in a corner when I’m the only one holding this entire department together?”

“God forbid you show any weakness.”

“God forbid you let me process shit in my own way.”

Dylan looked out into the street. They both knew the argument they weren’t going to have right now was the same argument they’d already had a million times before. Sometimes discussing it calmly. Sometimes screaming at the top of their lungs. Emmy was too closed off. She never talked about things. She didn’t express herself. She was too independent, too go-it-alone, too self-isolating, and Dylan was too tired of waiting for her to change.

She asked, “Why did Hannah call you?”

He huffed out a frustrated sigh. “I work in family law, chief. What do you think?”

Of all the emotions Emmy wouldn’t allow herself to feel, she couldn’t stop the need to feel sorry for Hannah. “She’s divorcing Paul?”

“She filed for a legal separation two months ago. He refused to leave the house.”

“Her mother put that house in a trust for Hannah. The law says—”

“Laws don’t matter if you’re not willing to enforce them. Hannah doesn’t want to be responsible for putting her son’s father in jail.”

Emmy was intimately familiar with the trap. Jonah had made their divorce as excruciating as possible. “How is Davey doing?”

“Not great.” Dylan sounded surprised by the question. “Both of his parents are in jail.”

Emmy looked down at the ground. Her mind kept playing tricks on her, separating Gerald’s death from the fact that both Hannah and Paul had been arrested for his murder.

Dylan asked, “How’s Cole?”

“Not great,” she said. “His grandfather is dead. His grandmother’s lost her mind. His mother’s kind of a raging bitch.”

“Kind of?”

Emmy’s laugh got caught in her throat. The tears were back. The shakiness threatened to take over. She closed her eyes, and she could see her father again. The waxy white of his skin. The dark blue of his lips. His last request, his final order, to tell a woman who couldn’t remember his face that he was sorry.

“Mi amor.” Dylan came closer. The sound of his voice was so soothing that she could almost feel her heart lurching out to him. He gently laced his fingers behind her neck. “Let me be here for you. Just this once.”

Emmy felt the pull of his warmth, the ache to be folded into his embrace, to go back to his house, the house that they used to share, and lie in bed and feel the safety of his closeness.

She’d broken it off with Dylan six months ago when Myrna’s night terrors had started to get really bad. Emmy had told herself it was too difficult feeling stretched in two different directions, but in truth, it was too hard keeping herself together around Dylan. She had started crying over sappy commercials and clinging to him like a child when she got home from visiting her parents.

Now, Emmy was nearly overcome with need for him. Would it be so bad if she told Dylan what she was feeling? That every step was agony? That she could barely hold up her head? That she still loved and needed him so fucking much? Or would giving in to her emotions, letting it all come out, leave her so empty that she wouldn’t be able to go on?

“Okay.” She slipped out of Dylan’s reach and walked back into the building. The bright overhead lights made her eyes water. She saw Cole at his desk. “Anything?”

“Six thousand black trucks. I need to know what Elijah means by older model.”

“Ask him,” Emmy said. “Go talk to him. See if he’s more likely to open up to a man. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Emmy grabbed her jacket off the hook. She watched Cole as he pecked on the keyboard. He’d changed into a fresh uniform. His collar was buttoned. Hair neatly parted.

After Gerald had been killed, she hadn’t just laid into her son. She had razed him into the ground. They’d been sitting inside her cruiser. Emmy had been numb. Covered in her father’s blood. Shaking with grief. So was Cole. His uniform was soaked through where they’d clung to each other over Gerald’s body.

Then she had screamed at him about not strapping down his vest like she had fucking told him.

Emmy slid on her jacket. She walked behind Cole. She pressed her lips to the top of his head. Then she walked out the front doors of the station.

The lights along Main Street were off. The storefronts were dark. The dress shop. The wine store. The café. She could see the floodlights shining up at the courthouse. The American flag and the State of Georgia flag had been lowered to half mast. She turned around and looked at the sheriff’s station. Both flags on the roof were at half mast, too.

Emmy turned away. She took in a mouthful of air, felt it settle into her lungs like a fog. She hadn’t realized it was cold out. She zipped up the front of her jacket. Her watch glowed in the darkness. Emmy touched her finger to the crown. Then she walked a few blocks down the street until she was standing outside the funeral home.

The lights were on in the front lobby. Another illuminated flag was lowered to half mast on the pole outside the building. She wondered about the other flags outside veterans’ halls and Highway Patrol stations and the governor’s mansion on Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta. All of them lowered halfway to honor the life of her father.

Emmy slid her hand into her pocket but didn’t pull out her phone. She wanted Tommy to explain his thumbs up. Was he going to meet her at the funeral home? Was he staying with Myrna to help ride out her night terrors? Either choice was understandable. Gerald was dead. Myrna was still alive. Their mother was often too much for Celia to handle on her own. It was reasonable for her brother to stay with his wife.

Even if his little sister really needed him.

Emmy took her hand out of her pocket. She skirted around the side of the one-story building. When she was on patrol, Emmy had made her share of late-night trips to the funeral home. In Georgia, the position of coroner was elected. Milo Kinley, the funeral director, had run uncontested for nearly forty years.

Not just that. He’d gone to high school with her father. They’d played cards every Saturday with Virgil and Louis Singh for as long as Emmy could remember. Milo had buried most of the Clifton family’s dead. And after the medical examiner was finished cutting open Gerald’s body to document his murder, Milo would be the one who prepared him for his grave.

The light was on in the back office. Emmy didn’t have to knock on the door. The building was never left unattended. Usually, there was an intern from the mortuary college working the phones in case a body needed to be retrieved, but tonight, Milo was sitting at the desk inside the doorway. He was writing something when she walked in. Emmy thought about walking into Gerald’s home office yesterday morning. He’d been writing a letter, too.

“Emmy Lou.” Milo stood up to greet her. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

She felt her teeth grit as he gave her an awkward hug. She told him, “The medical examiner is on the way. Should be here soon.”

“I’ve already spoken with her. Everything is taken care of. Georgia Highway Patrol is on standby to escort him to GBI headquarters.” Milo raised his hand toward the embalming room. “I’ve got him laid out for you and Tommy. Take all the time you need. I’ll just need you to sign some forms before you go.”

Again, Emmy realized that she hadn’t let herself think that far ahead. There was always paperwork, chain of custody, all the things that she’d learned at the academy but never once considered she would do for her own father. Even with Myrna’s crushing march toward death, Emmy had assumed that Gerald would handle everything.

She said, “I need to talk to Tommy about what he wants to do.”

“That’s a good idea, honey. This should help you make a start.” He offered her a sheet of paper. “It’s a standard form I give folks to help them write the obituary.”

Emmy took the paper, but her eyes were too blurry to read the words. She could only tell that some of it was typed, some of it filled in with a pen.

“I’ve made some suggestions on the wording. You would say that Gerald’s survived by you, Tommy and Myrna. For Henry and Martha, the standard language is to say that he was preceded in death by two of his children, then you list their names and ages. Henry was seventeen. I believe Martha was eighteen when she passed.”

Emmy couldn’t stop staring at the form. Everything else in the room was swirling around her.

“Anyway.” Milo took back the paper. Her fingers had left sweat marks on the corner. “I’ll give this to Tommy. Maybe you kids want Celia to do it? She’s the one with the fancy English degrees.”

“Dad—” Emmy’s throat strangled the word. “He wrote something out already. Last month. Not the obituary, but he wrote out what he wanted for his funeral. The arrangements and music and how much to spend. He didn’t want to burden us with having to do it. Not for him and not for Mom. He wrote down all the instruction for her funeral, too.”

“Oh, okay.”

“He didn’t want people to know, but maybe you figured out—” Emmy’s mouth had gone spitless. She could barely form words. “That’s why he’d lost so much weight. It started in his lungs—the tumors. We found out last year. He was getting treatment, but then six weeks ago, he got a biopsy and he was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer, and there was nothing else that could be done. I mean, there were things that could be done, but he didn’t want to do them. Didn’t want to spend what time he had left going back and forth to the hospital. Not when Mom still needed him. So . . . that’s when he wrote everything out.”

Milo looked as grieved as Emmy had felt when she’d first heard about the cancer. This was why Gerald had been talking to her about taking over his job as sheriff, and why he’d arranged for Myrna to be moved into a care facility. He’d sat Emmy and Tommy down last month and told them both that he’d decided to let the cancer run its course.

You kids just keep your heads down and do your jobs. You’ve got your lives to live. Your mother won’t know I’m gone.

Milo put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey. I knew he wasn’t well, but he was a private man. We only talked about college football and our kids. He was so proud of you and Tommy. You were the light of his life.”

Emmy wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “The doctors wouldn’t pin down how long we had. They said it could take three, six, maybe twelve months, but you know, there was still a seven percent chance that he could survive. If he’d gotten treatment. I mean, he didn’t want it. He made that clear when  . . . But I had hoped he would . . . you know he was a fighter. He always beat the odds.”

“He did.” Milo was nodding, but she could see the sadness in his eyes.

She wiped her nose again, tried to straighten up. Maybe the cancer was the reason that Emmy wasn’t on her knees right now. She’d had a month and a half to get used to her father dying. They’d sat around in his office for hours talking it out. She’d learned more about Gerald Clifton in the last six weeks than she had in all the days that had come before.

“Anyway, the cancer. I don’t know if they have to do anything different during the—” Emmy couldn’t bring herself to say the word autopsy. “I thought you should let the medical examiner know. In case there are precautions.”

Milo nodded, but he probably thought she’d lost her mind. Cancer wasn’t contagious. You couldn’t catch it like the flu. He asked, “Do you want a moment with him?”

Emmy didn’t trust herself to speak. She could only nod.

“I’m here if you kids need me.” Milo gave her arm a squeeze before letting go. “Always, Emmy Lou. Until I draw my last breath.”

Emmy nodded again. Then it was time. Milo opened the door to the embalming room.

She took in another shaky breath. The door silently clicked closed behind her.

Gerald was lying on a table in the center of the floor. A white sheet was draped over his body, tucked under his chin. Emmy knew that Milo had done this for her benefit. She’d never seen him cover a victim like that before.

Victim.

Emmy shook her head, telling herself that she was wrong. Her father was not a victim. He’d been an innocent bystander. The gun had been pointed at Emmy’s chest. For the last twelve years, Paul had glared at her, sneered at her, mumbled nasty words in her direction.

And then he’d brought a revolver to Elsinore Meadows to try to kill her.

The compressor on the walk-in freezer switched off. The room went so quiet that she could hear her own heartbeat. Emmy willed her legs to move as she walked toward her father. Gerald’s face was slack. Eyes closed. Lips almost completely black. The blood had been cleaned from his mouth. The tiny scrape that Myrna’s fingernail had left yesterday morning looked more like a stray mark she’d made with one of her grading pens.

“Dad.” Emmy let out a long breath as she stood over the body.

She had never before understood what it meant to say that the life had gone out of somebody. Now, she got it. There was no life left in her father. Just a cancer-ravaged body, an arthritic spine, knees that were so worn down his legs had bowed. She reached under the sheet. Held onto his cold hand. Waited to feel something, anything, that told her this was their final moment alone. It felt nothing like what she’d read about in books and seen in movies. The sense of closure. The feeling that his spirit had stuck around long enough to say goodbye. That he would still watch over her. Listen to her. Hold her in his gaze.

She closed her eyes, tried to summon the sound of his voice.

Emmy Lou? What are we missing?

“You,” she whispered into the silence. “I’m missing you.”

She let her hand fall away from his. She couldn’t go back into the office with Milo. Didn’t want to talk about obituaries or caskets or arrangements or processions. She wanted to be alone.

Emmy walked around the body, went through the viewing room, then the chapel, then stood in the front lobby with its bright overhead lights and vases of flowers and boxes of tissues discreetly placed in corners. Her vision blurred again, but not with tears. She was going to pass out. She leaned her shoulder against the wall. She was back on the street outside Adam’s house. Hearing Hannah scream. Watching the gun go off. Seeing Cole run with his vest flying out behind him. Feeling the great cleaving behind her; an iceberg breaking off, a giant limb splitting from a tree. She was set adrift. She was falling. She was completely lost without him.

“Emmy?” Jonah knocked on the glass door. “Are you okay?”

“Shit,” she whispered. These men just kept pecking at her. “What do you want?”

“I want you to open the damn door.”

Emmy twisted the lock. The dank smell of weed preceded him into the lobby. His bar closed at two, which meant he’d spent a good while drinking before getting behind the wheel.

He asked, “You all right?”

She stepped back to get away from the smell of him. “I’m fine, Jonah. What do you want?”

“You ain’t gotta be a bitch about it. I wanna know if our son is okay. He’s not answering my calls. I was heading to the house when I saw you through the glass.”

Cole didn’t pick up Jonah’s calls on a good day. “Maybe give it until the morning. We’re all having a hard time right now.”

“I get it,” he said. “I felt like I was hit by a damn freight train when my dad died.”

Emmy leaned back against the wall. She silently begged him to leave.

“You remember the funeral?”

Emmy remembered Jonah being so drunk that he’d passed out in the back seat of the car.

“I wish Dad had lived to see me get on my feet, you know?” Jonah had a sad smile on his face. “Running my own bar. Playing gigs every weekend. I think he would’ve finally been proud of me. But he didn’t live to see it.”

Emmy reminded herself that it was no longer her job to stroke Jonah Lang’s ego. His father would’ve been disgusted. The money to buy the bar had come from Emmy being forced to sell her grandmother’s house so she could pay him to go away.

“Em, will you call Cole for me?” Jonah asked. “Tell him he needs to talk to his daddy.”

Emmy struggled to swallow her irritation. “I’m not getting in the middle. He’ll call you when he feels like talking. There’s no good that’ll come from pushing him.”

Jonah laughed. “If I waited until that boy felt like talking, he’d never open his mouth. Me pushing him is the only reason he didn’t turn into some damn robot like you.”

Emmy couldn’t do this again. “Did you try the station?”

“Jesus Christ, girl. Did you make him go back to work?”

“He told me that’s what he wanted.”

“And you let him?” Jonah sounded indignant. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m sure you have a list somewhere.”

“The whole town’s gotta list.”

“Cole is an adult. He’s entitled to his space.”

“He’s a fucking Clifton is what he is. You made damn sure of that.”

“Jonah.” She had to get him out of here before she lost her shit. “For the millionth time, I didn’t have anything to do with Cole changing his last name. He did that for Dad when he found out about the cancer.”

“What about my dad? He died, too. Do you know how that would’a made him feel? His own damn grandson won’t carry on the Lang family name? It’s gonna die with me. Is that what you want?”

Emmy pushed away from the wall. What she wanted was to punch him in the kidneys until he pissed blood. “Can you please for once not make every goddam thing about you? My father was murdered less than twenty-four hours ago.”

“He was gonna die anyway.”

Emmy didn’t realize how furious she was until it was too late. Rage shot adrenaline into every cell in her body. Her vision sharpened. She could taste blood in her mouth. She didn’t punch him, but she slapped him so hard that he fell back into a chair. Then she slapped him again, and again, screaming, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

He shoved her away. His lip was bleeding. “You fucking bitch.”

She saw his hand clench into a fist. “Please hit me. I dare you.”

“You wish I would.”

“You wanna know what I wish?” she yelled. “I wish I could dig up your father and tell him the only reason you’ve got that fucking dive bar is because I gave it to you. It was my hard work that paid for that bass guitar you don’t know how to play, and my life savings that got you into that traveling band that kicked you to the curb the minute the money ran out.”

“That ain’t how it fucking happened!” Jonah bolted out of the chair and stomped across the lobby. He swung open the door so hard that it popped back on the hinges. “Fucking bitch.”

“Cocksucker!” Emmy screamed after him. The sight of him jumping into the truck that she’d paid for made her phosphorescent with rage. She shoved her hand in her pocket, gripped her phone. She should call a patrol unit to search his car. Ticket him for the joints she knew would be in his console. The open bottle in his cup holder. Send his ass to jail overnight.

Emmy forced her hand to release the phone. She couldn’t do that to Cole. Neither could she get the rage to dissipate. She started pacing back and forth across the lobby. Took in deep breaths, shushed out the air between her teeth. At some level, she knew her anger was misdirected. Not that Jonah didn’t deserve to have his ass kicked, but her body was forcing out the grief through the only emotion Emmy knew how to express right now.

“Hi.”

Emmy swung around. An older woman was standing in the entrance to the chapel. She was wearing a black leather jacket, dark jeans, and lace-up motorcycle boots. A suede purse was slung across her shoulder. Smokey eyeliner. Shaggy, shoulder-length brown hair. It was almost three in the morning, and she looked like she was about to go on stage with Courtney Love.

Emmy struggled to compose herself. She was still in uniform. The best she could manage was to pretend the woman hadn’t seen her lunge at Jonah like a rabid dog. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“I’m Special Agent in Charge Jude Archer. Well—not so special anymore.” She gave a quick smile. “That’s a longer story.”

Emmy almost laughed. “You don’t look like an FBI agent.”

“I get that a lot.”

“Your people are back at the station.” Emmy would let Seth Alexander deal with this imposter. Right now, her jaw was so tight she felt like it was going to lock up. “That’s three blocks down on the left. I’ll join you there when I’m finished.”

“Actually, I’d like to speak with you privately.” Jude indicated the chapel. “Why don’t we sit down in here?”

If she was stupid enough to think Emmy was going to sit in a church pew and pour out her heart, she had more issues than impersonating an FBI agent. “Listen, lady, I don’t want to talk to you. I want you to turn around, go back to wherever you came from, and leave me alone.”

“Okay.”

Emmy waited for her to leave, but she didn’t move. She stood there like she hadn’t said okay in agreement, but to acknowledge that she’d heard a request had been made. The cadence, the lilt at the end, was so familiar that it was almost like Gerald had gotten up off the table in the embalming room and was standing in the chapel doorway.

Emmy’s nerves started to go haywire, sending a pulsing electricity from the top of her head into her toes. The tickle. The bad feeling. The Don’t Feel Right. She knew who the woman was. She was far from a stranger.

“Please don’t do this,” Emmy begged. “Not now.”

“Ah,” Jude said. “They told you.”

The glass door opened before Emmy could respond. Tommy walked into the lobby. He was looking down, trying to work the zipper on his jacket. He glanced up, then did a double take. The shock on his face was almost comical. He was momentarily dumbstruck.

He whispered, “Martha?”

Jude smiled at her brother. “Hey, Tommy.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Chapter Eleven

Jude watched as Emmy’s mouth opened, then closed, then she wordlessly exited the building through the glass doors. Tommy said nothing. Did nothing. Then he let out a long sigh that bypassed the last forty-plus years. They could’ve been crammed in beside Henry under the hatchback of Myrna’s Chevy Vega waiting for Gerald to finally stumble out of the bar.

But they weren’t kids anymore. Henry was long dead. Tommy had the rounded posture of a man who’d spent too much time behind a desk. Dark circles were under his eyes. He hadn’t shaved. He was completely bald.

Jude asked, “You’re not going to go after her?”

“She’s not the go-after-her type.”

Jude wasn’t surprised. Cliftons liked to make a clean exit.

Tommy crossed his arms. He studied her for a moment, then said the most Tommy thing ever. “Does Billy Idol know you stole his look?”

“Does Kojak know you stole his?”

He smiled his same, long-ago half-smile. “Are you here to dance on Dad’s grave or . . . ?”

Jude waited for the or, but he didn’t finish. “How’s Myrna taking it?”

“She doesn’t take anything these days.” Tommy scratched the stubble on his cheek. “She’s got Alzheimer’s. Late stage. Doesn’t recognize any of us. Forgot she’s supposed to eat. Can’t bathe herself. Wakes up in the middle of the night screaming about—”

Jude heard the abrupt stop in his voice. She watched Tommy take a long look at his watch to give himself an excuse to hide his grief.

“Wow, didn’t realize how early it was.” He cleared his throat before looking back up. “She’s being transferred to a home at seven thirty sharp, so just a few more hours. Dad arranged it before he died. Didn’t give us much of a choice.”

Jude took her own moment to process the information. She had braced herself for Myrna’s sharp tongue and cutting glances. To learn that her mother was effectively gone made Jude realize that she had been secretly hoping for some type of reconciliation.

She said, “You don’t seem surprised that I’m alive.”

He smiled again, a nervous affectation. “Mid nineties, two FBI agents knocked on my door. Said they were doing a deep background check as part of your potential employment.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“Did a lot of stuttering and stammering at first. Kind of shocked that they were acting like you were alive. Then I told them the truth. That I hadn’t seen you in over a decade. That you liked to party back in the day, but I couldn’t guess what you were up to lately.”

Jude guessed he’d done her a favor. “Did they talk to Dad?”

He shrugged. “It’d make sense, but he never mentioned it to me.”

Jude knew the follow-on to his answer. Tommy hadn’t mentioned it to Gerald, either. She looked at the doors Emmy had just left by. “She clearly knows.”

“Dad sat us down last year and told us.”

“And you acted surprised?”

“Don’t know if you remember, but I’m pretty good at acting.”

Jude watched the nervous smile return. She gathered that Tommy was still not one for confrontation. He’d always had a loner quality about him. Henry and Jude had been Irish twins, born fourteen months apart. They’d been each other’s shadow. There hadn’t been much room for Tommy to get what he needed.

Jude figured that was a good place to start. “One of the many things I regret is that Henry and I left you out so often. I’m sorry we excluded you. We should’ve all stuck together. You were a good brother, Tommy. It was never about you.”

“Probably a bad idea to dig into regrets right now.” He scratched at his stubble again. “Dad stopped drinking after you left. Went cold turkey. I came home from college and all the bottles were gone.”

“Did he say why?”

“Nah, but I figured it was because of Emmy.” The smile was genuine this time. “She was like a ray of sunshine. Gave them another chance—gave all of us one, to be honest. They were so good with her. Better people. I can’t explain it, but if I didn’t love her so much, I’d be jealous.”

“They were like that with Henry. At least in the beginning.”

“No, it wasn’t the same. They didn’t worship her. They adored her. Mom even took a whole year off from school just to be with her when she was a baby.”

Jude felt herself smiling, too. “Who corrected everybody’s grammar while Myrna was gone?”

They both said the answer at the same time.

“Celia.”

Sharing a moment of laughter with her brother helped lift a little bit of weight from Jude’s chest. She was glad that Emmy had gotten a better version of Myrna and Gerald than she’d had. “Every kid gets a different set of parents, even if they grow up in the same house.”

He seemed puzzled by the insight, but then he said, “The FBI guys told me you were a shrink.”

“Criminal psychologist. And you’re a history teacher and Celia’s the principal at your high school.”

His right eyebrow arched. “Does the FBI know you’re monitoring us?”

“You put all of that on your Facebook page, Hot4Teacher81.”

He laughed. “You married? Got kids?”

“Divorced, but he was a good guy. And I was never the mother-type.” Jude looked at the doors again. The street was dark and empty. “She’s really beautiful.”

“Tough as hell,” he said. “When Emmy was little, we had to put a nightlight in her room, but not because she was afraid of the dark. The dark was afraid of her.”

“Jesus, Tommy.”

He gave a dry chuckle. “She’s so damn smart. Dad took her under his wing. Taught her how to be a cop.”

“Like he did with Henry.”

“No, I meant it when I said they were different. None of the pressure or anger. Dad was patient. Kind. Just trying to help her do something she’s naturally good at.”

Jude couldn’t wrap her head around the notion of a kind and patient Gerald. “She’s good at the job?”

“Better than him in a lot of ways because she gets that people aren’t so black and white.” He shrugged, but it was a big thing. “Her son—Cole—he’s amazing. Got his mother’s smarts and his father’s charm.”

Jude had overheard Emmy’s argument with Jonah. She wouldn’t have called that charm. “She was there when Dad was murdered.”

“They both were. Cole’s a cop, too.” Tommy’s faint smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Neither of them had the guts to go into teaching.”

Jude smiled, too, but she could see this was still a sore spot for Tommy. He was the oldest, but Henry had always been Gerald’s golden child, the one he’d trained to fill his shoes. She said, “I remember Dad telling me that he wasn’t going to waste his time teaching me to be a cop because I’d end up quitting when I got married.”

“I remember, too.” Tommy shrugged again, but she could tell he still felt the slight on her behalf. “Dad wasn’t like that with Emmy. He completely supported her. We all did. Mom watched Cole so she could go to college. Dad gave her time off from work. Celia and I helped when we could.”

“One big happy family.”

Tommy gave her a sharp look. No more smiling. “Don’t hurt her, okay?”

Jude felt a strange kind of emptiness in her body, a pull to disassociate. She’d forgotten the sensation over the decades. This family. This town. These people. Her soul held onto the memory of the pain they’d caused. Some things you could never leave behind.

The Jude back in San Francisco would’ve talked it out, but this was North Falls and she had come here for a reason. “Okay.”

Tommy nodded. “Okay.”

He left by the chapel. Jude watched until he disappeared through the door behind the lectern. Her brother would find Gerald laid out in the embalming room. Milo sitting at his desk. The disbelief on the funeral director’s face when Jude had walked into his office had been quickly replaced by wariness. She was glad for the icy reception. It told her that no matter how much time had passed, North Falls people had remained the same.

Jude stuck her hands into her jacket pockets as she left through the front doors. She was still on West Coast time, but the five-hour flight, then the three-hour drive, had taken its toll on her body. Then there was the added stress of being back in a place she used to call home.

Downtown North Falls hadn’t changed since she’d fled in the middle of the night with a stash of money and a handle of Jack Daniel’s. The storefronts had different signs, but the buildings were all the same. Low-slung, one-story shops lined either side of Main Street. The sheriff’s station was at one end. The hardware store was at the other. Jude could still remember making the trek between the two with Henry by her side. Checking to see if their father was at work, then skirting through the back alley to see if their mother’s car was parked behind the stacks of lumber where Myrna used to meet Louis Singh for after-school trysts.

Jude looked down at the sidewalk. Watched her boots hit the concrete. Tried to ground herself in the present instead of letting herself get yanked into the past. There was a long speech stuck in Jude’s head, one that she’d silently composed as she’d waited at the gate for her flight, as she’d sat on the plane beside a flirty businessman, as she’d driven down from Atlanta.

Mom, I’m not here to cause trouble. Give me this opportunity to help.

Jude knew what Alzheimer’s looked like. Natalie Daniels, Freddy Henley’s sixth victim, had been the only child of a single parent. Doug Daniels had acted as a liaison between the FBI and the families. He was a peacemaker, a gentle man, and someone whom Jude had enormously respected. She’d been one of the first people Doug had told about his diagnosis. She’d also been one of the few people who’d visited him long after he’d lost his mind. The fact that she hadn’t been able to bring Natalie home during his lifetime had been one of Jude’s greatest professional failures.

She reached into her purse for her packet of tissues. She knew she was tearing up over Doug Daniels because she couldn’t bring herself to cry for her lost mother and father.

“Martha?” Virgil Ingram was standing outside the station. He’d been looking at his phone, but he quickly tucked it into his back pocket. Virgil was at least fifteen years older than Jude. Her memories always had him in uniform standing beside Gerald. Now, he was in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. His hair had gone gray. She assumed from the muscles rippling under his clothes that he was still spending every free moment riding and showing horses.

He said, “I wondered if you’d show up.”

Jude took a deep, bracing breath. “I gather the report of my death was an exaggeration.”

“Gerald told me last year. Said you were some kind of FBI bigwig.”

She didn’t let her mind dwell on the fact that her father had relayed the information to Virgil. “I’m here to help with the Paisley Walker case.”

“They could use it. I’m technically retired. Doing PI work now. Emmy asked me to come in and help. Poor little girl vanished off the backroads. Just like the last time.” He started to explain, “There was a case—”

“I listened to the podcast. Misguided Angel?”

Virgil grunted. “Jack Whitlock is an asshole, and that was some class-A bullshit putting all the focus on Emmy. She wasn’t in charge of the case. Gerald was. And for the record, nobody was misguided. They got the right guy. You remember Adam Huntsinger? He was always rotten to the core.”

Jude knew people could say the same thing about her. She looked up at the sheriff’s station. The red brick had been painted dark gray. There was a lighted sign instead of the brass letters. “Who’s in charge now?”

“Emmy, I guess. Gerald made her chief deputy after I retired.”

“She up for it?”

“For doing the job? Definitely. She’s basically been running the shop for the past two years. Gerald was pushing her to take over, but I dunno. I don’t think she wants it. And I’m not sure the squad would accept her anyway.”

“Even though she’s been doing the job already?”

“Big difference without Gerald backstopping her.”

“A man has to prove himself once. A woman has to prove herself every day.”

He laughed. “You some kind of feminist now?”

“I’m a realist.” She nodded toward the station. “What am I going to find in there?”

“Let’s see.” He held open the door. “After you.”

Jude had spent her career walking blind into squad rooms. The smell was always the same—sweat and desperation. Usually, there was an air of hostility or resentment. For a lot of cops, calling in the FBI was a necessary evil at best and an admission of failure at worst. The fact remained that no one was ever happy to see her. She couldn’t blame them. When the FBI took over a case, the FBI got the credit. Unless the case went sideways, then the blame lay squarely on the local force.

“Holy shit,” a man said. “Dr. Archer?”

She watched him practically leap across the desks to reach her. Short hair combed to the side. Crisp white shirt. Light blue tie. American flag pin. Jude recognized the clean-cut, buttondown look of a career FBI agent. His hand was out. Jude could feel the sweat on his palm when she shook it.

“Dr. Archer, what an honor to meet you in person. I’m SA Seth Alexander.” He sounded like a breathless fanboy. “My boss told me he was sending the big guns, but I didn’t know it’d be a howitzer. Thank you so much for coming, ma’am. I saw you speak at Quantico a few years ago. I’m honored to be on your team.”

“Thank you, but I’m officially retired. I’m here in the capacity of a consultant.” Jude looked for Emmy, letting her gaze skip over Gerald’s empty office. “Where’s the acting sheriff?”

“Stepped out for a minute. You want me to locate her?”

Jude didn’t think she could handle Emmy right now. It was far easier to fall back into a familiar pattern. “Catch me up to speed first. What do we know?”

“Paisley Walker, fourteen-year-old female.” Seth led her to the back of the squad.

Jude looked down at the map of North Falls that was laid out on a desk. Circles tracked the abductor’s possible trajectory.

“Here.” Seth pointed to a red X on Coleman Avenue. “Mother says Paisley left by bike to go to school a little before seven. Around seven thirty, a witness called 911. She was here, on one of the dirt farming tracks that locals call the backroads. Caller said there was an abandoned kid’s bike. No sign of the rider. Back tire bent, chain off, blood at the scene. Local responder called the usual places, searched the family home. All came up negative.”

Jude looked at the map, though the route was already mapped out in her head. She used to ride her bike on the backroads with Henry and Tommy to fish at Millie’s pond.

She asked, “And then?”

“They talked to the parents, looked into relatives, interviewed the school staff, spoke with neighbors, canvassed the area from the house to where the bike was found. Checked dumpsters, trash cans, sewers, alleys. We’ve got the girl’s father, Elijah Walker, back in interrogation. The mother’s name is Carol. She’s at their home address. Had to be medicated, but my agent tells me she’s ready to talk.”

Jude asked, “Anybody you like for it?”

“No, ma’am,” Seth answered. “Got a wily uncle on his way over from Alabama and a Hispanic male in a black truck who did some yard work for the family four months ago. Father says he might’ve seen the same black truck the morning of the disappearance. We’re tracking the man down through a payment app.”

“You want to be careful with that.” Jude looked back at the squad room. She spotted a young deputy with his head bent over a computer. Handsome. Curly brown hair. Distinctive features. She told Seth, “Small town. People get stirred up easily.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Seth said. “You know about the officer who was murdered?”

“I do.” Jude looked away from the deputy. “Have you explored possible connections between Paisley’s disappearance and the Adam Huntsinger case?”

“Huntsinger was released from custody three days ago pending a rape charge. Should we be looking at him? Is this a serial?”

“Undetermined.” Jude didn’t like the excitement in his voice. He was thinking too much of the chase and not enough about the victims. “What else do you have?”

“We’ve got Elijah Walker’s phone.” He waved over another clean-cut, buttoned-down agent. “SA Damien Reynolds. He’s our IT guy.”

“Dr. Archer, it’s an honor,” Damien said. “One of the locals managed to get access to Elijah Walker’s phone. Texts are clean. Browser history is mostly fantasy football and porn. I need to run the software to break his WhatsApp, but his photos tell a story.”

Jude found her reading glasses in her purse. Took them out of the case. She scrolled through the photos. There had been many times during her career when Jude was acutely aware that she was the only woman in a room full of men. Now as she looked at the lewd photographs of men’s and women’s genitalia stored on Elijah Walker’s phone was definitely one of them.

Damien said, “The metadata has been scrubbed for location, but the date on all of the pictures is from last year.”

She took off her glasses. “What sort of porn was in his browser history?”

“Light bondage. Adult women. Nothing too kinky. Nothing underage or barely legal.”

“What’s the main password for the phone?”

Damien read the number from a scrap of paper. “Eight-seventwo-thirty-one-six.”

Jude told Seth, “Tell me about the parents.”

“Elijah Arnold Walker, thirty-seven, white male. Insurance broker. Church deacon. Wife is Carol Diane Walker, aged thirty-one, white female. Homemaker. Volunteers at the local charity shop three days a week. No previous marriages for either. Paisley is their only child.”

“So she was seventeen and he was twenty-three when they had Paisley,” Jude said. “Alibis?”

Seth took a moment to absorb the math. “Mother was at home. Neighbors saw her checking the mailbox after the daughter left. Father was at work all morning. Secretary was with him at his office when he got the call.”

“Take me to him.”

“Yes, ma’am. This way.”

Jude didn’t need help finding the interrogation rooms, but she was glad to let Seth take the lead. She let herself look at Gerald’s empty office. The lights were off. His desk had been turned away from the window. Another desk was pushed up against it. Jude saw a laptop, a faded photo of a boy with a mop of curly brown hair that matched the young deputy who was still bent over his computer.

The sense of unease returned to her body. Tommy had said that Gerald had changed because of Emmy. That Myrna had gotten better. That Emmy had brought a ray of sunshine into their lives. What her brother hadn’t said was the obvious: the light had only broken through after Jude’s darkness was gone.

Seth stopped outside the closed door to the first interrogation room. “You need me in there, ma’am?”

“I assume there are cameras. Watch from afar. I’ll signal if I want you.” Jude stopped him before he left. “Who’s the local who got Walker to unlock his phone?”

“Emmy Clifton. I let her take first swipe at the interview.”

Jude tried not to bristle. Getting the phone voluntarily unlocked was not inconsequential. “Did she share her impressions of Walker?”

“She said he came off as controlling and—her words, ma’am—a tight-ass. Thought he was hiding something. She flagged that he didn’t like how his daughter dressed.” Seth shrugged. “Pretty normal for a father to be worried about that. Could be Emmy was bringing in her own issues.”

“Do you know her well?” Jude saw the question in his eyes. “You keep calling her Emmy. Isn’t she the acting sheriff?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t know her, but she is the acting sheriff.” He had the sense to look apologetic. The FBI had a strict code of conduct that Jude usually didn’t give a shit about. “I’m hearing Sheriff Clifton was really close to her father. Didn’t make a move without him. Maybe her own feelings are clouding her judgment.”

“Are you saying she’s not up for the job?”

“She’s been chief deputy for a while, but I gather from some of the locals that her father did all the heavy lifting. She screwed up the Adam Huntsinger case. Probably in over her head again.” He smoothed down his tie. He was nervous, trying to redeem himself. “Kind of strange her father’s dead and she’s still working like it didn’t happen.”

“I find it commendable. It takes a lot of character to push aside your own grief and search for a missing child.”

“You’re right, ma’am.” Seth smoothed his tie again. “Don’t know what I’d do if my dad was murdered right in front of me.”

“I would hope that you would keep your head down and do your job.”

Jude opened the door to the interrogation room. There was a split second when she felt like she’d walked through a portal back in time. Jude was thirteen again, pacing the room as she played both good cop and bad cop to Henry’s master criminal.

Then she blinked and there was just an angry, middle-aged man about to yell at her.

“What the hell is going on here?” Elijah Walker had clearly been waiting to explode. He pushed his chair back from the table. His face was red with rage. “It’s the middle of the night. I should be with my wife right now. Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Dr. Jude Archer. I’m working in the capacity of a consultant with the FBI.” She tapped the password into his phone, showed him one of the many lewd photos from last year. “Is this your penis?”

The man went completely still. He wasn’t even breathing.

Jude repeated, “Is this your penis?”

“How did you—” Elijah tried to grab the phone away, but Jude pressed it to her chest. “Sit down, Mr. Walker.”

He looked like he wanted to hit her, but eventually, slowly, he sat down at the table. “How did you get into my phone?”

“The phone you unlocked and handed to the acting sheriff?”

“That stupid bitch had no right to look at anything other than my CashApp.”

Jude asked, “To whom were you sending penis photos?”

He shook his head. “I’m not—”

She showed him another photo, this one of a woman. “Whose vagina is this?”

Elijah stared at her with open hatred. “This is ludicrous. You’re wasting time.”

Jude pulled out the other chair. She sat across from him at the table. Took a moment to look at him. Elijah’s hair was oily. His skin was slick with sweat. He was pasty-white but for his face, which was so red against his neck that he resembled a cherry lollipop. “Mr. Walker, I’ve asked you two simple questions. Are you refusing to answer?”

His teeth were clenched. She could see a vein pulsing under his eye. “I told you. That has nothing to do with Paisley.”

“Were you having an affair?”

He said nothing.

“Were you having multiple affairs?” Jude put on her glasses and scrolled through more of the photos. “Looks like the same vagina to me. That’s an interesting birthmark on the inside of her thigh.”

“Stop it!” Elijah banged his fist on the table. She could tell he was used to weaponizing his anger. It probably worked with the women in his life, but it wasn’t going to work with her.

“Mr. Walker, you absolutely have a right to remain silent.” Jude stood up. “We’re doing a press conference at seven thirty to ask the public for information on the whereabouts of your daughter. I can put the question about the woman’s identity to the public.”

“What the fuck?” Elijah’s voice raked up. “You can’t do that, you goddam bitch.”

“I can and I will.” She reached for the door handle.

“Wait.”

Jude leaned her back against the door. She studied his face again. The color had drained, leaving a stark white. His eyes shifted as he tried to figure a way out of this. Emmy was right that Elijah Walker was someone who felt the need to control. Jude had pulled the world out from under him by taking away his power. Now, it was time to give him some of it back. She looked at his hands. His left index finger was calloused at the bend of the first knuckle.

She asked, “Are you a fly fisherman?”

He was clearly thrown by the question. “What?”

“The callus on your finger looks like it’s from line burn. My brother used to get cut in the exact same spot when he was float fishing downriver on the Flint.” Again, Jude repeated herself. “Are you a fly fisherman?”

Elijah looked at his index finger as if he’d never seen it before. “Yes.”

“Then you know what it’s like to cast a hundred different times into a hundred different spots hoping to catch something.” Jude crossed her arms. “That’s what we do when a child is abducted, Mr. Walker. We cast hundreds of lines in hundreds of directions, and we hope we catch something. These photos on your phone. They could be a fish or they could be some trash caught on the line. You can either waste my time tracking it down or you can tell me the truth.”

“They’re trash,” he said. “That’s all it is.”

“You’re having an affair.”

He shook his head. “It’s not an affair.”

“Is she a sex worker? Are you paying her?”

He leaned his head into his hand, his fingers shielding his eyes.

Jude silently waited for him either to give another excuse or give up a name. Elijah dragged out the time. She listened to the muffled ringing of the phones in the squad room. The clock on the wall was coming up on three-forty in the morning. Jude knew the statistics on child abductions, the difference in odds of survival if a parent was involved versus a stranger. This wasn’t the first time she’d been alone in a room with a possible predator, but it was one of those rare moments when her gut wasn’t giving her the answer.

She silently reviewed the facts of the case so far. Jude’s instinct wasn’t clouded by being back in North Falls. It had nothing to do with Tommy or Emmy or even her parents. Adam Huntsinger’s release changed the equation. The abandoned bike on the backroads. The bent rear tire. Chain hanging off. Blood at the scene. Jude wasn’t one to believe that there were no coincidences in policing, but she knew damn well that there were no coincidences in North Falls.

Elijah drew in a sharp breath. “I haven’t seen her in months, okay? I stopped. The guilt was too much.”

“How did you meet her?”

“Online,” he said. “We were both on a dating site. I can’t remember the name of it.”

Jude nodded. “Okay.”

“I was clear up front that I was married. That I would never leave my wife.” He started to shake his head. “I thought she was interested in me, but then she started talking about money. Her first name is Trixie. I never got her last name. It was just a few times.”

“How did you arrange to meet?”

“She had me download WhatsApp. That’s how we communicated. We sent pictures at first, then we met in person.” He heaved out a breath, as if the admission was tearing him apart. “I promise, it was only a few times. I stopped seeing her three or four months ago. It’s like I told you. Like I told her. I would never leave my wife. I love Carol. I love my family.”

“Where did you meet to have sex?”

“A hotel in Clayville. The Dew Drop Inn.”

Jude knew the place from her misspent youth. Elijah Walker must’ve stood out like a Mormon missionary. “That’s a shifty part of town for someone like you to be in. Do you enjoy taking risks?”

“It wasn’t—” He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Carol isn’t adventurous. We’ve been married a long time.”

“What was Trixie giving you? Are we talking kink? Bondage?”

“No, always vanilla.”

“How much did she charge?”

“Four-fifty for two hours, plus the cost of the room.”

Jude shifted tenses to the present. “Do you give the money to her directly, or is there an intermediary?”

“I leave cash on the dresser, then I take a shower, then when I come out of the bathroom, she starts the clock.” He sat up in his chair, straightening his shoulders. “The last time was months ago. I haven’t had any contact with her since.”

“Do you know what kind of car she drives?”

He shook his head. “I never noticed.”

“Did she mention hobbies or anything to do with her family?”

“I don’t know anything about her.” He kept shaking his head. “I wasn’t paying to hear her whine about her kids or her problems. I was there for me. Only for me.”

“What’s the password for your WhatsApp?”

“I don’t know. I told you, I haven’t logged into it in months. I only downloaded it because she told me to.”

“Mr. Walker, do you have any idea where Paisley is right now?”

“No. I promise on my life.” He finally looked at her. “Please, I’m begging you to let this go. It has nothing to do with Paisley.”

“Wait here.” Jude walked into the hallway and closed the door behind her. Seth was already coming out of the old storage closet. She could see the glow of monitors on a desk, two chairs crammed in front of them.

Seth said, “That detail about fly fishing was very impressive.”

“Sheriff Clifton’s read was accurate. He’s hiding something.” Jude handed him the phone. “Tell Damien we need this cracked open pronto. I want you to send a team with Walker’s photo to the Dew Drop Inn to see if they remember him. You need to bring in Walker’s secretary. Knock on her door. Wake her up. She’s his alibi for yesterday morning. I want to know if she’s sleeping with him. If she’s not, I’m sure she has an inkling about who Walker has been stepping out with.”

“You mean Trixie?”

“That’s not the name she gave him,” Jude said. “It’ll be something like Ashley or Katie. Four hundred and fifty bucks for two hours is a girlfriend experience. He spends ten minutes screwing her, then the rest of the time talking about how his life is hard and his wife doesn’t understand him.”

Seth looked more surprised than he should have.

“The escort will have an agency that screens all of her clients. They’re the ones Walker is paying. We need to comb through his credit card receipts and all his payment apps. There has to be a trail. He didn’t find this woman on a dating website. Or the man, for that matter. That’s clearly not Elijah Walker’s penis.”

Seth’s eyebrows shot up. “Ma’am?”

“Walker’s hands, neck and face are pale. Unless he’s going to a tanning booth and only sunning his genitals and stomach, that’s not his penis.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Seth took the phone. “You think Walker’s being blackmailed?”

Jude had seen Paisley’s photo on the bulletin back in San Francisco. “His daughter is an attractive young blonde.”

“Yeah.” Seth no longer looked surprised. He’d heard of child sex-trafficking, at least. “What you said about a press conference at seven thirty. I’m sorry, but I didn’t realize you’d already set that up. Are you going to make an appeal?”

“I was bluffing, but I want you to set it up anyway. Seven thirty will give the national media four hours to make it down from Atlanta. This will be your show.” Jude didn’t want to be the face of the investigation. “Make sure you thank Sheriff Clifton and the local forces for their cooperation. Tell the media we’re following leads. Ask for any witnesses to come forward. Give out the number for the tip line.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m going to talk to the mother. Carol Walker might know what her husband’s been up to.” Jude started to leave, but then she thought of something. “I need you to print out two photos from Elijah’s collection. One of each, full size, in color.”

He looked shocked. “You’re going to show them to his wife?”

“Sweetheart, you need to understand that I’m not here to hold hands and tiptoe around feelings. I’m going to do whatever it takes to bring a fourteen-year-old girl home.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll get an agent to drive you to the Walker house.”

“No, I’ll catch a ride from the sheriff.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Chapter Twelve

Emmy sat in the dark inside the jail complex. Her leg had finally stopped shaking, but that was only because the muscles had burned themselves out. As the hands on the clock circled up to four in the morning, she’d felt every single tick draining the life out of her. There was nothing left to give. All she could do was stare at the bank of video monitors in front of her. Twelve different cameras on the men’s side. Eight on the women’s.

Paul Dalrymple was being held in isolation for his own protection. He’d been pacing his cell when Emmy had first relieved the jail monitor. Now, his fists were wrapped around the bars. He was gently tapping his forehead against the steel. Sweat had saturated his black and white striped uniform. Vomit stained the front. They’d had to call maintenance for his clogged toilet. He was going through alcohol withdrawal. They should probably call a doctor, too, but Emmy wasn’t in the mood to help the man responsible for the death of her father.

She let her gaze travel to the lower right monitor. Hannah was also alone in a cell, but that was because she was on suicide watch. She hadn’t moved from her cot since Emmy had walked into the monitoring station. She was lying on her side, curled into a fetal position. Her head was down, but Emmy could see Hannah’s shoulders shaking as she sobbed. Emmy’s heart broke for her. She wanted to go into the cell, to hold her, to tell her that everything was going to be all right.

In truth, she wanted Hannah to do the same for her.

There had been so many times in the past twelve years that Emmy had ached for the comfort of their friendship. When Myrna had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. When she’d really started to decline. Then Gerald’s lung cancer. Then the liver cancer. And now this insanity with her older sister suddenly back in town less than twenty-four hours after their father had been shot dead in the street.

Hannah had been the one person in Emmy’s life who’d told her that the Clifton craziness wasn’t normal. That the things all of them had witnessed but none of them ever talked about, like Gerald’s past alcoholism or Myrna’s sporadic affairs or Millie’s kleptomania or Taybee’s OCD or this cousin’s hoarding or that cousin’s gambling or that uncle’s weird obsession with collecting the stickers that were put on fruit was actually so very fucked up.

Emmy looked at her phone on the desk in front of her. When Gerald had first revealed that Martha was alive, Emmy had done every kind of legal search possible on Martha Judean Clifton. It had never occurred to her that her sister would start using her middle name, just like it had never occurred to her that Martha might’ve gotten married and changed her last name. Emmy had been typing in a fresh search when Seth Alexander had done the work for her. His text had been practically giddy—

Can you believe how lucky we are? She literally wrote the book!

He’d provided a link to the book in question.

Statistical Comparisons of Investigatory Modalities in Child Abductions and Kidnappings (Rev. 2022) by J.M. Archer, PhD.

Emmy already knew the scholarly work. She’d used an earlier version to write her dissertation.

“Mom?” Cole was standing in the doorway, which was the downside of the entire family having Life360 on their phones. His eyes went straight to the monitor in the bottom right corner. Hannah had continued her relationship with Cole because she loved him and it wasn’t his fault his mother was a terrible friend. Emmy could read every emotion on her son’s face. And then she could read nothing, because she had raised him to be as stunted as the rest of his family.

He said, “The FBI sent a woman to take over. She’s pretty badass. I overheard one of the agents talking about how she caught a serial killer.”

Emmy took a deep breath. “What’s she doing?”

“Interrogating Elijah Walker. Maybe she’ll get something out of him.”

Emmy made herself let go of the breath. She couldn’t add this extra level of stress right now. She had to keep her focus on finding Paisley Walker. “He remember anything else on the truck?”

Cole leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb. “Nothing, but he kept hitting on how Paisley was dressed when she left the house. Told me he forbade her to wear leggings without putting on a skirt or shorts over them. Said that I knew the reason why, which I took to mean because men are disgusting.”

“Does that strike you as strange? Him going on about what she wore?”

“Seems more strange that he’s using it as a way to blame his daughter for her own kidnapping.” Cole shrugged. “Did Papa care how you dressed?”

“It was usually Grandma yelling at me to wear something other than jeans and a T-shirt.”

Cole’s smile didn’t last more than a second. “Dad texted me.”

Emmy had almost forgotten about the fight with Jonah. She watched Cole lean over to place his phone on the table beside hers. She looked at the text.

Tell your mother your welcome for not having her arrested for assault.

“He’s always struggled with contractions.” Emmy guessed turning into Myrna was the shit frosting on yet another shit cake. “Baby, sometimes, when somebody dies, it brings up a lot of unresolved stuff.”

“Are you talking about Jonah or you?”

He was too clever, her son. “Don’t call him Jonah. He’s still your father.”

“Did you know he gave Adam Huntsinger a job at the bar?”

Emmy had to swallow down the words that wanted to come. “Everybody’s gotta work somewhere.”

“Okay.” Cole grabbed his phone and started to leave.

“Hold up. Sit with me for a minute.”

Cole was visibly reluctant, but he did as he was told. “What is it?”

Emmy felt her resolve start to crumble, but there was no way around this. She didn’t want her son blindsided the way she’d been. Still, there was no easy way to say it. “I don’t have the energy for subterfuge, so I’m just going to be blunt about this. Your aunt Martha is alive. She’s the FBI agent who had Seth Alexander jumping around. She’s calling herself Jude Archer now, but it’s her.”

Cole said nothing, but his shock flashed like a neon sign.

“Papa told me and Tommy about her last year.” Emmy knew she was throwing too much on him at once. She gave him a few seconds to catch up. “After your uncle Henry drowned in the river, Martha went off the rails. Started drinking and drugging. Then she started stealing things to support her habit. Eventually, she stole your great-aunt Millie’s car. Got drunk. Nearly killed somebody on the highway. The other driver is fine now, but he was in the hospital for a week. A lot of people were angry. Martha ended up leaving town in the middle of the night. Never looked back.”

Cole shook his head like he didn’t understand. “But why did Papa say she was dead?”

“Because there were people in town who wanted her charged for the car accident.” Emmy could still see his confusion. “Baby, this was over forty years ago. There was no internet. Nobody had computers. Every police report or complaint was written on a sheet of paper that could be shoved in the back of a filing cabinet or thrown away. Your great-uncle was the county prosecutor. Your other great-uncle was the circuit judge. Aunt Millie was editor in chief of the Herald. Uncle Penley was the mayor. If Gerald Clifton said his daughter died in a car accident up in Memphis, then everybody accepted that his daughter had died in a car accident up in Memphis.”

“Okay.” Cole was clearly tapping the weak spots. “What about the funeral?”

“Papa told everybody she was cremated. There wasn’t a funeral. Tommy was away at college. I was still a baby so I had no idea what was going on. Millie was furious about her car. She shut down the cousins. It didn’t take much effort. Jude had burned a lot of bridges.”

Emmy gave him another moment to think. She skipped ahead to the next question she knew he would ask. “Obviously, your grandma knew the truth. That’s one of the reasons Papa told us. Grandma kept saying Martha was still alive. Papa thought it was wrong for us to keep insisting she was dead. And I guess Papa wanted us to know, too. This was around the time he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The prognosis wasn’t good even then. He said he didn’t want his ghosts turning into our demons.”

Cole kept tapping. “Why didn’t she come home before now?”

“I can take a guess,” Emmy said. “She told Papa she wouldn’t step foot back in Clifton County until he was dead.”

Cole’s jawbone stuck out again. He’d always been protective of his grandfather. “What did Tommy say?”

“That stuff was more complicated than Papa was letting on, but he kept those complications to himself.” Emmy knew this was the least surprising part of the story. “Anyway, Papa said he made a lot of mistakes back then.”

“‘Mistakes can give you a reason to forgive.’”

He was quoting Gerald. Emmy bit her lip so that she wouldn’t tear up again.

Cole asked, “Why didn’t anybody tell me about this before?”

“Because—” Emmy knew the levers she could pull right now to shut down further lines of enquiry. They were the same levers Gerald had pulled, the same ones Tommy swung on like a monkey, and she wasn’t going to weaponize them against her son. “Because we’re all cowards who refuse to talk about things that upset us.”

Cole gave a startled bark of a laugh. “That sounds about right.”

Emmy let out another long breath. She’d reached her limit of uncowardly gestures. “Did you give your statement about Papa’s shooting to Sherry Robertson?”

He took a moment to adjust to the abrupt change in subject. “Yeah, but she keeps asking me about the gun. I told her I couldn’t see who was holding it.”

“That’s what I told her, too.” Emmy took a quick breath. “I want you to go with me to interview Carol Walker. We need to see if she’s remembered anything.”

“I’m ready.”

“Hold up. I want you to do something else first.” Emmy nodded toward the monitors. She didn’t know if she was doing this for Dylan or for herself, but at this point, it didn’t matter. “Go back to the women’s isolation block and let your aunt Hannah see you at the door. Stand at the glass, but don’t go inside. That way your face isn’t on the cameras. Then you can meet me outside and we’ll go to the Walkers’ house.”

He looked uncomfortable. “What if she tries to talk to me?”

“Just smile or wave or whatever you feel like. Then walk away. Okay?”

He clearly had questions, but her son had inherited the coward gene, too. “Okay.”

Emmy tracked his progress on the monitors as he secured his Glock in the lockers that lined the hallway, then went inside the jail complex. She started to stand, but someone was blocking the doorway.

Jude said, “He’s a nice-looking kid.”

Emmy felt her teeth grinding together. She wondered if her jawbone stuck out the same way Cole’s did. She said, “I hear you’re taking over my case.”

“I’m only here to consult, and you’re still in charge, sheriff.”

Emmy’s jaw started to ache. “I’m the chief deputy.”

“Which means you’re the acting sheriff now that Gerald is gone. You need to make sure people know that you’re in charge.”

“You need to stick your advice up your ass.” Emmy could tell the punch hadn’t landed. “Does the FBI know you’re an alcoholic?”

“Yes.”

“And a coke head?”

“Coke is fantastic, but alcohol was my problem.” Jude leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb the same way Cole had. “I disclosed everything as part of my background check. I’ve been sober for thirty-nine years and two months.”

“Hurray for you.” Emmy pointed toward the doorway. “Why don’t you stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.”

“Elijah Walker’s been cheating on his wife.”

Emmy struggled to keep her expression neutral. “He told you that?”

“I told him that.” Jude slid a large envelope from her suede purse. She pulled out two printed photos, held them up for Emmy to see. “These were on his phone.”

To say Emmy was caught off guard would’ve been to say the last twenty-four hours had been taxing. It wasn’t primarily the photos, but the fact that Emmy was standing inside the jail where her ex-best friend was being held for murder and her dead sister was showing her a dick pic and a split beaver like she was bragging about her European vacation.

Jude asked, “What do you see?”

“Well—” Emmy was still thrown. “I don’t—I mean—that’s not Elijah’s, unless it was back when he was going to the gym every day and spraying himself with bronzer.”

“Good. What else?”

Emmy didn’t want to, but she looked closer. “It’d be easy enough to see if he’s got that mole right below his belly button. It’s possible he’s bisexual, but my guess is he took a screen shot of somebody else’s penis and passed it off as his own.”

“That’s my guess, too. What about this one?” Jude handed her the woman’s photo. “Elijah says he met this woman on a website. He says she gave the name Trixie, and that she charges four-fifty for two hours.”

“Uh—” Emmy blinked her eyes. She felt as if she was being tested. “Trixie has to be a working name, but it doesn’t jibe with the cost. That’s twelve times what the girls charge at the truck stop. The butterfly birthmark could help identify her, but the Brazilian is your best lead. There’s two places in town that do that kind of waxing: Sugar Babies at the outlet mall and Peggy Ingram’s place.”

“Peggy Ingram,” Jude repeated. “She took over her mother’s business?”

“Yes and no.” Emmy handed back the photo. “She moved the salon out of the basement when Virgil retired. He’s a private investigator. Needs a discreet place to meet with clients. Peggy took over the storefront across from the hardware store.”

“Where the cobbler used to be?”

“Sure, right beside the baker and the candlestick maker.”

Jude’s smile acknowledged the joke. “Text Peggy. See if she remembers a customer with that birthmark.”

Emmy looked at her watch. Then she looked again, because this had been one of the longest days of her life. “It’s almost four-thirty in the morning. The sun’s not even up.”

“Peggy will read it when she wakes up.” Jude turned to look behind her. Cole had stopped in the hallway. “You must be my nephew.”

Cole looked at Emmy, then at Jude. “You must be my dead aunt.”

“Jude Archer.” She slid the photos back into the envelope before he could see them. “Cole, why don’t you ride with us to Carol Walker’s house?”

Cole looked at Emmy again. He was waiting for her answer. So was Jude. There were a lot of things Emmy could’ve said in this moment, but none of them would help bring Paisley Walker home. Jude had been in town for an hour and she’d already gotten more out of Elijah Walker than Emmy had. This wasn’t the time to open up new wounds. If Paisley had been abducted by one of her parents, she could still be alive.

Emmy said, “Let’s go.”

They walked single file out to the parking lot. The moon was waning in the sky. The parking lot lights felt angry as they held back the dark dome of black. Emmy started the text to Peggy Ingram. She nearly broke her brain trying to figure out how to phrase the question. Peggy was a soft, grandmotherly type. Then again, she waxed genitals in the back room of her salon. There probably wasn’t much that would shock her.

Sorry to bother you, but I have a weird question about a possible waxing client of yours who has a butterfly-shaped birthmark on the inside of her left thigh. Brazilian. Bleached strip of hair. Probably Caucasian. Can you help? I have a photo but not sure you want to see it?

Jude asked, “Which ride is yours?”

Emmy gave her a giant clue by getting into the cruiser parked in the spot marked Chief Deputy Clifton. She cranked the engine. Jude climbed into the passenger’s seat. Cole slipped into the back. The bright light of his phone illuminated his face as he typed on the screen.

Jude flipped down the visor so she could look at him in the mirror. “Sweetheart, are you googling me?”

Emmy caught Cole’s flash of guilt in the rear-view.

“Mom,” he said. “It says she captured Freddy Henley.”

Emmy had watched the Pinnacles Killer docuseries with Dylan last year. “There were no women on that case.”

Jude said, “Not every cop wants to be interviewed.”

Emmy turned onto Main Street. “Especially if they’re supposed to be dead.”

“True, but he would’ve stopped talking to me if I’d become more famous than he was.” Jude looked back at Cole in the mirror. “Maps and mistakes. That’s what caught Freddy Henley. That’s what catches a lot of these guys. Ted Bundy was stopped on a moving violation. Son of Sam got a parking ticket. BTK used the wrong computer. It’s not that investigators are particularly clever. It’s that the bad guys panic and make stupid mistakes.”

Emmy could tell she had Cole’s interest. He asked, “What about the map part?”

“Freddy’s third victim was abducted inside Pinnacles National Park. The rest were abducted from areas around UC Santa Barbara, which has one of the top geology departments in the country. Pinnacles is a remarkable geological site. The park is split in two by rock formations. There’s a west gate and east gate, but the roads don’t connect. The caves on the east side are closed to protect the bat population, but the ones on the west side are open. You following?”

“Yes.” Cole wasn’t just following. He was hanging on her every word. “The west side is more isolated.”

“Right, so if you want to hide a body, you choose the west entrance. The parking area leads to flat hiking trails. Easier to get in and out, lots of cover, less effort on your part. From mid June to early September, it’s too hot to climb, which means the west area is sparsely populated, but you don’t want to be the only person there, right?”

“Right,” Cole agreed.

“I checked the weather patterns, figured out the best months and times to visit, cross-referenced those times to the abductions, then talked to every person who had a connection to both the university and the park who’d visited during the optimal time periods going back to the late eighties.”

Cole looked astonished. He’d done his share of door knocking on patrol. “How many people was that?”

“Nine hundred and twenty-eight.”

“You talked to all of them?”

“I got lucky at 649.” Jude’s smile said there was a hell of a lot more to the story. “One day, I knocked on Freddy’s door and he confessed.”

“Just like that?”

“A little like that.” Jude hedged. “It’s lonely being a serial killer. There’s not a lot of people they can talk to about their hobbies.”

Emmy saw the corner of Cole’s mouth lift in a smile.

He asked, “Are you a profiler?”

“The Behavioral Sciences Unit already had its token number of women when I joined. I’m a criminal psychologist. My focus is on missing and kidnapped children. It’s your turn, sweetheart. Paisley Walker. I’ve already got the timeline. What do we think we know?”

Emmy felt gut-punched by the question, which she’d only ever heard from her father.

Cole didn’t skip a beat. “Paisley’s kidnapping is similar to the kidnapping of Cheyenne Baker, which is linked to the kidnapping of Madison Dalrymple. Abandoned bike on the backroads. Damaged rear tire. Blood at the scene.”

“Are we sure Paisley was kidnapped?” Jude asked. “Technically, a kidnapping occurs when a child is separated from his or her parent. An abduction is when the child is removed and held against their will.”

Emmy bit her lip. She didn’t need this woman schooling her son.

Cole asked, “Are you saying maybe the parents took her?”

“The father was having an affair. The mother could’ve staged the kidnapping for revenge. Or Elijah could’ve staged it to give himself leverage over Carol. Or there could be someone else in the father’s life who took her.”

Cole started nodding his head. Emmy felt her eyes wanting to roll. This woman was some kind of witch. Fewer than five minutes had passed, and Cole was already in her thrall.

Cole asked, “What if it’s a serial killer, though?”

Jude said, “If the same perpetrator abducted three children, then we might be looking at a serial offender. In those cases, the victims tell us who the perpetrator is.”

Emmy had heard enough of this horseshit. “We already looked for links between all three victims. There were no overlaps.”

“The bike? Bent tire? Blood at the scene?”

“Coincidences, not proof.”

“I’ve spent my entire career trying to bring lost children home to their parents,” Jude said. “If it’s the same perpetrator, there’s always an overlap. You just haven’t found it.”

“All right, Dr. Archer,” Emmy said. “You’re the expert. Tell me the overlap.”

“I haven’t reviewed the original case files, but my starting point would be controlling parents.”

Emmy laughed. “Welcome to the club. There’s gonna be a million more kidnappings if that’s the criteria. Cole, don’t get into any white vans.”

“Good advice in general, but the thing about controlling parents is that they are teaching their children how to be controlled,” Jude said. “If all three girls are victims of the same serial predator, then it’s someone in or around Clifton. Someone trusted or who’s in authority. Someone hiding in plain sight who has a history of pedophilia.”

“Wow that really narrows it down. A pedophile. We’ve already checked all the registered sex offenders. That still leaves about 20,000 suspects in the county.”

“Around ninety-four percent of sexual abuse offenders are men.”

Emmy wasn’t going to give her the high horse on statistics, even if she wrote the damn book. “Okay, so roughly half the population is female. That leaves around 10,000 male suspects.”

“Pedophiles tend to rape within their own demographic. A white child is more likely to be assaulted by a white male.”

“Sure, good point. The county’s sixty-five percent white. Now we’re at 7,000 suspects.”

“Offenders tend to be involved in jobs or volunteer organizations that put them in contact with potential victims.”

“Okay, so let’s assume a third of the number. We’re still at nearly 2,500 white men.”

“To accurately profile a killer, you need the victim’s body. Were you at the autopsies on Baker and Dalrymple?”

Emmy felt gut-punched again. The question sent her back to the autopsy suite at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation headquarters. Madison laid out on the stainless-steel table. The sheet pulled away. Her small body exposed to the harsh lights. Her hands and feet grotesquely misshapen where the bones had been shattered. The medical examiner had explained to Emmy that the skin was black because Madison had bled internally for hours.

She cleared her throat. “I was there.”

“I’m sorry.” Jude had picked up on her shift in mood. “I’ve never witnessed an autopsy on a victim who was known to me. That must’ve been difficult.”

Emmy didn’t want her compassion. “What’s your question?”

“Were the bones in the hands and feet systematically broken or randomly broken?”

Emmy felt a lump in her throat. She had known Madison’s hand was broken when she’d held it in the pond, but she hadn’t understood the extent of the damage until she’d seen the X-rays. “Systematic. Every bone was shattered up and down her hands and feet.”

“Can we assume the perpetrator has medical knowledge?”

“We can assume he has hands and feet,” Emmy countered. “It’s not a mystery where the bones are.”

“But the breaks weren’t random and frenzied.” Jude’s measured calmness was grating. “The perpetrator is someone who’s careful and controlled. At the very least, a skilled worker.”

“Sounds like every guy at the factory. Except most of them are from North Africa. There’s a refugee center over in Clayville.”

“They were all from Cambodia when I was here.” Jude turned her face toward the window, but not before Emmy caught her pensive look.

Emmy wasn’t going to let her recover. “What was the point of that exercise?”

“If this is a serial, the predator is likely a white man who works in a skilled position that requires some education and discipline. His job takes him into frequent contact with children. He’s well respected in the community. He’s likely a family man, but that’s only to give himself cover for his crimes. He works very hard to present as normal, but only in service of hiding his crimes.”

Emmy scoffed. “No wonder they didn’t want you in profiling. Adam Huntsinger wasn’t any of those things.”

“There’s always a lot of pressure when a child goes missing. With two abducted, you can get lost in the urgency. Mistakes get made.” Jude turned back to her. “Are you sure it’s Adam?”

“I’m sure I’m not going to let you disparage my father’s police work.”

“Nonetheless.” Jude turned away again. “We’ve narrowed it down from 20,000 suspects to roughly 2,500, which is much more manageable, don’t you think?”

Emmy wasn’t going to give her an inch. “Trust me, you don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now.”

“The Walkers are up on the right.”

Emmy felt her teeth grit. She knew where the damn house was. She nosed the cruiser into the curb, stopping short of the mailbox. Someone had painted the family name on the side.

The Walkers’

Jude said, “Does no one understand possessive apostrophes anymore?”

Emmy heard Cole’s laughter from the back seat. Listening to this woman run down a case like Gerald was bad enough. Hearing her snipe about punctuation like Myrna was hell on earth.

“Cole,” Emmy said. “Call the station. See if they’ve got an ETA on the brother driving over from Alabama. I don’t want to be surprised.”

“Yes, chief.”

Jude started to get out of the car, but not before turning back toward Cole. “Sweetheart, I know it’s hard, but you should call her sheriff now.”

The door closed before Emmy could correct her. She had to unwrap her fingers from the steering wheel before she could get out. She looked at Jude over the top of the cruiser. “You can stop your Socratic method with my son. He knows how to be a cop, and he knows what to call me.”

She gave a curt nod. “Understood.”

Cole started to get out of the back. Emmy closed the door, trapping him inside. She told Jude, “I wanna make this clear in case you’re not seeing it. I don’t want you here, and the only reason I’m putting up with your presence is because you seem to know what you’re doing. The minute you stop being valuable is the minute you’re off this case.”

Jude nodded. “Okay.”

“Don’t okay me like you’re part of my family,” Emmy said. “You just bragged about spending forty years trying to bring lost children home to their parents, but it never once occurred to you to bring your own ass home?”

Jude said, “Twenty-seven years.”

“What?”

“That’s how long I worked at the agency. Twenty-seven years. Not forty.”

Emmy opened the door for Cole, then walked toward the Walkers’ house.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Thirteen

Carol Walker opened the front door with a string of rosary beads in her hand. She blinked in the darkness before remembering to turn on the porch light. Her movements were slow and careful, as if every gesture was designed to draw the least amount of attention. Jude’s gut signaled this was probably not a parent abduction. The woman was too cowed. Grief and worry hadn’t worn her down overnight. She had the demeanor of someone who’d spent her entire life being told that she was wrong. The only way Carol Walker would ever leave her husband was on a stretcher or in a hearse.

“Ma’am,” Emmy said. “I’m sorry, we don’t have any news about Paisley. You remember my son, Deputy Clifton. This is Jude Archer. She’s with the FBI.”

Carol’s slow nod made it clear she’d only heard the first part about Paisley. She was no longer drugged, but her eyes had a glassy quality. She worked her rosary beads with the furtiveness of a trapped bird as she led them into the living room.

Jude studied her from behind. The time was coming up on five in the morning and Carol was wearing white leggings under a long denim skirt that looked like it had been slept in. So did her white blouse with lace trim along the collar and the cuffs of the long sleeves. The fussy living room complemented the old-fashioned look with its floral patterns, glass figurines, and doilies. The temperature was too hot. The lights too bright. No dust was visible. Everything was in its place. Appearances were clearly important to the woman. Jude’s guess was that Carol probably knew that her husband strayed, just like she was probably too afraid to confront him over it. The only question now was whether or not she knew the name of her husband’s mistress.

Emmy had clearly made the same assessments. She had zeroed in on the array of family photographs hanging on the wall behind the couch. Different sizes, shapes, frames, colors. They were all centered around a giant cross with Jesus carved in full, three-dimensional color. His head hung down, the blood from the crown of thorns rendered in bright red rivulets on either side of his pained face.

This was definitely not a family that would consider divorce as an option.

“Is Elijah—” Carol’s voice was timid. “Is he okay? I called up to the station, but they said he couldn’t talk to me, and he didn’t answer his cell phone.”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s been really helpful. All he wants to do is find Paisley.” Emmy turned toward the back of the house. “Is someone here?”

“Father Nate,” Carol said. “He’s making tea.”

Jude offered, “I’ll give him a hand.”

She didn’t wait for permission, nor did she need directions. Her great-uncle Constantine had designed the houses in this part of North Falls. He hadn’t been a good architect so much as a good salesman. The Walkers had benefited from the upgraded window package that kept the house from feeling like an underground bunker. The overhead lights were on in the kitchen. Dawn gave the backyard a purple undertone. Father Nate Trask was putting the kettle on the stove. He nearly dropped it when he saw Jude.

“You were supposed to be dead.”

She shrugged. “They said the same thing to Jesus.”

“I see you still have that nasty mouth,” he said. “Why are you here? This family has been through enough. I won’t let you cause trouble.”

“I’m here to bring Paisley Walker home.” Jude still had her old business cards. She reached into her purse and slapped one on the counter. “Where were you yesterday morning, Father?”

He made a show of leaning down to look at the card rather than touch it. “Judas betrayed Jesus.”

“Thanks for the breaking news. Where were you yesterday morning?”

He puffed up in outrage. “What are you implying?”

“There’s no implication. I’m explicitly asking you for an alibi.”

“Father.” Emmy had sneaked up behind Jude. “Carol needs you. I’ll bring through the tea.”

Jude returned the priest’s scalding look as he passed by.

Emmy said, “Virgil just called. Highway Patrol lost Carol’s brother. They’re trying to find his car again.”

Jude nodded, though Nate had managed to snap her equilibrium. She looked for concrete objects around the kitchen to bring her back into the present: the Cuisinart food processer, the Keurig coffee maker, another 3-D Jesus hanging on the wall with family photos arrayed like a Venn diagram. She felt her heart rate return to normal.

“That’s the brother. Reggie McAllister.”

Jude didn’t bother with her reading glasses. Reggie stood with his arm around Paisley. They had the same blond hair and blue eyes, though Reggie’s prison tattoos were a stark contrast to the girl’s white Communion dress.

Emmy turned the knob on the stove. The gas caught under the kettle. She leaned her hip against the counter. “Why were you going at Father Nate?”

“Spite,” Jude admitted. “Seems I’ve fallen back into old patterns.”

“Elijah probably keeps beer in the fridge if you want one.”

“Jack was my drink, but thank you.” Jude opened the cabinets in search of teabags. She’d had quite enough of Emmy’s bitchiness. “If this is an acquaintance abduction, it’s through the father’s illicit contacts.”

“Yep.” Emmy said. “I sent Cole to poke around the parents’ bedroom. Maybe Elijah left some phone numbers in his pockets.”

“You’re doing a good job with him. He’s a smart kid.”

“I’m not looking for your approval.” Emmy opened a cabinet above the stove. She found the box of teabags and shook it like she’d won a trophy. “What’s your beef with Father Nate?”

“He’s a priest in a time when priests have lost the benefit of the doubt,” Jude said. “Also, he’s an asshole.”

Emmy shrugged as if to concede the point.

Jude asked, “Did Nate have any contact with the previous victims?”

“The Bakers were staunch Catholics. Paul Dalrymple didn’t go to church. Hannah was raised Baptist, but she calls herself a Christmas Christian. Only there for the holidays.”

Jude noticed a change in her tone. “Hannah Dalrymple, Madison’s mother?”

Emmy nodded. “Yep.”

The curt answer was like talking to a mini version of her father. “Hannah and Paul were involved in the shooting.”

Emmy shrugged. “Paul’s the one who drove with a gun to the scene and pointed it at my chest. Hannah’s participation is undetermined. Nobody saw who pulled the trigger.”

Jude felt her eyebrow arch. “He pointed it at you first?”

“Yep.” The curtness was gone. “Hannah yelled to warn me and reached out to stop him.”

“Was she touching the gun when it went off?”

“I was so panicked I couldn’t see anything. My father was murdered right in front of me. I wasn’t memorizing everything so I could give a comprehensive report. I was too busy sobbing like a baby.”

Jude found it interesting that the person who tended to leave the room to avoid showing her feelings was suddenly admitting to a lot of feelings. “I’m sorry you had to—”

“Did you know about me?” Emmy asked. “After you left town, did you know they had me?”

“I did.” Jude chose her words carefully. She couldn’t tell when Emmy was going to strike or retreat into silence, but she knew the answer mattered too much to care about the response. “I was a mess. I was still mourning the loss of my brother. I was struggling with addiction. I didn’t think I had room in my heart for anyone else.”

Emmy busied herself dropping teabags into the cups. Her back was to Jude. She braced her hands on the counter, looked out the window into the backyard. The eerie purple light brought out the leaves on the trees.

Jude took the hint. She left Emmy alone in the kitchen. She saw that Cole had finished his search of the bedroom. He was leaning against the wall by the front door. His thumbs were hooked into his duty vest. There was a casual air about him, but she could tell he was paying close attention.

Carol Walker was sitting on the couch beside Father Nate. She held the rosary between her clasped hands while Nate prayed for Paisley’s safe return. Jude waited for the amen before she sat down in the chair across from them. She quickly calibrated the best approach to get the information she needed in the least amount of time.

Showing Carol the nudes from Elijah’s phone would probably send the woman into hysterics. Demanding to know the name of his lover would likely make her retreat into shamed silence. It was better to ease her into the conversation rather than wasting time by breaking her down, then putting her back together. Especially with Nate perched like a buzzard in a cassock beside her on the couch.

“Mrs. Walker,” Jude was careful how she addressed the woman, “I’m very sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances. As Sheriff Clifton told you, my name is Jude Archer. I’m working in the capacity of a consultant with the FBI. I know you’ve already been asked a lot of questions, but I’m afraid I have some more for you.”

Carol glanced at Father Nate as if to seek his permission. He gave one of his curt nods. Then he glared at Jude to put her on warning.

The woman told Jude, “Go ahead.”

“Tell me about Paisley. What’s your daughter like?”

Tears streamed from Carol’s eyes. She’d been bombarded with questions about times, locations, minute details that didn’t seem to connect. No one had asked her about her little girl.

She said, “Elijah’s always telling me he’s gonna have to run off the boys with his shotgun one day. Don’t know how I got such a pretty little girl. She’s always been so happy. Even when she was a baby, everybody would say to me, she looks so happy.” Jude glanced at the framed photos above the couch. Family vacations. Various school pictures showing Paisley over the years. The transition from girl to young woman had been documented in real time. One year, Paisley was soft and cherubic, the next, her features had sharpened and her smile was not as easy.

Jude said, “Fourteen can be a difficult age for some girls. Lots of changes.”

“Oh, she can be a pill sometimes.” Carol let out a nervous laugh. “But she’s a good girl. She listens to her father and I. She tries to do her best.”

Jude suppressed the inner Myrna that wanted to correct her grammar. “Does she do well in school? Is there a subject she’s particularly interested in?”

“Yes.” Carol started nodding, but again she glanced at Nate for approval. “She loves chemistry. It’s her favorite class.”

Jude watched the woman’s hands fall into her lap. She had stopped worrying the rosary. “Why chemistry? Is that something you’re interested in?”

“I used to love math and science, but now I’m just a mom.” Carol’s tone was dismissive. “Elijah teases her about studying so hard. Boys don’t like smart girls.”

Jude kept her opinions to herself. “Is Paisley involved in sports?”

“Oh, no, Elijah doesn’t want her to bulk up like that.” Carol gave Nate another weak smile. “It’s not feminine, is it?”

Nate’s mouth opened just as the kettle started to whistle in the kitchen. Jude watched his mouth close. She found his obvious discomfort interesting. The Father Nate Jude had known took it as his personal mission to police the young girls of North Falls.

She turned her attention back to Carol, asking, “Does Paisley have a favorite teacher?”

“She loves Ms. Heller, her chemistry teacher. And Dr. Clifton has always been so nice.”

“Dr. Clifton is the principal.” Jude tried to tread carefully. “Did Paisley ever get in trouble at school?”

“Oh no, nothing like that. There were just some eighth-grade girls who were being mean to her last year. Dr. Clifton shut that down. She was real nice about it.” Again, Carol looked to Nate. “Elijah says Dr. Clifton’s a harsh woman on account of she could never have children, but she took care of Paisley, and that has to mean something.”

There was a lot to unpack in that last sentence, but Jude made herself focus on the only part that mattered. “Were the girls teasing Paisley about something in particular?”

“Well, it’s what you’d guess. Paisley matured before they did.” This time, she didn’t look at Nate. She sheepishly tilted her chin down toward her chest as if only she and Jude knew that young girls developed breasts. “They were jealous is all, but then summer came and they all moved up to the ninth grade and everybody caught up with everybody else, so it wasn’t a problem anymore.”

“Did the girls spread rumors about Paisley?”

“Yes, that was the hard part. They said that she was being promiscuous.” Carol turned her body toward Nate, speaking to him directly. “Paisley never did anything like that, Father. You can ask Dr. Carl. Elijah had him check after the rumors started because you never know, but Dr. Carl says she’s still intact.”

Nate’s mouth opened again, but not to speak. He actually looked concerned.

“Carol.” Jude wondered if she had discounted Elijah’s involvement too quickly. Her gut hadn’t been able to get a read on him, but an idiot could see there was something profoundly wrong about his relationship to his daughter. “Is Paisley allowed to have boyfriends?”

“Oh, goodness no, she’s too young for that. Elijah doesn’t even like her wearing make-up.”

Jude took the opening. “I spoke to Elijah a little while ago. He seemed concerned about how Paisley has been dressing lately.”

Carol’s fingers started worrying the beads again. “It’s more like he’s sad. He wants her to stay a daddy’s girl.”

“Were you bothered by the way Paisley dressed?”

“Yes,” she said, but her head was shaking in disagreement. “She wants to look like her friends. Girls that age, it’s better for them if they blend in. Boys don’t like it when you stand out for the wrong reasons.”

Jude watched as Carol’s eyes flitted down to the beads. She asked, “Mrs. Walker, is there someone that Paisley talks to? Confides in?”

“She always knows that Father Nate is here for her.” Carol’s smile was weak as she glanced at the priest. “She had a friend at school, Lily, but her family moved away over the summer. Her father got a job at the auto plant up in North Carolina. I gave that other policeman, Officer Temple, her mama’s number and all.”

“Thank you. It’s good that you’re doing everything you can to help.” Jude figured now was the time to get to the point. “I’m probably going to duplicate some questions you’ve already been asked, but tell me about yesterday morning. Did Elijah leave for work before Paisley went to school?”

“Yes, she—” Carol glanced at Nate yet again. “She always left after he did.”

Jude had always waited for Gerald and Myrna to leave before her, too. “Was that because she didn’t want him to see what she was wearing?”

Carol gave Nate another glance before she nodded. “It’s just easier sometimes.”

“To ask for forgiveness rather than permission?”

Carol looked down at the rosary again. There was a weariness about her that had nothing to do with Paisley’s disappearance. Jude wondered how much time in her day was spent walking on eggshells just to keep the peace. She also wondered if Carol was her best use of time. Elijah was the one who swung from one emotion to the other. If Jude could push him a little harder, he might end up cracking.

Emmy chose this moment to walk in with the tea. Jude noticed something stiff about the way she moved when she placed three mugs on the coffee table. She’d clearly been listening to the interview from the kitchen. She’d clearly found Jude’s technique wanting. Emmy made a point of looking at Jude. Then she looked at the photos on the wall.

Jude followed her gaze. The photographs showed the same family members as the ones in the kitchen. Grandparents and cousins, sisters and brothers. Picnics and Girl Scout retreats and family vacations. The photo Emmy had directed her to was in the top right corner. Larger and glossier, the kind that had been professionally printed. Reggie was dressed in a blue tux. He was sitting on a black leather couch with a protective arm around the girl in his lap, holding her close to his chest so that her head rested on his shoulder.

Emmy had called out a similar photo in the kitchen, but without her reading glasses, Jude had mistaken the girl for Paisley, and assumed her white dress was for Communion. Her distance vision had always been sharp. Sitting eight feet away in the chair, she could clearly see the long train belonged to a wedding dress and that the young girl in Reggie McAllister’s lap was not his niece.

Jude caught Emmy’s eye, gave her a nod to acknowledge her earlier mistake.

She told Carol, “I see you’ve got a close-knit family.”

Carol turned to look at the photos. She pointed out the different people. “That’s my grandparents. That’s Elijah’s mama, his two older sisters, and his uncle Jeremy and his family. His daddy died when he was a baby. This is my brother, Reggie. He lives over on the bay in Alabama.”

“I can see the family resemblance.” Jude stood up, pretending she needed a closer look, though the image blurred without her reading glasses. “Who’s that with him?”

“Oh, that’s Shelley. They got married last year. She’s expecting twins.”

“How wonderful.” Jude tried to infuse her voice with genuine feeling. “Are you close with your brother?”

“Reggie’s had some problems in the past, but he’s always been good to me and Paisley. He’s gonna make a great daddy. Already put together the crib and changing table in the nursery.”

Jude asked, “Does Reggie visit you often?”

“Not as much lately.” Her voice was lowered, as if to share a confidence. “He had some trouble a few years back, but that’s all behind him now.”

Jude could tell from the way Emmy tensed that she had more information about the trouble than Jude did. Jude crossed her arms, making it clear that Emmy could take over.

“Mrs. Walker,” Emmy said, “I just heard from one of my deputies that Reggie’s a few minutes away.”

“Oh, thank the Lord.” Carol looked visibly relieved. “Maybe he can talk to you. He’s much better at this kind of thing than I am.”

“Much better at what?” Emmy asked.

“Well—” Carol seemed flummoxed. “Talking to people, I guess.”

“To cops?” Emmy’s tone had shifted at just the exact right time. “Reggie is on probation, right? He got into some trouble at a football game.”

“That was just foolishness.” Carol addressed Nate. “Reggie got caught up in the excitement with some of his friends. He’s always been like that.”

Emmy asked, “Does Reggie spend much time with Paisley?”

“Not since the—” Carol shrugged. “Well, he wasn’t allowed to leave Mobile. Then he met Shelley, and he needed to focus on her for obvious reasons.”

“What are the obvious reasons?”

“Well—” Carol’s shoulders went up to her ears in another shrug. More remarkably, she seemed to be fighting the urge to turn toward Nate. “I mean, Shelley was pregnant when they got married. But that’s not why he married her. He loves her, obviously.”

“She’s young,” Emmy said. “She doesn’t look much older than Paisley.”

Carol’s smile was tight across her face. “She’s legally an adult.”

Jude let her gaze travel to Father Nate. His spine had stiffened, his lips were pursed. That was the prissy, disapproving scold she recognized from before.

Emmy asked, “How long has Shelley been pregnant?”

“I wouldn’t—” Carol’s fingers moved so quickly that the rosary beads clicked like teeth. “I don’t know.”

Nate shifted on the couch. “Carol, how old is she?”

Carol’s hand fluttered to her chest. “Seventeen, Father. She just turned seventeen.”

“Carol.” Nate’s voice was surprisingly firm. He was actually trying to help. “How old was Shelley when Reggie impregnated her?”

Carol’s eyes met Jude’s, but only because she couldn’t look at Nate.

“Carol,” Nate pressed. “Now is the time for complete honesty.”

The rosary beads clicked furiously. Carol looked down, watching them run through her fingers like water. “Fifteen the first time. But she lost the baby, and . . . and now she’s five months. It’s a blessing, isn’t it? Having children?”

Jude saw Emmy’s jaw clench. She knew what silent recriminations looked like. Emmy was chastising herself for not following up on the brother sooner. Understandable, but not productive. Jude started counting the seconds of prolonged silence. She was planning to take over when the number hit ten, but she was denied the intervention by a loud knock at the door.

“Carol?” a man’s voice called. “Open the door. It’s Reggie.”

Emmy nodded for Cole to back her up. She opened the door. Reggie stood with his hand raised to knock again. Emmy didn’t bother with introductions. She grabbed Reggie’s wrist and spun him around, then frogmarched him toward the street.

“Stay here.” Jude didn’t wait for an answer. She ran out the door.

Emmy was pushing Reggie up the walkway. The street lights were still on. The cruiser was lit up as if it was on a stage. Jude had a perfect view of Emmy slamming Reggie face-down onto the hood of the car. She started searching him, emptying his pockets onto the sidewalk. Jude watched a flurry of crumpled receipts escape from his brown leather wallet as it hit the concrete. Cole picked everything up. He had a panicked look on his face. This wasn’t his mother’s normal behavior.

“Talk to me, asshole.” Emmy pressed Reggie’s face into the hood of the car. “Where’s Paisley?”

“I don’t—” Reggie gasped as she wrenched up his arm. “I don’t know!”

“Tell me where she is!” Emmy ordered.

“I told you I don’t—”

“That’s how you wanna play it?” Emmy’s handcuffs came out. She shackled his wrists behind his back. “You have the right to remain silent.”

“Please,” Reggie begged. “I don’t want trouble, okay? I don’t know where she is. I live in Mobile, for fucksakes. I just got here.”

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“Jesus, lady! I’ll talk to you, okay? Just—”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Emmy warned. “You have a right to an attorney.”

Jude put her hand on Emmy’s shoulder. She meant it as a kind of check, to bring her back to the moment, but the gesture had the opposite effect.

“Get your fucking hand off me,” Emmy ordered. “Cole, move her away.”

Jude held up her hands in surrender as Cole approached.

“Please!” Reggie begged. “Just listen to me! I promise I can—”

“I told you to shut up.” Emmy spun Reggie around. She balled the front of his shirt into her fist. She had tunnel vision. She wasn’t listening to a damn word he said. “If you cannot afford an attorney—”

“Reggie!” Jude raised her voice, trying to startle some sense into Emmy. “Are you waiving your rights? Is that what you’re telling us? You want to talk?”

“Hell yes, that’s what I’m saying!” Reggie yelled back.

Emmy cut her eyes at Jude, but her sudden spark of rage had clearly been dampened. It took a few long seconds before Emmy’s steely resolve returned. She looked at Reggie as if she was seeing him for the first time. The panic in his eyes. His chest heaving in fear. Emmy’s fist released the front of his shirt. She took a small step back. Asked him, “Reggie Lee McAllister, are you waiving your rights?”

“Yes!” The word came out like a plea. “I’m on probation. If I get another arrest, I’m inside for five years. It don’t matter if you’re wrong. My life is over.”

Emmy was still visibly shaken. Jude knew that sickening feeling, the desperation that made you do stupid things to stupid people. It was easy to miss the forest for the trees.

“Reggie,” Jude took over, “where were you yesterday morning between the hours of seven and eight?”

“I was—” Reggie had to stop to catch his breath. “I was working. I clocked in at six thirty, then I got in my truck to make deliveries. It’s got a GPS in it. They can tell where I am. You can check it.”

“Mom.” Cole had one of the receipts. He showed it to Emmy. She studied the information for so long that Jude assumed she was buying time to get her emotions back under control. Then she finally handed the receipt to Jude.

“Need my glasses.” Jude could probably make out the small print under the light, but she wanted to buy more time for Emmy to collect herself. She reached into her purse. Dug around the envelope with the photos from Elijah Walker’s phone. Found her reading glasses. Slipped them on. Studied the receipt.

The logo was for the WaWa Gas Station in Fairhope, Alabama, a town across the Bay from Mobile. One large mochaccino with a bagel purchased yesterday morning at six thirty-eight. Fairhope was on central time, an hour behind Clifton.

“That’s proof.” Reggie’s voice was filled with relief. “I had to fuel up before making my run. That’s the receipt for my breakfast. The diesel went on the company card. You can check on the cameras at the WaWa, right?”

Jude knew they would check the cameras, just like she knew that Mobile was at least a six-hour drive from where they stood. There was no way Reggie could be in North Falls abducting Paisley when he’d been buying a coffee and a bagel at the same time in Fairhope. Jude waited for Emmy to make the same calculations.

“Turn around,” Emmy told him.

Reggie turned. Jude watched the handcuff key slide into the lock. Emmy’s hands were shaking. She was still wound up.

Jude asked, “Reggie, when’s the last time you saw your niece?”

“Christmas.” He rubbed his wrists. “I had to get permission from my parole officer. I was still on the ankle monitor. They only took it off two weeks ago. You can check with him, right? I called him before I left to get here. All this is on the record.”

“Does your PO know how old your wife was when she got pregnant?”

“Shit.” He kept rubbing his wrists. “She came on to me, okay? She was working at the McDonald’s down the road. We just hit it off, is all. Her parents gave us permission to get married. You can ask them.”

“Cole.” Emmy’s voice was shaky. “Walk Reggie to the house. Get the parole officer’s number. I’ll run down the rest.”

Cole dutifully followed orders as the two men headed up the sidewalk. Jude hung back. Emmy looked as if she wanted to say something, but changed her mind. She took her phone out of her pocket. She looked at the screen for a moment, then she dialed a number.

Jude didn’t listen to the call. She studied Emmy’s face. The tension in her brow. The exhaustion in her eyes. Being at the center of an investigation into a child abduction could take years off your life. Add to that watching Myrna slowly fade away, seeing Gerald shot to death, then having to deal with a virtual stranger who knew everything about your family but nothing about you. Any one of those things could break even the strongest person. Jude didn’t know how she was still standing.

“Okay.” Emmy ended the call. “That was Virgil. He’ll track down the WaWa footage. Damien got the information from Elijah’s CashApp. The landscaper is named Antonio Ramirez. He lives in Phoenix with his family. The black truck is registered in Arizona in his name. Seth sent some agents to knock on his door, but there’s no way Elijah saw Antonio in the street yesterday morning.”

“Why is Virgil reporting that information to you and not Seth Alexander?”

Emmy held out her hands in an open shrug. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters. There’s a chain of command. You’re not an afterthought in this investigation. You’re the acting sheriff. Seth should report directly to you, not through a retired deputy.”

“Virgil was a cop for longer than I’ve been alive. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Emmy.” Jude tempered her tone. “I can’t imagine what the last twenty-four hours has been like, but you need to listen to me if you want your job when this is over. You’re all over the place. You need to rein yourself in. You’re going to miss the important details.”

“You wanna give me a detail I’m missing?” Emmy asked. “You told Dad you wouldn’t step foot back in town until he was dead. Is this your victory lap?”

“That’s a conversation for another day. Right now, you need to put your head down and do your job. You can find new ways to hurt me later.”

“You think I’m the one hurting you?” Emmy scoffed. “Take a close look in the mirror, lady. That’s my blood in your teeth.”

Jude looked up at the sky. She took a deep breath before diving back in. “You’re exhausted. You’ve been through a terrible trauma. It’s understandable that you need to take it out on somebody.”

“Stop psychoanalyzing me. I can’t fight with you anymore.”

“I’m not asking you to fight me. I’m asking you to fight them.”

“Mom.” Cole was clearly used to inserting himself in between two warring adults. He was trotting up the walkway to distract them both. “I talked with Reggie’s parole officer. His story lines up. All of it, even Shelley’s parents giving permission for them to get married.”

“Jesus.” Emmy was looking down at a text on her phone. “It’s Peggy. She wants to see the picture.”

“What picture?” Cole asked.

Emmy shook her head again, but whether it was to tell him not to ask, or to acknowledge how much worse the situation had just gotten was beyond Jude’s powers of deduction.

Jude reached into her purse for the envelope. “We should send her both. There’s an off chance she might recognize the other one.”

“Fine.” Emmy’s voice was monotone. She told Cole, “Elijah had pornographic photos on his phone. Close-ups of a man and a woman’s genitals. He was probably passing off the man’s photo as his own. I thought Peggy might recognize the woman if she’s one of her waxing clients.”

“Oh,” Cole said. “Okay.”

Jude assumed someone of Cole’s generation had seen worse than anything Elijah Walker had on his phone. She held up the woman’s photo so that Emmy could take a picture. Then she held up the man’s, saying, “There’s more than one mole that might identify him.”

Cole’s eyes went wide, but to his credit, he kept a straight face.

“Shit.” Emmy hissed out a long stream of air between her teeth as she sent the texts. She asked Jude, “Why didn’t you press Carol about Elijah’s affair?”

“Do you think she would’ve told me the truth?”

“If Father Nate told her to, yes.”

“You have a lot more confidence in Nate than I do.”

“Seriously?” Emmy asked. “He’s the one who made Carol tell the truth about Reggie’s child bride.”

Jude realized her emotions were probably making her miss details, too. She opened her mouth to own the mistake, but Emmy cut her off before she could speak.

“People aren’t the same as when you were here. It’s been forty-plus years. Whatever tight-ass version of Father Nate you got, that version changed, because that’s what people do—they change.”

Jude couldn’t tell whether Emmy was angry or exasperated. “This isn’t about Father Nate, is it?”

“I don’t know what it’s about.” Emmy looked down at her phone. “Jesus Christ. Peggy identified the woman in the photo.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Fourteen

Emmy was practically vibrating with exhaustion by the time they made it back to the station. Her brain couldn’t handle the sound of phones ringing and agents running around and the furious tapping on keyboards, all signifying nothing that would return Paisley Walker home.

Virgil silently offered Emmy his chair, but she leaned against the desk as Seth Alexander listened to Jude run down the latest on the case.

“The sheriff managed to get an ID on the woman on Elijah’s phone. Her name is Belinda Pfeiffer. Twenty-two years old. Works at a chef supply store in the local outlet mall. No priors.” Jude glanced at Emmy before turning her attention back toward Seth.

“What did you find out?”

“Elijah’s secretary, Misty Norris, said she definitely noticed something was going on last year. Elijah had a standing appointment the last Friday of every month where he blocked out a few hours in his calendar and disappeared. Norris said this always coincided with around 600 dollars missing from petty cash. Walker never brought back a receipt, but he’s the boss, so she didn’t question it.”

Jude glanced at Emmy again, then asked, “What about the motel? Did anyone recognize Elijah’s photo?”

“No, ma’am. Night clerk said she’s never seen him. Obviously, she denies that there’s anything untoward going on at the place, but it’s a real dive. Lots of gang activity, several motorcycles parked outside. Looks like it’s a hotspot for the drug trade.”

“It is,” Virgil confirmed. “A lot of my PI work has me setting up across the street photographing cheating spouses. There’s a dealer named Wesley Woodrow who’s set up shop outta room nineteen in the back. Goes by the name Woody. He controls most of the fentanyl and heroin in and out of the county.”

“What about the day clerk?” Jude’s gaze landed on Emmy yet again before she looked back at Seth. “You said you showed the night clerk Elijah’s photo. What about the day clerk?”

“Uh—” Seth seemed thrown. “I don’t know if Damien followed up on that.”

“Damien reports to you,” Jude said. “You need to find that clerk.”

Seth smoothed down his tie. “Yes ma’am.”

“What about the tip line?”

“The usual,” Seth said. “Lots of women turning in their boyfriends and ex-husbands. Lots of reports of white vans, which isn’t surprising because white vans are everywhere. We’re following all the leads. Knocking on all the doors. Trying not to turn into clue clowns.”

“What about bloodhounds?”

“The assumption is he took her away in a vehicle.”

“Don’t make assumptions about Paisley Walker’s abduction. Get the dogs on the backroads. Let me know as soon as you speak to the day clerk at the motel. Show them a photo of Belinda Pfeiffer, too.” Jude dismissed him, turning toward Virgil.

“Anything else on your end?”

“Verona PD just picked up Belinda Pfeiffer. She lives in those new apartments your uncle Penley built. They’re bringing her here.” Virgil ripped out a sheet of paper from his notebook. “Meanwhile, I’ve been looking at Paisley’s Snap and Instagram accounts. She interacts with a handful of girls from school. I’ve written down their names to follow up on. Most of the videos are what you’d expect. She likes cats, loves to read, enjoys science classes, loves Taylor and K-pop. Typical fourteen-year-old girl stuff.”

Jude said, “I’ll follow up on her electronic devices with IT. She might have a sock puppet account. Sheriff, can I have a minute?”

Emmy opened her mouth to respond, but Brett came out of nowhere.

“Emmy?” He was holding a stack of papers in his hands. “I got the list of landscapers who work in the Walkers’ neighborhood. You sure you want me to go through this? Maybe you didn’t hear the FBI found the guy who spread the pine straw?”

Emmy felt her teeth set. She probably wouldn’t have noticed except for Jude constantly banging on about it, but Brett had stopped calling Emmy by her first name ten years ago when she’d been appointed chief deputy. And now that Gerald was gone, he was back to using her first name again.

She pushed away from the desk. Tried to put some steel in her spine. “Yes, Deputy. I want you to call every single one. Get their schedules and the names of all their crew members. You can do this while you’re doing covert surveillance on Adam Huntsinger.”

“Adam?” Brett questioned. “I mean, shit, Emmy. Do you really think—”

“I think my father got murdered yesterday morning and I don’t want another vigilante mob doing something stupid with both of Adam’s elderly parents inside their home.” Emmy wasn’t finished, “Brett, I want to make this clear: you need to have eyes on Adam at all times. If you have to take a piss, use a bottle. If you’ve gotta take a shit, then you call someone to watch Adam before you go. Understood?”

His nod was curt. “Yes, chief.”

She told Virgil, “Let me know when Belinda gets here.”

Virgil nodded, too. “Yes, chief.”

Emmy spotted Cole sitting at his desk. He was bent over his keyboard again. She motioned him over, telling Jude, “Let’s go to the back.”

They were barely out of earshot of the squad room when Jude started talking.

“Well done.”

“I told you I’m not looking for your approval. Somebody has to be in charge of this place. It’s what Dad wanted.”

“Hey.” Jude stopped her outside the door to the monitoring room. “What you said before. I’m not here for a victory lap. I’m here for you.”

Emmy couldn’t keep juggling back and forth between work and whatever this was. She turned on the lights. The two monitors glowed on the desk with the Bluetooth speaker between them. The left-hand monitor showed Elijah sitting at the table in the interrogation room. The sensitive microphones in the ceiling picked up the sound of his labored breathing. Emmy looked at the other monitor, which showed the empty chair across from Elijah. Her vision doubled. She closed her eyes for a moment. She was so tired she literally couldn’t see straight.

“Emmy,” Jude said. “You’re right that I don’t know you, but this is what I’m good at, and if you could just look at the last forty years as me preparing myself to help you with this case, you’d be doing both of us a favor.”

“Fine.” Emmy saw Cole making his way down the hall. He looked distracted. She asked him, “What’s going on?”

“There’s a lot more chatter online. People are saying that Adam Huntsinger abducted Paisley, and that we’re too stupid to figure it out.”

Emmy felt the familiar knot twisting in her stomach. “Anybody sounding like they want to do something about it?”

“It’s hard to tell who’s blowing smoke and who means it, but the temperature’s definitely up.” Cole sounded genuinely worried. “There’s a citizen detective group tossing around theories. None of them are saying anything new. Most people think it’s Adam.” .

Jude said, “It’s smart to monitor these groups. Some take the work seriously. Others are just bored and want to stir up shit. What are your thoughts on Adam Huntsinger?”

Emmy wasn’t sure about her thoughts. “I trust Brett to keep an eye on him. Whether Adam’s the one who took Paisley or not, I don’t know.”

Jude asked, “What’s your gut telling you?”

Emmy’s gut wanted to throw up from lack of sleep. “I can’t get a read.”

“Neither can I,” Jude said. “What do you know about Belinda Pfeiffer?”

Emmy was startled to realize she hadn’t let herself think beyond the name. “I’m in a book club with her mother, Daphne, who puts raisins in her potato salad. I don’t know much about the family beyond that. Belinda’s not on our radar for being a sex worker. I doubt her mother knows what she’s up to. Cole, did you find anything?”

He supplied, “Belinda’s not on any patrol field notes. Nobody’s got her on their radar. She’s never been arrested. Never gotten a speeding ticket. Her TikTok is mostly about The Bachelor and all the Housewives.”

Jude asked, “Does she go to the Catholic church?”

“She follows the New Holiness Church, but there’s nothing religious that I found on her social.”

“That’s the Pentecostals,” Emmy told Jude, but then she realized Jude probably already knew. “So, maybe Elijah actually met Belinda on a dating site? Like an Ashley Madison sort of thing?”

Jude said, “I doubt he stopped at one affair. There have to be more women in his background. Cole, did you find Viagra when you searched Elijah and Carol’s bedroom?”

Cole looked surprised by the question, but he said, “Yeah, but not in the medicine cabinet. It was in a shoe box inside his closet.”

“He was hiding it from Carol,” Jude said. “Men like Elijah use Viagra for their mistresses. They don’t waste it on their wives.”

“Elijah told me Carol wasn’t adventurous enough.” Emmy was hit by a wave of dizziness. She looked down at the floor, took a deep breath. Between Myrna’s night terrors and staying up for over twenty-four hours straight, she felt like her brain was swimming inside of an aquarium.

Jude asked, “You okay?”

“Yep.” She looked back up, determined to push through it. “Virgil said that Belinda lives in Penley’s apartments over in Verona. It’s got a lot of single, young adults with money in their pockets. Jonah’s bar is down the street. It might not mean anything, but Woody runs drugs out of the back.”

Jude asked, “The same Woody who works out of room nineteen at the Dew Drop Inn?”

“The same,” Emmy said. “Woody is clever. Keeps his hands clean. But his name came up on the Broken Angels case. He was a teenager then. Cheyenne had a lot of hard drugs hidden in the ceiling of her bedroom closet, along with sixteen grand in cash. We never found out where she was getting them.”

“Adam wasn’t her supplier?”

“No, he only ever dealt pot as far as we could tell.” Emmy saw Virgil at the end of the hall. He lifted his chin. She told Jude, “Belinda’s here. What do you want to do with her?”

Jude paused. “You tell me, Sheriff.”

Again, Emmy had to stop to think it through. “She’s got a clean record. She’s probably never been inside of a police station, either.”

Jude was smiling. “Throw her in with Elijah and listen in on their conversation?”

“Yep.” Emmy pointed Virgil toward the interrogation room. She waited for him to nod before she allowed herself the pleasure of sinking into the chair in front of the monitors. A kind of groan came out of her mouth. She fought the urge to close her eyes, instead staring at Elijah Walker’s profile on the screen. He looked as drained as she felt. He was holding a Styrofoam cup between his hands. She thought about watching Dale Loudermilk on these same monitors twelve years ago with her father at her side.

Emmy looked up at her son. Cole’s shoulders were tensed. His eyes were still bloodshot. She should send him home to get some rest, but she didn’t want him to leave. “Cole, turn out the lights and close the door.”

The room darkened. Jude took the other chair. Emmy could see Cole’s wounded expression in the glow of the monitors as Jude sat in his grandfather’s spot. Emmy reached back and squeezed his hand. He held on tight before wiping under his eye with his fist.

“Belinda!” Elijah’s voice was jarringly loud from the speaker. Virgil had just tossed her into the room and shut the door.

Emmy watched Elijah hold out his hands in an exaggerated shrug.

He asked, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“What do you think I’m doing here?” Belinda shot back. “Your daughter is missing and you’re cheating on your wife. This is every Dateline ever made.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Elijah huffed. “No one thinks I kidnapped my own daughter.”

“Honey, look at where you are.” Belinda sounded incredulous. “They don’t keep you inside a police station for hours unless they think you’ve done something bad.”

Elijah stared at her, unblinking. Then his face changed as it slowly dawned on him that she was right. He sank into the chair. Rested his palms on the table. Emmy recognized the absolute exhaustion in his eyes. They’d deprived him of sleep, peppered him with questions, taken away all sense of control. He had been running on fumes, only reacting to the thing that was directly in front of him, but now reality was hitting him, and he knew that everything had changed. There was no going back to his life of two days ago.

“They—” His voice was gravelly. “They kept asking for my WhatsApp password. Maybe they hacked into it.”

“That’s probably how they found me.” Belinda was clearly tracking details better than Elijah. “All our texts are gonna be out there for everybody to read.”

“They wouldn’t—they couldn’t—”

“Oh, honey, yes they will.” Belinda pitched up her voice as if she was talking to a senseless child. “Elijah, stop worrying about people finding out about shit that’s inconsequential. The only thing that matters right now is getting Paisley home.”

“You’re right. You’re right.” He started nodding his head. “This is insane. Stuff like this doesn’t happen in . . .”

Emmy could see that they were both silently finishing his statement. Stuff exactly like this had happened in North Falls twelve years ago.

“Do you—” Elijah’s throat made a gulping noise that traveled through the speaker. “Do you think they’ll find her?”

“I’ve been praying that they will.”

Elijah missed the equivocation. “They keep asking me the same questions. I don’t know what to say. I just want them to find her.”

“They’re asking you the same questions to make sure you give them the same answers.”

Elijah looked surprised. He was caught in the perpetual loop of compartmentalizing what had happened so that his body didn’t completely shut down. Emmy could remember Ruth Baker going through the same emotional turmoil twelve years ago. It was unfathomable for a parent to think about losing a child.

Belinda asked, “You’re being honest with them, right?”

“Obviously I am. I didn’t tell them about you because I didn’t think it mattered.”

Belinda pulled out the chair and sat across from him at the table. Her face filled the second monitor. “Elijah, listen to me. You need to tell them everything. Let the experts decide what matters.”

Emmy caught the furtive look that Belinda gave the camera in the corner. She knew that they were being watched.

Jude had caught it, too. “Smarter than she looks.”

Emmy turned her attention back to Elijah. Tears slid down his face. “That cop promised me that everybody’s looking for her. It’s taking too long, isn’t it? They should’ve found her by now, right?”

“I was gonna volunteer to help search, but I didn’t know how that would look, you know?” Belinda had dodged his question again. “I saw folks all over the woods near the backroads when the police brought me in. Everybody’s doing everything they can do.”

“What if—” His voice went up. He was trying to swallow down the fear. “What if they don’t find her?”

Belinda didn’t offer platitudes. She glanced at the camera, then looked back at Elijah. “All we can do is pray that the Lord is watching over her.”

“I’ve been trying to pray, but this voice keeps coming into my head telling me it’s my fault.”

Emmy moved to the edge of her seat.

So did Belinda. “How is it your fault?”

“I’m her father. I should’ve protected her. That’s my only job.” He took a pained breath. “She was so mad at me when I left for work yesterday. Just seething. I thought about calling her from the car, but then I saw there were eight messages, and I just got distracted and now I’ll never be able to tell her that I’m sorry.”

Emmy saw Jude put her elbows on the arm of the chair, rest her chin in her hand. She was staring not at the monitor, but at the speaker. Elijah’s tone had changed. He was finally telling the truth.

Belinda asked, “Why was Paisley seething?”

“Last week, she asked me for help with her science project, but I told her if she was going to take on big assignments, she needed to learn how to do them by herself.”

“Well,” Belinda drew out the word, “you were just trying to teach her to be independent. That’s a good thing.”

“No, it was a selfish thing. I didn’t want to work on the project. I wanted to watch TV and go to bed, so I yelled at her until she stormed off to her room.”

Elijah started shaking his head. Emmy thought he looked like a man who’d spent his time alone in the interrogation room going back through all of the opportunities he’d missed with Paisley.

He said, “Yesterday morning, I was heading out the door and I tried to kiss her on the cheek. She pulled away like I had the plague. And then when I told her that I love her, she just rolled her eyes. She’s always rolling her eyes at me. I told you she’s been so disrespectful. These past few months, it’s like a demon possession. One minute, she’s being sweet, and the next, she’s trying to call all the shots like I’m not her father anymore.”

Emmy mumbled, “That sounds familiar.”

Jude looked at her. “Who?”

“Madison was always pushing Paul and Hannah’s buttons. Felix and Ruth Baker said the same thing about Cheyenne. They blamed Madison for her wild streak.”

Jude asked, “Who did you blame?”

“Puberty.” She shrugged. “Honestly, the two of them together fed off each other. I think they were their own worst enemies.”

“That’s not unusual,” Jude said.

Emmy didn’t bother to agree. She watched Belinda take a pack of tissues from her Fendi bag. The Verona cops had let her change before dragging her into the station. She was wearing a cropped black T-shirt that showed off her flat stomach, and a short black skirt that revealed the shape of her legs. Her make-up was smeared, probably because she hadn’t bothered to take it off before going to bed. Emmy couldn’t help but contrast her with Carol, who had been dressed like a dour Victorian.

She told Jude, “The photos in the kitchen. Carol looked a lot different in the early stages of their marriage. She was dressed more like Belinda.”

Jude said, “He’s drawn to her because he wants to break her spirit.”

Emmy knew she was right. Jonah had been the same way. He had loved her for being opinionated and driven when they were dating, but he’d ended up hating her for those same qualities when they were married.

The speaker echoed with the sound of Elijah blowing his nose.

Belinda asked, “How’s Carol taking it?”

“They only let us talk for a minute.” He balled the tissue in his hand. “She’s devastated. She blames herself for letting Paisley go out on her bike. She should’ve driven her.”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Belinda said. “Not yours and not Carol’s. Paisley always takes her bike to school.”

“Not that early.” Elijah reached for the pack of tissues. He wiped under his eyes. “I could’ve driven her. I could’ve . . . I could’ve done a lot of things.”

“Well, I’m just gonna say what we’re both thinking, and that’s how this little fun we’ve been having is over, right? You need to be there for Carol, and I guess I’m gonna go visit my aunt Jenny up in Copper Hill so I’m not getting nasty looks every time I leave my apartment.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I’m just so fucking sorry.”

Jude turned away from the monitors to look at Emmy. “She’s not a sex worker. She’s an affair, right?”

“Right, but I guarantee Elijah was also cheating on Belinda with a sex worker. His story about meeting somebody online last year and going to the motel and how he was supposed to leave the money was too elaborate to be based on anything but the truth.”

“Agreed,” Jude said. “We need to speak to his secretary again. She noticed that Elijah had a standing meeting on the last Friday of every month that coincided with money missing from petty cash. She’ll be able to tell us when it started and when it ended, and whether or not there’s a different pattern for a different woman now.”

The speaker shook with the sound of Elijah blowing his nose.

Belinda reached over to take his hand. She asked, “Do they know who took her?”

“Some Mexican, probably.”

“Fucking Mexicans,” Belinda said. “The whole town’s going to hell.”

“The whole fucking country.”

Emmy let out a long sigh. At least they still had their racism. She turned the volume off, asked Jude, “What now?”

“I want to reopen the Broken Angels case.”

Emmy gathered from the quick response that Jude had been thinking this for quite a while. For her part, Emmy needed a moment to adjust to the swift change in direction. She was as bad as Elijah, only looking at the things that were put directly in front of her.

She told Jude, “You want to see what Dad and I got wrong.”

Jude looked circumspect. “Let me ask you this. What was Gerald’s plan?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Misguided Angel podcast drops. The twelve-year-old rape kit down in Metter gets tested. Adam’s DNA is matched. He’s released from death row. What was Gerald’s plan?”

“To put Adam back in prison.”

“Right,” Jude said. “If you don’t know what to do, start at the beginning.”

Emmy was never going to get used to hearing this stranger quote her father. “Dad already asked Virgil to get all the old file boxes out of storage at the GBI field office. We were going to review everything at his place over the weekend.”

“Why do it at Virgil’s?”

“Dad didn’t want it getting out that we were reopening the case.”

“That ship has sailed,” Jude said. “Tell Virgil to bring everything to the station and we’ll go through the case together.”

“Absolutely not,” Emmy said. “Paisley Walker is our priority.”

“Sweetheart, we’ve almost hit the twenty-four-hour mark. This isn’t a parent or acquaintance abduction. Paisley didn’t run away. She’s not hiding somewhere. A predator took her. We’re not in a sprint anymore. This is a marathon. All we can do is hope to find the body so that Carol and Elijah can hopefully know some peace.”

Emmy knew she was right, but she couldn’t completely give up hope. “I’m not directing resources away from a missing, endangered child.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Jude said. “Tell me what your DFR is saying. Who should we be talking to? Where should we be looking? What are we not doing?”

Emmy couldn’t answer. Her DFR was depleted. Nothing felt right.

“Everybody out in that squad room, every agency—hundreds of people—they’ll keep looking for Paisley. Re-canvassing the neighborhoods, re-searching all the areas, interviewing teachers, other students, all the people in Paisley’s life. Meanwhile, we’ll look at the Adam Huntsinger case, and we’ll tap the weak spots. If there’s a break, it might lead us to Paisley.”

Emmy shook her head, but right now, she couldn’t come up with a better way forward. Giving in to Jude was a hell of a lot easier than she would’ve thought three hours ago. “All right, I’ll drive with Virgil to his house and help get the boxes. We can set up in the conference room inside the jail complex so we’re not in anybody’s way.”

“No,” Jude said, because apparently, she was in charge again. “You’re so exhausted that you’re slurring your words. It’s six o’clock in the morning. Let’s all meet back here at ten. That’ll give you four hours to get some sleep, take a shower and change.”

“I don’t need you telling me what to do.”

“Yes, you do.” Jude stood up. “I’ll see you both back here at ten.”

Emmy was helpless to stop her from leaving. She looked up at Cole. His jaw was set. She reached over to turn on the lights, telling him, “You went real quiet back there.”

“She’s not wrong about tapping the old case for weak spots.”

“Is she right, though?” Emmy’s eyes blurred again. She had to give Jude one thing—her bones ached from weariness. But she still couldn’t leave. “Shut the door. Tell me what you’re not telling me.”

Cole closed the door and leaned his back against it. He stared her right in the eye. “I need to speak to my chief.”

Emmy tried to rally. “You’ve got her.”

Cole’s eyes shifted. He looked at the wall behind her. His nostrils flared. She watched tears pool into his eyes.

“Hey.” Emmy stood up, held his head between her hands so that he had to look at her. This wasn’t work talk. He needed his mother. Emmy caressed her hand to his cheek. “Talk to me, baby. I’m here.”

Cole took a deep breath. Tensed the muscles in his neck. Emmy felt her exhaustion disappear. Every part of her brain came into focus while she waited for her son to find the courage to speak.

“The photo of the guy’s junk on Elijah Walker’s phone,” Cole said. “He didn’t steal it from the internet. It’s somebody in town. I recognized the moles.”

“All right.” It wasn’t a surprise to Emmy that her son had a sex life. He’d come out to her when he was fifteen. “And?”

“It’s . . . uhm . . .” He stopped again. “It’s Jack.”

Emmy laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Are you shitting me? The dick pic on Elijah Walker’s phone is Jack Whitlock?”

“Jesus, Mom.” Cole pulled away from her. “It’s not funny.”

“No, of course it’s not.” Emmy felt horrible for laughing, but it made a certain kind of cruel sense that Jack had made a terrible thing worse. The slimy asshole had put Emmy at the center of the production, repeatedly describing her as a “beautiful yet flawed” investigator. He’d also single-handedly revived interest in Adam Huntsinger’s case, which had directly led to Adam’s release from death row, which in some ways had led to the murder of her father.

And on top of that, he’d broken her son’s heart.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is difficult to talk about, but I’ve gotta ask: is it possible maybe Jack posted a photo online and Elijah passed it off as his own?”

“That’s called cockfishing, and no.”

Emmy could’ve happily lived out the rest of her life without knowing that word.

Cole said, “Elijah is Jack’s insurance broker. We used to make fun of him because he’s such a prude.”

Emmy felt her throat constrict. She remembered that Elijah had mentioned Jack’s podcast in their earlier interview. At the time, she had passed it off as Six Degrees of North Falls, but now, she realized she’d missed it.

“I’m sorry.” Cole was shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. “You take care of my insurance. I don’t know how it works. Jack always met Elijah on the last Friday of the month. He said it was to talk about his policies. I thought it was normal to meet with your broker like that.”

He looked so devastated that Emmy wanted to wrap him in her arms like she had when he was a baby. Still, she had to ask, “Did you know Jack was taking money for sex?”

“No, but it makes sense. He always had a lot of cash.” Cole gave a dry laugh. “He never charged me.”

“You should’ve charged him. We both know he was punching above his weight.”

“Yeah.”

Emmy could tell it was too soon to joke. The truth was, she’d been wary of the way Jack had pursued Cole. He was a few years older and much more experienced, but Emmy had held her tongue because it wasn’t her place to tell her son who to date. Now, she was painfully reminded of the way her entire family had managed her bad relationship with Jonah.

She said to Cole what she wished people had said to her. “Jack is a terrible person. He tried to use you to get to me and Papa. He made you think that you were special, but the entire time, he was using you to make himself feel better about his shitty existence. You can do ten times better than him. He didn’t deserve you.”

Cole nodded, but he still looked devastated.

Emmy fell back on the practical. “I’m going to show you how insurance works. It’s not complicated. You’re a grown man. I should’ve shown you sooner.”

“Okay.” Cole wiped his nose with his sleeve. Straightened his shoulders. “I went onto Jack’s TikTok to see where he was when Paisley disappeared. He’s been in Los Angeles since Sunday. He’s got a producer he’s pitching the podcast with.”

Emmy hadn’t even considered the possibility of a streamer picking up the podcast, but now she was genuinely alarmed.

Cole said, “He posted a video about how Paisley’s gonna be part two of the series. He’s on the red-eye back to Georgia. I’m sure he’s gonna stir up more shit when he gets here.”

Emmy made her head nod. “Okay.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

He meant Jude. “No, but I want you to check flights and confirm Jack was out of town just so we’re covering our bases, all right?”

“Yep.” Cole took another deep breath. “I’ll see you back here at ten.”

Emmy watched him open the door, walk down the hall. Cole’s head was down. She didn’t know which was hurting him more, his heart or his pride. For her part, Emmy regretted not beating Jack to death with his own pocket pussy when she’d had the chance. The asshole had lovebombed Cole for six months without revealing that he was working on the podcast. He’d thought Cole would be eager to throw his own mother and grandfather under the bus.

He’d thought wrong.

She turned back to the monitors, wondering what other fuckery Jack was up to. Emmy had worked really hard to forget all the kinky shit teenage Jack had kept hidden under his mattress, particularly when it came to her son. She guessed this was what Elijah Walker meant when he’d said his wife wasn’t adventurous enough. Emmy studied the man’s face. He was chewing his lip. Seth had already cut Belinda loose. Elijah was alone at the table. Emmy reached behind the DVR and disconnected the power.

Elijah startled when she walked into the interrogation room. Jumped up from his chair. Did the whole “what the fuck” thing again like the righteous husband and father that he was.

Emmy said, “You were paying Jack Whitlock for sex, right?”

Elijah’s mouth gaped like a fish out of water.

“Jack stopped fucking you when his podcast hit last year, right? He didn’t need the money anymore?”

Elijah’s mouth snapped closed.

“Before that, you met him the last Friday of every month at the Dew Drop Inn.” Emmy paused. “I can get the FBI back in here and put all this on the record, or you can tell me right now if what I’m saying is the truth—yes or no?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “But I’m not—”

Emmy slammed the door behind her. At least she knew how Jack had managed to support himself while he was making the podcast. Despite what Emmy did for a living, she wasn’t one to judge people for using what they had to make money, but it took a set of brass balls to fuck over three generations of law enforcement.

“Malignant prick,” she mumbled, leaving the station through the side exit, bypassing the squad room. Emmy texted Seth Alexander to let him know she was fine with kicking Elijah Walker loose, if only for the sake of his grieving wife.

She tried to take a deep breath, but her lungs refused to expand. The moon was low in the sky because this hellacious night was never going to come to an end. She walked in the opposite direction from the parking lot, pushing through the stand of trees along the back. Her arms went up to block low-hanging branches. She hadn’t made this trek in six months, but her body remembered the way.

The lights were on inside Dylan’s house. She could see him leaning against the kitchen counter while he read the Herald on his iPad. He was a man who liked a routine. She knew that he’d already gone for his run, had breakfast, taken his shower, and was checking the news before heading in to work. Emmy opened the gate to his backyard. She could see her Burmese cat in the living room window. Bap-Bap’s face was buried in his paws. Emmy had asked Dylan to keep him because she was afraid that Myrna would do something bad. Giving up the cat was almost harder than giving up Dylan. She had cried in the car all the way back to her parents’ house.

Emmy wiped her eyes. The exhaustion was unrelenting. Her bones felt like they were trembling inside of her body. She could see two of everything. Emmy blinked, trying to clear her vision. She stood at the stairs to Dylan’s back deck, willed him to look out the window and see her.

He was still a good-looking man. Dark hair combed to the side, face clean-shaven. Already dressed for court in his suit and tie. Twelve years ago, Dylan Alvarez had been on Emmy’s periphery, her what if. What if she wasn’t married to Jonah? What if she asked Dylan out after the divorce? What if she waited until Cole was out of high school? What if Dylan wasn’t dating someone else? What if Emmy wasn’t good enough for him? What if she only knew how to be with a bad man?

That it had happened at all was still a mystery. She’d run into him at the grocery store, the movie theater, the park. He’d bought her a drink. Then it was a meal. Then it was a nightcap. Then he was cooking her breakfast. Then he was introducing her to his daughter Jenna and she was introducing him to Cole. Two years had rocked on before Emmy had worked up the nerve to tell him that she loved him. And still, Emmy hadn’t moved in with Dylan so much as started staying over. First on the weekends, then for a few more days, then for a total of four years.

Then Myrna had taken a turn.

The day Emmy had left Dylan, she had told him she would still see him, but she didn’t. She had told him she would call, but she hadn’t. By all rights, he should never speak to her again. But a few hours ago, outside the jail complex, Dylan had asked her to let him be there for her. She wasn’t sure if the offer was still good, but right now she was desperate, and he was standing inside the house that part of Emmy still thought of as home.

And he still hadn’t looked up from his iPad.

She felt her nerve start to break. She took out her phone to text him. A sharp pain shot through her chest. Emmy couldn’t stop herself from crying out. Her body had processed the information on the screen before her brain had. It wasn’t anything about Paisley. There weren’t any updates. The time is what caught her. Six twenty-four in the morning. At this same time yesterday, Emmy had been sitting at the kitchen table with her mother. They were going through the routine they’d gone through over the last six months. Then Cole had come downstairs. Then they had gone to Gerald’s office to run down Adam’s case.

All of that, every single second of that morning, would never happen ever again.

“Emmy?” Dylan had opened the back door. He came out onto the deck. “You okay?”

She could feel tears rolling down her face. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. “I’m really great.”

“Looks like it.” He was smiling, but he was clearly worried. “What do you need, Em?”

She knew exactly what she needed. The same as before. To curl into him. To disappear. To feel his arms protecting her. To let out the breath that she had been holding since her father had fallen to the ground. She would do anything to get to that moment of exhale. Anything except tell him the truth.

She asked, “Do you want to have sex?”

“Sure.” Dylan knew that’s not what she really wanted, just like he knew the part he was supposed to play. “Why don’t you take a bath first?”

“Okay.”

He held open the door so she could go inside. Emmy started taking off her things as she walked to the bathroom. Her duty vest. Her belt. Shirt. Her fingers felt numb as she unbuttoned her pants. Her head was swimming. She nearly toppled over when she bent down to untie her boots.

“I’ve got it.” Dylan took off his suit jacket. He closed the toilet lid so she could sit down. He started to work on the laces. His head was shaking. He was clearly annoyed. “If I’d pulled you over for distracted driving, you’d be arrested by now. You can barely stand.”

“You can handcuff me if you want.”

He laughed, but not like it was funny.

She said, “I’ve got to be back at work in three and a half hours.”

“That’s a lot of sex.”

“We’ve done it before.” She leaned over and turned on the taps in the bathtub. “My sister rose from the dead.”

“I know.” He pulled off her boots. Then her socks. Then everything else.

“She calls herself Jude.” Emmy watched Bap-Bap saunter into the bathroom to see what was up. “She told me to get some rest.”

“That’s crazy.” He helped her climb into the tub. “Who does she think she is?”

“My sister, apparently.”

“What an asshole.” Dylan turned her wrist so he could unbuckle her watch.

Emmy touched her fingers to the back of his hand. Waited for him to look at her. “Dad’s blood is in the crown.”

Dylan’s face changed. He stared at the watch for a moment. Angled it to the light to see the blood. His chest rose and fell. He had loved Gerald, too.

She watched him stand up and carefully place the watch on the shelf above the sink. Then he got a towel and washcloth from the cupboard. He scratched Bap-Bap behind the ears. Knelt beside the tub. Rolled up his sleeves. Tossed his tie over his shoulder. Wet the washcloth under the faucet. Worked the soap into a lather. Started to wash Emmy’s back.

She let her eyes close. The tremble in her bones dissipated. Her heartbeat started to slow. The soothing feel of his touch. The warmth of the water enveloping her body. Her muscles relaxed. She’d felt like she’d been holding the world together all night, but only now could she feel herself start to release her grip.

“Dylan?”

“Yeah?”

“I would’ve married you if you’d asked me to.”

He rinsed the soap off her back. “I would’ve asked you if you’d wanted me to.”

She let him lift her arm, run the washcloth along her skin. Emmy studied his face again. He was still annoyed, but she knew he was also concerned. She said, “I wanted you to be mad at me.”

“Oh, believe me. I’m mad at you.”

“Not for the shitty way I left.” She reached over to turn off the taps. “I mean twelve years ago with Madison.”

Dylan hung the washcloth on the faucet. Sat back on his heels. Waited for an explanation. Emmy occasionally did this when they were alone, just the two of them, the woman who never talked to anybody but her father talked to the man who was desperate to hear what she had to say.

She asked, “Do you remember when I met you at school the morning after the girls were taken?”

He nodded.

“I told you that Madison wanted to talk to me before the fireworks show, and that I blew her off, and you said you hate when that happens, like it happens all the time.”

“It does happen all the time.” He put his hand over hers. “Why would I blame you for something so fleeting and out of your control?”

“Because.” Emmy forced herself to keep going. “Jonah beat me down so hard. I chose him over Hannah. I chose him over Madison. I didn’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“Babe, you were a year younger than Madison when you first met Jonah. You guys were together for almost twenty years. You can’t choose something if you don’t know you have a choice.”

Emmy wasn’t going to let herself off so lightly. “If I had stopped to listen to her . . .”

“You don’t know what would’ve happened.” He wiped away her tears. “Kids pretend like the important things don’t matter, and that the things that don’t matter are really important.”

“I’m too tired to understand what you said.”

“I know, mi cielo.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll set an alarm for nine thirty. You’ve still got a uniform in Jenna’s old room. I put your things in a plastic container on the top shelf. I need to get ready for court, and you need to get some rest.”

“Is Hannah being arraigned already?”

“Not yet. They’ve got another twenty-four hours. You know how it works. Either they have to charge her or let her go.” Dylan shrugged, but she could tell it was wearing on him. He was used to handling divorces, not capital cases. “The GBI is re-interviewing witnesses to see if anyone will say that Hannah was touching the gun when it went off.”

Emmy felt her stomach pitch. Sherry Robertson wasn’t playing around. She was trying to build a felony murder case. “What about Paul? Can’t he say Hannah wasn’t touching the gun?”

“I think when he sobers up and realizes he’s looking at the death penalty, he won’t have any qualms about flipping. You know how it works. They’ll take the death penalty off the table so he’ll testify against Hannah. First rat gets the cheese.”

Emmy wanted to believe he was wrong. “She’s the mother of his child. He wouldn’t do that.”

Dylan dried his hands on the towel. “I hope you’re right, babe. We’ll see.”

Emmy leaned back in the tub, rested her head on the edge. She looked up at the ceiling. She could hear Dylan in the kitchen. Loading the dishwasher, getting his keys, walking out the front door. Bap-Bap jumped onto the closed toilet lid. He turned in three circles, then lay down. She watched him blink, then blink again, then his eyes closed, and he was asleep.

She was desperate to do the same, but Emmy didn’t think it would happen. She had spent the last six months on edge every time her head hit the pillow. Waiting for Gerald to call for help. Waiting for Myrna to start screaming. Worrying about Cole. About Tommy. About Celia. About Dylan. About Bap-Bap. About work. About the podcast. About Adam. About a noise she’d heard and whether she should get up to investigate, and now that she was up, she might as well stay up since she had to go to work in a few hours anyway.

So then Emmy would sit alone at the kitchen table, and her mind would race as she searched for new things to stress about, new situations to catastrophize, until the tension wound up and she heard Myrna creaking at the top of the stairs, and Emmy’s stomach clenched while she wondered if her mother would fall down the stairs again, or if she would manage to reach the kitchen, and would she recognize Emmy or would she call her Martha or would she scream at the stranger who was sitting alone at her kitchen table?

Emmy heard the faucet drip. Bap-Bap started to snore. Her eyelids fluttered. She couldn’t fight it.

For the first time in six months, Emmy let herself fall asleep.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Chapter Fifteen

Jude sat in her rental car looking at the house she’d grown up in. Originally, the 1920s home had been no more than a two-bedroom cottage. Then the kitchen had been expanded and a second story had been added. Then a garage. Then a wraparound porch. Then an equipment shed for a small tractor to work the back sixty. Jude’s room had been on the second floor, right side of the house, overlooking the porch, which had come in handy because she was always sneaking out. Bunk beds had been wedged into the rear bedroom for Henry and Tommy. Myrna and Gerald had slept in the largest room opposite. They’d all shared the bathroom at the end of the hall.

The only thing that seemed to have changed in the last forty years was the shed, which by the looks had been converted into a bonus area. There were three cars parked on the gravel pad. The Clifton County Sheriff’s Department cruiser was a more modern version of the boxy Plymouth Fury Gerald had driven back in the day. Jude recognized the hunter green Alfa Romeo convertible that Celia’s father used to baby like his favorite child. The 100,000-dollar silver Mercedes obviously belonged to one of the Rich Cliftons. They had always shouted their wealth from the rooftops.

Jude was tempted to drive away, but she wasn’t going to let herself revert to the Clifton norm of evading uncomfortable situations. She got out of the car, walked toward the porch. Jude could see a woman standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. Her button nose and narrow features put her firmly in the Rich Clifton camp. She was mid forties, probably cousin Cynthia and Ruel’s daughter, who had been so small when she was born that they had called her Tiny Baby, which in the way of these things had been shortened to Taybee. Jude guessed by her obvious height that the name had fallen away sometime around puberty.

“Hey there!” The woman met Jude at the kitchen door, holding open the screen. “You must be my cousin Jude. I’m Taybee Clifton-Clifton. Welcome back to town.”

Jude couldn’t help herself. “Did you marry another cousin?”

“Oh, now, we’re not gonna be like that.” Taybee looped her arm through Jude’s as she dragged her into the kitchen. Nothing had changed. Not even the light blue phone on the wall. “We’re both Cliftons, lady. We’ve gotta have each other’s backs.”

Jude watched her hook the screen door. Then she took off the hook and dropped it in again. Then again. “How’s your mother?”

“Dead, just like my daddy.” Taybee turned away from the door. “Cervical cancer took my mama. I was at UGA doing my JD, so it was a long time ago, God rest ’em.” Taybee took a mug from the drying rack. She lined up the handle perpendicular to the counter before pouring the coffee. “So, an FBI agent, huh? Your people were all over my farm yesterday, searching it top to bottom looking for signs of that poor girl. What’s that like being a G-Man? G-Woman, I mean?”

“Lots of paperwork.” Jude watched as Taybee adjusted the carafe in the Mr. Coffee three times in a row. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

“You didn’t like my mama.”

“No, we never got along.” Jude took the mug and placed it haphazardly on the table. “But it’s like you said, we were both Cliftons.”

“That’s right.” Taybee straightened the mug. “You just missed Myrna, though bless her heart, she wouldn’t know you from a stranger. The ambulance is taking her to that new place in Verona where the old hospital used to be. Tommy’s with her, but Celia’s upstairs. Cole’s still asleep, poor angel. He’s been running on nothing but fumes, then Myrna had one of her fits when the ambulance got here. I don’t know how anybody’s managing to show up for work right now with Gerald gone.”

Jude wasn’t going to talk about her father. “Where’s Emmy?”

“Lemme check.” Taybee picked up her red leather purse from the chair and slid out a phone in a matching case. “Oh, that’s sweet. She’s at Dylan’s.”

Jude could see the Life360 map on Taybee’s phone. “You track her?”

“’Course I do. I don’t know about you, but I just feel safer knowing where everybody is.”

“Uh huh.” Jude took a sip of coffee, watching Taybee as she pulled out another red leather case, this one for business cards. She slid one out, then tapped the edge of the card on the case three times, then offered it up to Jude.

“Here’s my deets if you need me. I never turn off my cell. I already got your number from Father Nate. Wow, he certainly had a lot to say about you.” She looked at her watch. “Son of a biscuit. I’m due in court. Tell Emmy the stove’s back on. I just turned the thingy with a wrench, so I hope the house doesn’t blow up. I put some groceries in the fridge. There’s some breakfast in there, too. Don’t put it in the microwave. I already pre-heated the oven. Pop it in for ten minutes and you’ll be good to go.”

Jude drank from the mug again as she watched Taybee spin around the room. She touched the fridge door three times. Then tapped the counter three times. Then she looked ready to leave.

“All right then, have a good one.” Taybee touched her fingers to her lips and blew Jude three kisses as she walked out the door. Then she turned back around and made sure the screen was closed again and again before trundling down the stairs in her ridiculously high heels.

Jude watched her from the kitchen window. Taybee tapped the hood of the red Mercedes three times, then got into the car, then started a routine of adjusting the mirrors and the seat and the steering wheel in a textbook example of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It was a terrible way to live. Jude hoped that she was getting help, but she also knew it wasn’t in the nature of a Clifton to ask for assistance. Doubly so for a Clifton-Clifton. Or triply, as the case could be.

Regardless, the kitchen felt empty without Taybee’s nervous energy. Jude had the sense of a trespasser. She was standing behind her old chair at the table, but she couldn’t remember the last time she was in this exact spot. The night she’d left home, Jude had been forced to stand outside on the porch while she talked to her father. It was gone midnight. The rain was pelting down. She had looked past Gerald’s shoulder and seen Myrna sitting at the table. Her mother had been so angry that she’d stared at the fridge, refusing even to turn her head to say a last goodbye.

Jude rested her hand on the back of the chair. Melancholy threatened to take hold. She looked at the doorjamb. The marks were still there where Myrna had tracked the progress of their growth. Tommy. Henry. Martha. Jude felt a sadness over the relatively new additions. Emmy. Cole. She’d missed everything.

The silence was broken by a creaking sound from the upstairs hallway. Jude closed her eyes. The noise took her straight back to her childhood. Sitting with Tommy and Henry at the table. Myrna screaming that supper was getting cold. Gerald swaying at the top of the stairs, so drunk that it was a wonder he never fell down.

Jude secretly hoping that he would.

“Emmy?” Celia’s voice had the same soothing tone as it had decades ago. She’d been Jude’s best friend from kindergarten on. Then Jude had left town and never spoken to her again.

“Oh,” Celia stopped on the stairs. “You got old.”

Jude laughed. Except for the gray in Celia’s hair, she looked almost exactly the same as she had in high school. “You’re driving your dad’s Alfa.”

“I promised him I’d donate it to the car museum when he died. Stupid old fart believed me.” Celia studied her as she came into the kitchen. “God, is it really you?”

“You want me to take off my jeans and show you the scar from when you took a chunk out of my leg with that lawn dart?”

“That was Henry.”

Jude’s smile felt bittersweet. She had forgotten what it felt like to share Henry with someone. “It’s good to see you, Ceals.”

Celia smiled back, but she didn’t return the sentiment. “Why are you here?”

“Because—” Jude silently chastised herself for not preparing a better answer to the most obvious question. “Because I got the missing child alert for Paisley Walker, and I clicked on the link and saw the photo of Emmy with Dad.”

“That sounds like a sequence of events rather than an explanation.”

Jude laughed because it was easier. “I heard you’re a high school principal now. It suits you.”

“You knew that before you got here, though.” Celia opened the fridge and started pulling out Tupperware. “You’ve been following us on Facebook.”

“Tommy ratted me out.”

“He didn’t have to. You think I couldn’t put together the clues?” Celia took a plate from the drainer. “You always hated the name Martha and loved Paul McCartney, plus there was no way you’d go by Judean. And Archer, well that’s from Isabel Archer, isn’t it? The Portrait of a Lady. You did your junior paper on Henry James.”

Jude had worked with seasoned agents who weren’t as clever. Of course, they hadn’t grown up with Jude like Celia had. “Why didn’t you ever message me?”

“Probably for the same reason you never messaged me.” Celia placed two biscuits on the plate, added some bacon. “I met Paisley Walker at ninth-grade orientation. I don’t remember what she looked like or what she said, but there’s a photo in the paper of me shaking her hand like I do with all the incoming ninthgraders.”

Jude could hear the sadness in her voice. “What do you know about the family?”

“Elijah handles our car insurance.” She popped open the microwave door. “I don’t like him, but he’s who everybody else uses. You know how it is.”

Jude did. North Falls people used North Falls businesses. “Taybee told me to heat those up in the oven.”

Celia placed the plate in the microwave. She closed the door.

Then closed it again. Then again.

Jude didn’t want to laugh, but she did.

“I’m going to hell for that. Taybee really has been a massive help these past few years.” Celia turned off the oven. She sat in Henry’s chair. Motioned for Jude to join her. “All right, out with it. Why are you really here?”

Jude took her time sitting down. “My job is to find missing children. There’s a child missing. I thought I could help Emmy.”

“Emmy’s not the kind to take help.”

“She’s so much like Gerald.” Jude couldn’t keep the sense of wonder out of her voice. “She sees clues the way he did. Cuts through the bullshit. Knows how to get to the truth. And she’s as prickly as Myrna. I haven’t been talked to like that in a very long time.”

“Emmy is the best of both of them, but she’s always been her own person.” Celia shrugged, but she was clearly proud. “Did Tommy tell you about Gerald’s cancer?”

“Milo filled me in at the funeral home.” Jude had worked past the shock of her father’s death only to be hit with a second wave of sadness. Gerald had known he was going to die, and he still hadn’t reached out to her. “Who’s Dylan?”

“A very nice man whom Emmy left because she couldn’t handle Gerald dying of cancer and Myrna slipping away at the same time.” Celia clasped together her hands on the table. “Tommy did his part. I tried to do mine. The old biddy’s forgotten everything but for the fact that she hates me.”

Jude said, “I told myself there might be some kind of resolution.”

“Gerald wasn’t the only reason you stayed away.”

“No, he wasn’t.” Jude picked at the frayed place mat. The melancholy threatened to return, and with it the grief of all that had been lost. “The last thing I said to him was that I hated him.”

Celia’s eyebrows went up.

“I didn’t say it. I screamed it,” Jude admitted. “I told both of them that I wouldn’t step foot back in Clifton until they were dead.”

“Well,” Celia said. “Gerald left Myrna out of that part of the story, but that’s pretty much what he told Tommy and Emmy.”

Jude knew that her father didn’t make those sorts of mistakes. He’d been trying to protect Myrna. “What explanation did he give for my fake death?”

“The car accident that almost killed Bubba Rawley. Gerald needed you gone so he didn’t have to arrest you. Millie wanted to file charges for you stealing her cars. He told people you were dead, and they believed him.”

Jude nodded, but only because it was a good story. “What’s old Bubba up to?”

“He’s a grandfather now. His kids are worthless shits, just like he was. And Bubba’s still an asshole. He seems to have forgotten that he was high on coke when the cars crashed. Good thing, too. He probably wouldn’t have survived otherwise.”

Jude didn’t want to talk about the car accident, either. “I’m glad you ended up with Tommy. You always had a crush on him.”

Celia paused before answering, as if to make it clear she knew what Jude was doing. “Who did you end up with?”

“An AUSA who thought we wanted the same things.” Jude shrugged. “We didn’t. He was a good guy, though. He’s got a wife and three kids now.”

“No kids for you?”

“No kids for me.”

Celia let out a long sigh. “What’d you do when you left, drive until you hit the Pacific, then set down roots?”

“I toured around the country in the back of a Volkswagen bus fronting a band called the Radical Fiends.” Jude laughed along with Celia because it was one of the stupidest, most laughable things a girl could do when she left a small town. “I dated the bass player, then the drummer, then they kicked me out for cheating with the keyboardist, then I decided I was sick of it and went to night school, then grad school, then I got offered a job on the tenure track, then I gave it up and joined the FBI.”

“And stopped drinking along the way.” Celia paused, but Jude didn’t fill in the blanks. “You got your doctorate. Myrna would’ve been proud.”

“Maybe.” Jude wasn’t sure. “How do I get back on Tommy’s good side?”

“He’s not that complicated. He loves his family. If you get right with Emmy, you’ll be right with Tommy.”

“Easy peasy,” Jude joked.

They both turned at the sound of another creak at the top of the stairs. Cole was in a pair of white boxer shorts. His muscles were sculpted like marble. He had a tattoo of a skull and crossbones on his left hip.

He looked at Jude. “Did they find Paisley?”

“No, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

Celia started puttering around the kitchen getting coffee and another plate. “Why are you up, honey? You’ve got another hour to sleep.”

Cole slumped into the chair. “I keep wondering about Paisley. Do you really think she’s dead?”

The question had been directed at Jude. She wasn’t going to soft-pedal the answer. “If you look at the statistics, it’s highly unlikely she’s still alive.”

He said, “Madison was kept alive for at least twelve hours.”

Jude didn’t point out that they were well past that mark. “I think it’s always good in these cases to be pragmatic. Hope can be a terrible thing. It wears on you.”

“Here you go.” Celia kissed the top of Cole’s head as she placed breakfast in front of him. “You need to eat.”

Cole asked Jude, “So we’re just gonna go through the case again?”

“Yes, but I want to talk to Adam Huntsinger first.”

Celia stiffened but kept silent.

Cole had picked up on the change. He gave Jude a careful look. “What does Mom think about that?”

“I drove here to ask, but she’s not home, and if she’s asleep, I don’t want to wake her up. Can you call that deputy who’s supposed to be watching him?”

“His name is Brett Temple, but Adam’s probably at Jonah’s bar waiting for the beer truck.” Cole shoved a biscuit into his mouth. Jude endured a lot of chewing before he continued. “Jonah hired him to piss off Mom.”

Jude could tell by Celia’s posture that Jonah had pissed off more people than Emmy. She told Cole, “It’s nine in the morning. Do they serve breakfast?”

“Lunch,” he said. “The beer delivery comes at nine thirty, and there’s no way Jonah’s getting up early unless he has to.”

“Get dressed,” Jude told him. “You can give me a ride. Call Brett to make sure Adam’s at the bar.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Cole crammed the other biscuit into his mouth before disappearing up the stairs.

Jude told Celia, “He’s a good kid.”

“Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s perfect.” Celia sat back down at the table. Clasped together her hands. “Jonah bought the Hang Out from your uncle Penley with the money he got from Emmy after the divorce.”

Jude felt a wave of nausea at the mention of the sleazy dive. Her brain summoned the layout from memory. Sticky floors, loud video games, pool tables in the back, toilets to the left of the small stage and dance floor. She used to sneak out with Henry. The drinks were strong, and nobody cared if you were underage, especially when your father was the sheriff and your uncle owned the place.

“Hey,” Celia said. “Everything okay?”

Jude nodded. “It’s hard to believe Penley sold the bar. He loved that place.”

“He loves Emmy more, and trust me, any one of us would’ve donated a kidney to get Jonah to leave Emmy alone.” Celia gave a stiff shrug of her shoulders. “You both have similar tastes. Jonah’s a failed musician.”

Jude didn’t laugh. “So was Charles Manson.”

Celia didn’t laugh, either. “Are you sure you want to see Adam again?”

“No.” Jude didn’t press her on the subject of Emmy and Jonah. She opened her purse, started laying out her make-up. Lipstick, eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara. She propped up her compact against the salt and pepper shakers. “Are the matches still by the stove?”

Celia reached over to open the drawer, found a lighter and tossed it onto the table. “What are you up to?”

“I need Adam to think I turned out exactly how he thought I would.” Jude liberally powdered her face, trying to ignore the way it brought out the creases around her mouth and eyes. “Tell me about him.”

“Worthless cocksucker. Sold pot to children. Stole money from his parents. His mother’s eyesight is gone. Walton had to mortgage the house to try to keep him off death row.” Celia’s face looked grim. “You know about the podcast?”

“Misguided Angel.” Jude clicked the lighter and held the eyeliner pencil over the flame so the wax would melt. “What a crock of shit. That Jack Whitlock clearly had a hard-on for Emmy. Made her seem like a tragic, overly emotional Keystone Kop.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Again, Celia didn’t share the details. “How are you going to get that eyeliner right without reading glasses? There’s no way you’re not as blind as I am.”

“Shut up and help me.” Jude handed over the pencil, looked up at the ceiling. “What do you think, Ceals? Was it Adam? Did Gerald get it wrong?”

“Let me concentrate.” Celia went silent as she traced the melted pencil under Jude’s eyes. They could’ve been back in high school. The only thing missing was a David Bowie record playing on the stereo. “After you left, Adam got worse. Raising hell all over the place. In and out of jail. He still sold weed, but he did odd jobs on the side, lived with his parents most of the time.”

“Gerald didn’t know Millie hired a con to work on her property?”

“Millie didn’t know. She found Adam’s number on the bulletin board at the senior center. Paid him cash, didn’t ask questions.” Celia shrugged. “Not that it matters. Millie wasn’t talking to Gerald when the girls went missing.”

Jude had been well-versed in the generation-spanning family feuds. “What a surprise.”

“Well, I wasn’t talking to Myrna, so I can’t say anything,” Celia admitted. “I was rawdogging menopause. Bless Tommy’s heart for sticking it out.”

Jude’s ex hadn’t been as resilient. “They should call it fuckapause, because you run out of all the fucks you can give.”

Celia’s quick laugh hadn’t changed since they were sneaking sips of MD 20/20 behind the Chilly Treat. “You’re the FBI expert, Dr. Archer. What do you think? Is Adam guilty?”

“I think I need to be careful about opening up a can of worms.” Jude studied her reflection. The eyeliner was too sharp. She used her thumb to smudge it, judging the effect in the small mirror. Then she put on more eyeshadow than she’d used in the last forty years. “Christ, I can’t believe I used to do this every day.”

“I bet there’s a safety pin in here somewhere.” Celia leaned over to look in the drawer again. She passed Jude a sewing kit. “I wish you’d known the better versions of Myrna and Gerald. Tommy says they changed because of Emmy, but I think they had to get over losing Henry.”

“They needed me gone so they could let go.” Jude tried to keep the bitterness at bay. “You were here for those six days when they couldn’t find his body. The way Myrna tore into me. Gerald wouldn’t even look me in the face. I was only sixteen years old. I lost my brother, too.”

“Everything you’re saying is true,” Celia said. “They were terrible people. Terrible parents. How they treated you was unforgivable. It wasn’t your fault Henry went into the river that night. It could’ve just as easily been you. Myrna and Gerald practically chased you out of town themselves.”

Jude twisted open the tube of mascara. “And once I was gone, they turned into different people.”

“So did you.”

Jude laughed. “Well done. It took me thirty years of therapy to come to that same conclusion.”

“Shit, don’t let anybody know a Clifton went to therapy. The entire family tree will burst into flames.”

“If only.” Jude jammed the wand into the tube of mascara several times to load it up. She went over her lashes twice to make sure it was caked on, then she used the pointy end of the safety pin to pick the lashes apart. “I remember how furious Myrna used to get when we did this.”

“You’re going to give yourself pink eye!” Celia screeched. She’d always done a good Myrna. “Jesus, I can’t believe what’s happened to her. It’s terrifying to watch.”

Jude applied a liberal layer of lipstick. “I used to worry about my bad knees, but now all I can think is maybe I have the same genetic marker.”

“Aunt Millie can tell you which side it came from.”

“Fucking hell.” Jude had thought she was beyond being surprised. “Millie’s still alive?”

“Cole calls her Aunt Spoiler because she can tell you how everybody died.” Celia passed Jude a paper towel. “The old bitch gets around better than I do. You know those Clifton women are too stubborn to die.”

Jude blotted her lips with the paper towel, making sure to smear it outside the lines. She asked, “How did I do?”

“You did great,” Celia said. “I wish I could wear eyeshadow again. I get in front of the mirror and it’s like trying to draw crayon on a ballsac.”

The floorboard creaked at the top of the stairs. Cole was back. He’d changed into his uniform. He asked Jude, “Why do you look like that?”

“Like a washed-up old whore?” She smiled at his reaction. “I knew Adam Huntsinger back in the day, sweetheart. He won’t talk to me if I’m too cleaned up.”

“Is that like a boomer thing?”

Celia ruffled his hair. “Gen X you little twerp.”

Jude gathered from Cole’s grin that this was a game they played. She couldn’t keep herself from smiling as she packed her make-up back into her purse. She touched her hand to Celia’s shoulder on her way out the door.

Inside the cruiser, Cole rested his elbow on the console and drove with two fingers on the wheel, the same way Gerald had. Jude felt an unexpected wave of sadness. She had mourned the loss of her father so many times over the years that his actual death had felt like an afterthought as she flew across the country. Now, sitting beside Cole, sharing his easy silence, she couldn’t help but be grateful that the things she had lost as a teenager had been returned in spades to the young man beside her.

She told him, “Go ahead. Ask me your questions.”

He was clearly ready. “Why did you join the FBI?”

Jude wasn’t going to tell him that she’d joined as a big fuck you to a father who’d told her she wasn’t built for the job, but she could cut close to the truth. “As a criminal psychologist, my choices were to either teach or start seeing patients. I was sick of being in school and I didn’t want to set up shop in an office building or a hospital. I thought I could put my degree to more practical use with the FBI.”

“Did they recruit you?”

“That’s more the CIA’s thing.” She could tell from the flash of excitement in his eyes that he’d seen too many movies. “You’ve been told about your uncle Henry?”

“A little bit. It’s hard for Uncle Tommy to talk about anything. Like, at all.”

Jude knew that was not an exaggeration. “Gerald wanted Henry to take over as sheriff one day. From the moment he was born, Dad passed down all his wisdom, his techniques, his approaches. And I was right there listening alongside Henry. It gave me a head start when I joined the agency.”

“Papa taught Mom how to be a cop.” Cole had clearly picked up on the things Jude hadn’t said. “And he was teaching me. Or at least trying to. I didn’t listen like I should’ve.”

She watched his eyes glisten with tears. His jawbone jutted out from his cheek. Jude reached for his arm, but Cole moved his hand to the top of the steering wheel to put himself out of reach.

He asked, “Why did you stop drinking?”

“The reason most people do. I got tired of it. It stops being fun real quick, and then it’s just hangovers and feeling like shit and being terrible to people you love and doing all kinds of nasty things that you know you shouldn’t do, so you drink more to forget and start the cycle all over again.”

Cole was nodding. “That’s kind of what Papa said. That he got tired of it. And that he didn’t want to miss Mom and me growing up.”

Jude nodded, too, but his words threatened to reopen a very old wound. “What did you think of the Misguided Angel podcast?”

“That it was wrong to go after my mom like that. She wasn’t in charge of the case. Papa was. And they had a lot of evidence. The jury heard it and agreed with what they found.”

Jude caught the undertone of anger. She also thought it was interesting that Cole wasn’t insisting that Gerald had gotten it right. “The podcast raised an alternate suspect, Dale Loudermilk.”

“He was the choral director at school. They found a bunch of child porn on his computer, but he was ruled out as a suspect in the abduction.”

“Based on?”

“Based on Adam being more likely because of the preponderance of evidence. Adam had contact with Madison on the day she disappeared. He admitted to selling her the bag of weed that was found in her pocket. Aunt Millie saw them sitting together at her pond that morning. Plus, Adam dropped Cheyenne’s necklace outside his house. Plus, all the stuff with his father’s Jetta, and he wore a size eleven boot and didn’t have an alibi, and stuff like that.”

“Where is Dale Loudermilk now?”

“Mom checked yesterday when Paisley Walker went missing. He’s still in prison. He’s not eligible for parole for another four years.” Cole reached down and flashed his lights to slow down a speeder. “What did you think about the podcast?”

“I think for the most part that podcasters don’t have all the information that the police have, so it’s easy to latch onto an alternate theory. I’m not saying they’re always wrong, but they’re selling a story. Good and bad. Heroes and villains. Most of them are trying to make a name for themselves. They tend to forget the victims. They focus on the bad guy instead of the people he hurt.”

“This bad guy really hurt a lot of people,” Cole said. “My mom and Hannah used to be best friends. Like sisters, practically. Then that stuff happened with Madison, and they never talked to each other again.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s weird, like they’re not mean or anything, but they stay out of each other’s way.”

“Did you ask your mom what happened?”

“She told me I’d understand one day, but that’s what she usually says when she doesn’t want to talk about stuff.”

Jude could tell by his tone that the rift bothered him. He was still so young. He hadn’t fully developed that hard Clifton shell. “I assume you didn’t see who was holding the gun yesterday when Gerald was shot?”

“Nope.” Cole’s jaw clenched a few times. “You got any more questions about the podcast?”

Jude let the silence stretch until it threatened to turn awkward. “I thought it was strange Jack called it Misguided Angel, but he never mentions or plays the song.”

“There’s a song?”

“There’s a beautiful song by the Cowboy Junkies.” Jude cleared her throat, singing the soft ballad. “Misguided angel hangin’ over me . . . heart like Gabriel, pure and white like ivory . . . soul like Lucifer, black and cold like a piece of lead . . . misguided angel, love you ’til I’m dead.”

Cole was grinning by the time she’d finished. “You’ve got a pretty voice.”

“Good enough for grad school.” Jude tried to be careful. “Some people think the song is about a woman who’s trapped in an abusive relationship.”

All expression left Cole’s face. Maybe his shell was thicker than she’d thought. The podcast had skirted around the dissolution of Emmy and Jonah’s marriage, but even four decades on, Jude was still attuned to the coded language of North Falls people.

“Look.” Cole’s voice was hard. He was North Falls people, too. “I’m not a suspect, and I’m not gonna let you interrogate me about my mother.”

“Fair enough.” Jude looked out the window, trying to find a way to change the subject. “Are those Uncle Penley’s apartments?”

Cole cleared his throat. He was obviously still bristly. “Yeah, Mom wants me to move in, but since Grandma’s out of the house, I don’t know.”

“You’re too young to turn into Miss Havisham.”

He gave her a classic Myrna side-eye. “Grandma cleaned her stuff out before she got bad. Said she didn’t want us to have to go through everything. And Papa didn’t have much stuff anyway. Just his fishing poles and his albums.”

“Photo albums?”

“He made me show him how to print out pictures on his own.” Cole had a wistful smile on his face. “Only took him six tries to figure it out.”

They had reached the bar, which looked the same as before, but with a fresh coat of paint. Penley’s Hang Out sign had been replaced with blue neon that spelled Jonah’s Place. Jude could see a sheriff’s cruiser parked at the curb. Apparently, Brett Temple didn’t understand the covert part in Emmy’s order of surveillance. Neither did he get the memo that you weren’t supposed to fall asleep on duty. His head was back, mouth gaping open. Jude had been around men like Brett her entire law enforcement career. He was the type of man who would follow a woman into battle so long as she never, ever showed him weakness.

Jude told Cole, “You need to tell your mother Brett was sleeping on the job.”

“Uh—”

“Listen, sweetheart, there’s no brotherhood that usurps being a Clifton. That snoring jackass is going to run for sheriff if he thinks he has a shot. We need to shut him down now. You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jude got out of the cruiser and walked toward the low-slung building. Bar signs glowed weakly in the morning sun. The door was propped open to let in some fresh air. As she got closer, Jude could smell the stench of flop sweat, stale beer and liquor. She slowed her pace, trying to steel herself for what was to come.

During the past thirty-nine years of Jude’s sobriety, she’d been in and out of bars enough times to dull the ache of temptation, but none of those bars had been the one she was about to walk into now. This was where she used to dance with Henry while their parents slept. Tommy had gotten into a fight with a senior boy over which songs to play on the juke box. Jude was standing at a pool table in the back when she’d fallen in love with Jack Daniel’s. Her first hit of coke was snorted off a cutting board in the greasy kitchen. She was inside the women’s bathroom when she’d lost her virginity.

Jude stopped at the threshold, feeling as if a force field was preventing her from entering. Adam Huntsinger had his back to the door. He was stocking liquor bottles on the shelves. She recognized the snake tattoo that wrapped around his forearm. The ink had faded to a ghostly blue, but the lines were bright and menacing in her memory.

Adam leaned down to retrieve another bottle. In profile, Jude could see that he’d aged drastically. His acne-scarred face looked ravaged. His jawline had turned to jowl. His posture was stooped, his head jutting forward like a turtle. He’d been on death row for over a decade. He looked twenty years older on the outside, and had probably aged a hundred more inside. She had her own reasons for wanting to pack on another hundred, then another, until the weight of it dragged his soul down to hell.

Jude walked through the doorway. She reached into her purse, found a twenty-dollar bill, slapped it onto the bar. Her drink order came out like a childhood rhyme. “Double-Jack-up-waterback.”

“We’re clo—” Adam stared at her with his mouth open.

Up close, Jude could see that he’d dyed his hair an unnatural black. The lines around his mouth and eyes could’ve been cut into clay. The lenses of his thick glasses were smudged. He was missing one of his front teeth. Prison dental care was about as good as prison healthcare, which was to say non-existent.

He asked, “Martha?”

She arched her eyebrow. “Do I know you?”

“Jesus,” Adam laughed appreciatively. “You’re still smoking hot.”

“So, you do know me.” Jude sat down at the bar. She couldn’t tell if he was surprised to see her alive or surprised to see her here. “Can we talk about this over a drink?”

Adam reached for the whiskey, staring at her in open admiration. Emmy had told Jude that people had changed in the last forty years, but the predatory glint in Adam’s beady eyes was exactly the same.

He said, “Goddamn, you Clifton gals age like fine wine.”

“Adam Huntsinger.” Jude forced herself to look him in the eye. “What the fuck happened to you?”

He sloshed a triple of Jack into the glass. “What happened to you? We all thought you were dead. I was standing right over there by the pool table when your uncle Penley poured one out in your honor.”

That sounded like Penley. “Bubba Rawley wanted me in jail for the car accident. I figured that was my invitation to leave town.”

“Good for you.” Adam put the whiskey in front of her, started to fill a glass with water. “I wish I’d left when you did. Would’a saved me a whole lotta grief.”

She sat back on the bar stool to put some distance between them, but not before she caught a whiff of alcohol on his sour breath. “Why did you stay?”

“Usual shit.” He waved off the two capital murders. “Sorry about your dad. I hear your mom’s not doing too great, either.”

Jude knew he wasn’t sorry at all. She also knew how Clifton County worked. News of Jude’s arrival had probably made its way to Ocmulgee and back, but Adam was pretending to be in the dark. She had no problem playing musical chairs with the truth. She’d spent her professional life anticipating the exact moment the music would stop. “How are your folks?”

“Mom’s hanging in there. Dad sold his practice, but he still goes into work once a month to help out, plus he’s got his charity shit he does. Flies around the country pulling teeth.”

“Good for him.” Jude picked up the whiskey but didn’t drink.

“Seems like I got a baby sister while I was away.”

“Lemme tell you something.” He rested his hands on the bar, leaning forward. The stench of flop sweat mixed with the alcohol weeping from his pores. “That sister of yours, she’s a stone-cold bitch.”

Jude gripped her fingers around the glass and tried not to think about punching out the rest of his teeth. “Pour yourself a drink. We can toast to old times.”

“Nah, I’ve been sober for ten years.”

“Wow.” She appreciated the boldness of the lie. Classic alcoholic. “What are you doing for fun?”

“I’m taking care of my mom. She’s got a thing with her eyes. Can’t see more than shadows. Dad’s still in good shape, but it’s wearing him down taking care of her. I haven’t been around much. Figure it’s time for me to step up and do right by them.”

“That’s admirable.”

“Well, it took a lot of shit going down for me to realize there’s nothing more important than family.” His smile took on a cunning edge. The real Adam had come out to play. “You know how it is with family. You’d do anything to help ’em out.”

Jude could hear the lilt in his tone. The music had finally stopped. Now, it was only a question of who would be left standing.

She said, “Hey, Adam.”

“Hey, Jude.” His lip snagged against the gap in his teeth. Father Nate’s gossip had clearly made its way around town. Adam hadn’t been surprised to see her alive. He’d been surprised to see her here. “You trying to help your baby sister put me back inside?”

She shrugged. “How would I do that?”

“Trick me into saying something stupid.”

“I don’t think you need to say anything at all with your DNA tying you to the rape over in Metter.”

He huffed a laugh. “That gal don’t remember shit. We were both drunk out of our minds.”

“You weren’t so drunk that you couldn’t rape her.” She saw his body tense, the ropey lines of his muscles straining in his arms. “Did I hit a sore spot?”

“You think I don’t know you’re some kind of agent with the FBI?”

Jude shrugged. “You got me.”

“Judy-Jude.” Adam’s grin had turned rancid. “I was watching your daddy hit the road round about this time yesterday morning. Your sister going batshit. Your nephew losing his damn mind.”

Jude said a silent prayer of thanks to Freddy Henley for honing inside her the unique skill to remain passive in the face of cruelty.

“Gerald’s blood’s still in the street. Drove over it on my way to work this morning.” He was watching her, hoping for a reaction. “That old fool knocked on my door and came into my house acting like he was just trying to clear up a misunderstanding, but I knew what he was doing there.”

“What was he doing?”

“Trying to put me back inside, same as you.” Adam jabbed his finger in her direction. “Think again, bitch. I ain’t going down for those two girls again, and I sure as shit ain’t going down for some stripper who changed her mind twelve years later and called it rape.”

“Barbara Jericho.” Jude watched his nostrils flare. “That’s the name of the woman you raped. Barbara Jericho.”

“I know that lying bitch’s name.” Adam’s eyes flicked down to the glass of whiskey. “I don’t have to listen to this shit.”

“Sure, but why not take this opportunity to talk to me?” Jude asked. “Tell me why you’re not guilty. Like you said, I’m with the FBI. I can point them in your direction, or you can persuade me to point them away.”

“Go fuck yourself. I’m not a goddam pedophile.”

“Really?” Jude asked. “I was only fifteen years old when you raped me in the back of this bar.”

He tensed again. Jude braced herself for rage, but he said nothing. His eye started to twitch. His hands clenched into fists. She mentally prepared herself to respond to a thrown punch or bottle or even a dive across the bar to choke her.

Adam did none of these things. His chest rose and fell as he worked to calm himself. Jude had seen thousands of cons perform the same exercise. They learned it during anger management therapy inside. Regulate your breathing. Think of something that makes you happy. Walk away.

He wasn’t walking away, but he took in another breath before saying, “I was eighteen, just a few years older than you.”

“You held me down. I bit your hand when you tried to cover my mouth.”

There was no scar, but Adam smoothed his thumb along the place where she’d bitten him.

She said, “I cried for help. I begged you to stop.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what happened.”

“You punched me in the stomach. I vomited down your back.”

He kept shaking his head. “You puked from drinking too much.”

“You still kept raping me.”

Adam couldn’t hold her gaze. He looked at the glass again. Jude recognized the hungry way he licked his lips.

She pushed the whiskey toward him. “Help yourself.”

He knocked it back like a shot. Placed the glass gently on the bar. Hissed out air between his teeth. “You were flirting with me all night.”

“Do you rape every fifteen-year-old girl who flirts with you?”

Adam licked his lips again. He wanted more whiskey. “I don’t know where you’re getting this bullshit. You talked to me after like you were fine.”

“I talked to you after because I thought you were going to kill me.”

“Fuck.” He laughed out the word. “If it was rape, you would’a told your daddy.”

Jude had never considered telling her father. Gerald would’ve been mad at her for sneaking out, for being drunk, for putting herself in such a vulnerable situation. “I didn’t even tell Henry until a month later. We were at the Falls. He wanted to beat the shit out of you, but I wanted to get drunk. I passed out and he went into the water. We didn’t find his body for six days.”

“Here’s to Henry, then.” Adam filled the glass with another triple, then gulped it down. “Your daddy managed to lock me up anyway. Framed me for murdering those girls. You know what they do to pedophiles inside?”

“So, it’s rape when it happens to you, but not when it happens to a fifteen-year-old child?”

“You still got that fucking nasty mouth.”

He filled the glass again, this time almost to the rim. His eyes stayed on Jude as he tilted back his head and gulped down the alcohol. He gave a loud burp. Started filling the glass again. His hands were shaking. Liquid sloshed onto the bar. Whatever he’d drunk before Jude had walked in was catching up with him fast.

“You need to hear me on this.” He scooped up the glass, pointed it at her. “I got nothing to do with that Paisley bitch. Why would I bring that shit down on myself?”

“But you had something to do with Madison and Cheyenne. Millie saw you with them.”

He tossed back the drink, slammed the empty onto the counter. “She only saw me with the fat one. I never touched her. Girl was still a child.”

Jude felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Eighty proof was a hell of a truth serum. “What about the skinny one?”

“Cheyenne. Now she was a piece of work. I’ll tell you that.” He wiped his mouth with his fingers. His eyes had turned glassy. “Every man in this town got a blow job off that bitch. Ain’t no secret she was tricking herself out. Told everybody she was seventeen, but she acted like she was thirty.”

Jude kept her expression neutral. “How much did she charge?”

“Fifty a pop, but she never charged me. I hooked her up with some weed is all. She liked to talk. Said she was saving up the cash. Had big plans about leaving, same as you.” His words were slurring, but he sloshed more whiskey into the glass, drank it down. “She’d let you finger her if she was high, but I never fucked her with my cock.”

“You never traded her coke?” Jude asked. “I seem to recall you liking it.”

“Fuck no.” Adam went in for another refill. “You think I’m gonna get caught selling weight to a ninth-grader?”

He’d claimed not to know Cheyenne’s age just a minute ago.

“Fuck this shit.” Adam nearly missed the edge of the bar when he set down the bottle. “Shy’s the one that sold coke. And Molly. She was getting the hook-up from that weasel at school.”

“Woody?”

“Shhh.” Adam tried and failed to touch his finger to his mouth as he shushed her. He’d crossed over into full-on drunk. “Woody wasn’t wrapped up in none’a her other shit. He had Shy selling to North Falls kids, but that was it.”

“What was her other shit?”

“Fuck if I know.” He bypassed the glass and drank from the bottle.

Jude said, “I hear Woody sells out of the back of this bar.”

“Shit.” He tried to tap his finger to his mouth again. “What’d you say?”

Jude could tell the whiskey had hit the point of dwindling returns. “I said, I guess Penley left his sawed-off shotgun behind the bar when he sold the place.”

“You guessed right, darlin’.” Adam laughed as he pretended to reach for the weapon. “Tell me this: why would I kill that little bitch if I could catch a blow job off her whenever I wanted?”

“Because fucking is for pleasure. Rape is for control.”

He stared at her for a second, then barked out a loud laugh.

“Oprah Fucking Winfrey here, ladies and gents.”

Jude took four twenties from her wallet and fanned them out on the bar. “Next bottle’s on me.”

Her knees were shaky as she headed toward the door. Jude was suddenly fifteen again, feeling Adam’s predatory gaze following her across the crowded room while she ignored the blood rolling down her legs and pooling into her boots, and wondered if he’d broken a rib when he’d punched her, and trying to think how she would manage to climb the trellis up to her bedroom, and whether she could take a shower immediately or would she have to wait until the morning so that the rattling pipes didn’t wake up her parents?

Outside, Jude blinked at the sudden burst of sunlight. Her eyes watered. She wasn’t deluded enough to deny there were tears, too. The black eyeliner was probably running down her face. She found her sunglasses in her purse. Slid them on as she approached Cole and Brett. She’d come here hoping to get answers, and stumbled into a sweet moment of revenge.

She told Brett, “Adam Huntsinger is in violation of the terms of his bail. He’s drunk and there’s a loaded sawed-off shotgun under the bar. Call his probation officer and see if you can get him violated and put back inside.”

Brett gave her a funny look. “Are you serious? Everybody knows about the shotgun.”

“Then you’re some kind of goddam dipshit for not busting him sooner.” She turned to Cole. “Take me to the station.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Chapter Sixteen

Emmy drove down a long dirt track that spoked off the backroads. Her chest was still hurting. The tightness was back. She hadn’t made it to Dylan’s nine thirty alarm. Her three hours of blissful unawareness had been broken by a series of texts. Seth hadn’t made any progress on finding Paisley Walker. Tommy was with Myrna in room 612 at the Azalea Place Memory Care Center. Sherry Robertson had relayed that Gerald’s autopsy would be performed at four this afternoon. Cole was driving to her ex-husband’s bar with her risen-from-the-dead sister, who was making the kind of trouble that Emmy didn’t need.

All of it mattered, but only one part of it felt real.

Emmy had spent six long, fretful years awaiting the awful day of Myrna’s final transfer to a care home, and the last six weeks dreading the arrival of Gerald’s slow death. Then suddenly, in the blink of an eye they were both gone. Emmy was effectively an orphan. Her father would never again act as her rudder, gently steering her in the right direction. Myrna would never again put the wind in her sails. She was on her own now.

Dylan would’ve argued the point. He had long told her that she needed to learn how to set her burdens down. The truth was, Emmy was afraid if she set them down, she would never be able to pick them back up again. Particularly now. Paisley Walker was counting on her. The squad was looking to her for direction. The town needed some kind of resolution. There could be other vulnerable children in danger. Emmy knew what her parents would want her to do. Myrna would tell her to make plans, take action, do something about it. Gerald would tell her to keep her head down and do her job.

She turned down the long driveway to Virgil and Peggy’s farm. The couple had kept horses for as long as she could remember. Emmy had ridden with Virgil when she was a kid, then they’d both taken Cole out on the rolling fields behind the house. Thinking about those moments took some of the tension out of her shoulders. It was nice to have a good memory among all the bad that was piling up on her.

Emmy did a quick turn at the end of the drive and backed her cruiser onto the parking pad. Virgil’s truck was backed up to a horse trailer. She could smell manure when she got out of the cruiser. A breeze had kicked up. The clouds were growing dark. A storm was coming. She was heading toward Virgil’s front door when she spotted him coming out of the barn. Emmy navigated the steep hill toward the back of the property. She could feel her feet sliding inside her boots. She’d spent the entire three hours of sleep in Dylan’s bathtub. Her skin was more wrinkled than Millie’s.

“Hey.” Virgil swung the door closed. He took the heavy chain off his shoulder. “Any news on Paisley?”

“Nothing.” She saw the disappointment on his face. “Thought I’d pick up those boxes Dad asked you to get from storage. Jude wants to go through the Huntsinger case back at the station, see if we missed anything.”

Virgil looked surprised. “They’re in the basement. I thought your dad didn’t want it getting out that we were reopening the case.”

“He didn’t,” Emmy said. “But I can’t think of anything else to do and Jude’s been more right on things than she’s been wrong, so here we are.”

“Sounds reasonable.” He fed the chain through the hasp on the door, then tied it into a loose knot. “Let’s see if the squirrels figure that out.”

Emmy made herself smile at the joke, if only to acknowledge he was trying. She walked alongside Virgil back toward his house. Cole had already told her that Jude was asking questions about Emmy. She figured Virgil was the only person in town who would honestly answer questions about Jude. “You knew Martha when she lived here, right?”

“I knew her as Gerald’s daughter. I was starting my own family when she went off the rails. Made me glad we had boys. Raising girls can kill a man.”

Emmy couldn’t bring herself to smile at his joke this time.

“Your sister was what we called a hell raiser. Loved a party. Loved a drink. I pulled her over on a couple of DUIs before I realized Gerald wasn’t gonna do anything about it.” He shrugged at the look she gave him. “You could say things were different back then. DUIs weren’t that big a deal. Plus, Gerald had his own issues with drinking, so I think he was more inclined to cut her some slack. No matter who ended up getting hurt.”

Emmy felt her eyebrows go up. She’d never heard Virgil even lightly criticize her father.

He said, “Sorry, sugar, it was a frustrating time. Martha caused a lot of problems for a lot of people.”

“You mean the car accident?”

“That was a big part of it, but everything that led up to the crash made folks want to see her punished. Martha was drunk out of her mind when she hit Bubba Rawley. He almost lost his arm. Still has nerve damage to this day. Tommy had such a bad concussion he couldn’t hardly walk straight.”

This was new information to Emmy. “Tommy was in the car accident, too?”

“Riding shotgun when Martha smashed head-on into Bubba’s truck.” Virgil put his hand under her elbow to help her up the steepest part of the slope. “The crash happened a little while after Henry died. Tommy was trying to fill his brother’s shoes, but he couldn’t keep up with Martha. Nobody could.”

Emmy had no doubt that Tommy had tried. She said, “They never told me what happened to Henry, just that he drowned in the Flint.”

“Back then, kids liked to go drinking up at the Falls. Sound familiar?”

He waited for Emmy to smile again, because kids until the end of time would drink up at the Falls.

“Martha and Henry sneaked out of the house real late. Got drunk. She passed out. Henry either went for a swim or fell into the water. He was a good swimmer, but his blood alcohol was off the charts. Had some coke in his system, too. But you probably know the next part. Took six long days before they found his body. Tore your parents apart. Myrna was on fire. Gerald was knee-walking drunk every second of the day. But I wasn’t surprised that they blamed Martha. Henry was a good kid until he wasn’t. Martha was always a bad seed. If you’d asked me back then, I would’ve said she would end up dead or in prison or both.”

Emmy heard an edge of bitterness. She couldn’t square the girl who’d lost her brother with the woman who’d spent most of her career trying to bring children home to their parents. Then again, it was hard to see Gerald as the type of man who would turn his back on his own daughter.

She asked, “What was Dad like when he was drinking?”

“Tommy never told you?”

Emmy’s laugh was genuine this time. “No, Tommy never told me.”

“Well,” Virgil sighed out the word. “I’ll tell you the same thing I said to your daddy when we talked about it. Back when he was drinking, Gerald Clifton could be the meanest son of a bitch you ever met.”

Emmy felt taken aback. She had never heard anyone speak so negatively about Gerald. Even Myrna, who could find fault with everything, had never been so blunt.

“Some men, it’s easier for them to look at the bottom of a bottle rather than look somebody else in the eye. Gerald earned a hell of a lot of respect from me changing his life around the way he did. I would’ve followed him through fire. It was the honor of my life serving under him.” They had reached the driveway. Virgil lifted his foot and rested it on the back of the trailer. “You can’t put a person in one box, Emmy Lou, especially when they get older. You’ve gotta judge them by the totality of their lives. You do bad shit when you’re young that you regret. You do good shit when you’re old that you hope makes up for it. In the end, Gerald was a good man who did some bad things. He learned from his mistakes. He didn’t make the same ones with you.”

She remembered telling her father twelve years ago that she couldn’t imagine him making mistakes. Now, she gave Virgil the same response Gerald had given her. “I’m glad.”

“Me, too.”

Emmy was even more glad to let the conversation drop. She followed Virgil to the back of the house, a brick ranch with a walk-out basement. She’d spent countless hours in Peggy’s salon reading books while Myrna got her hair done. Emmy knew that Peggy had gotten new equipment when she’d set up shop in town, but it felt strange seeing the old stuff pushed up against the wall. The beehive hair dryers and the two barber’s chairs with their cracked vinyl seats. Even the old first aid kit was still hanging on the wall. Rust had chipped away at the red cross on the door. Emmy could still remember Peggy getting a Band-Aid from the box when she’d accidentally cut her finger on the scissors.

“Peggy was gonna sell all that stuff on eBay, but then she got too busy to deal with it.” Virgil reached above the doorjamb and found the key. He had to kick the door at the bottom to make it open. “I tell clients they can get a case solved here, but if they need a perm, they’ll have to go into town.”

Emmy forced another smile as Virgil pulled back the curtains on the door and the two large windows that overlooked the backyard. She switched on the fluorescent lights. His desk and two folding chairs were on the left-hand side where the rinse sinks used to be. Several file boxes were stacked at the back of the room beside a set of metal storage shelves. Emmy counted a total of twenty-one. They were sealed with Clifton County Sheriff’s Department tape. She recognized her own handwriting on the labels.

DALRYMPLE, M.

BAKER, C.

HUNTSINGER, A.

LOUDERMILK, D.

Her gaze skipped along the sub-headers. Call logs, autopsies, statements, police reports. She looked at the metal shelves. There was a thin layer of dust covering everything. An ancient dot-matrix printer, an early 2000s Dell desktop, and a desktop copier that was so old the glass moved along the top. Dozens of dilapidated file boxes were packed tight into an open closet. Virgil had always been incredibly organized, but Emmy got the feeling the space hadn’t been tidied in a while.

She asked, “Did the cleaner call in sick?”

“Yeah, I’ve kind of let things go.” Virgil’s face flashed with embarrassment as he studied his hands. His fingernails were rimmed with grease from working in the barn. “We didn’t want it getting out, but Peggy left me a while back. Supposed to be a trial run, but looks like it’s gonna be permanent. We got rid of the horses last month. I’ve let work taper off. Been thinking I might move to Florida to be closer to the grandkids.”

Emmy felt a sudden pang of sadness. She wasn’t surprised the news hadn’t made it around town. Peggy had worked at the hair salon long enough to know how to keep a secret. “I’m sorry.”

“I think the job took more out of me than I thought.” Virgil gave her a weak smile. “Cautionary tale.”

Emmy lifted one of the boxes to give herself something to do. Virgil grabbed two from the stack. They were both silent as they made the trips back and forth, loading up the cruiser’s deep trunk, then using the back seat. She was thinking that she should’ve parked closer to the basement, when Virgil wedged the last box into the passenger’s seat.

“All right,” Virgil said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

Emmy smoothed together her lips. Gerald’s plan had been for all four of them to go over the case together. He would ask the questions. Virgil and Emmy would provide the details. Cole was going to play devil’s advocate. “I know it’s asking a lot, but nobody knows the paperwork on this case better than you do.”

Virgil glanced back at the barn. “Got a fella coming by later to look at taking the rest of the hay off me. Don’t want mold to set in.”

“Sure,” Emmy said. “I understand.”

Virgil looked back at the barn again. “Hell, I’ll tell him to come tomorrow. Lemme wash up. I’ll meet you at the station in half an hour.”

Emmy hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she was behind the wheel of the cruiser. She shushed out a stream of air. Virgil’s steady presence had always acted as a balm. It would be hard enough reviewing the Adam Huntsinger case without Gerald. Emmy didn’t have it in her to battle Jude alone.

She put on her sunglasses as she drove up the dirt track. Emmy turned down the volume on the scanner. She cracked the window to air out the musty odor from the boxes. Instead of taking the main route, she cut across the backroads. Not the one that ran behind Taybee’s farm, but the one that bisected Millie’s private property. The pond was in the distance. Sunlight had turned the surface into a mirror.

Emmy let her tears roll unchecked. She had been too exhausted to dream in Dylan’s bathtub, but waking up in the water had been disorienting enough to send her back to Millie’s pond. She was diving under the surface. She was reaching for Madison’s broken hand. She was holding the weight of the girl’s head in her palm.

I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you.

Emmy’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She assumed Millie was calling to chew her out for trespassing, but it was a text from Dylan—

Making sure you didn’t drown.

Emmy felt a fresh wave of tears. She was overwhelmed with gratitude for his kindness. For the temporary feeling of safety he’d afforded her. There was no way she could put that in a text. She could barely say it to his face. She double tapped the message to send him a quick response, but her thumb hovered between the thumbs up and the heart, which was the height of her emotional stupidity. She made it worse by choosing the haha and dropping her phone in the cup holder.

The station parking lot was full when she pulled into her usual spot. Emmy bypassed the squad room for the jail complex. She texted the duty sergeant to send a couple of deputies to take all of the file boxes from her cruiser and put them in the conference room. Then she checked Cole’s location on Life360. He was stopped on the backroads near Taybee’s farm. She imagined he was showing Jude where Cheyenne and Paisley had gone missing twelve years apart. And she also imagined Jude was preparing a long list of things Gerald and Emmy had gotten wrong in the investigation.

Emmy wiped her eyes before badging herself in through the back door. She was at the end of a long hallway. The jail was quieter than usual because most of the inmates had been transported to the courthouse for their arraignments. She badged through another door to get to the holding cells, then a third and fourth door, and then she was standing in the sallyport outside the isolation block for female inmates.

She looked through the glass in the door. The long, narrow corridor dead-ended into a concrete wall. The three single-person cells were on the right, larger than the ones in gen pop, with concrete walls on three sides and bars on the front so the guards could walk the corridor to visually inspect the inmates at all times. Cameras caught every corner. Each had a microphone that could pick up even the faintest breath. There was no hiding from the watchful eye in the distant monitoring room.

Hannah was sitting on her bunk, knees pulled in, arms wrapped around her legs. Her mouth opened when she saw Emmy through the glass. Emmy reached up to her throat, tapped her fingers to the front. They had used the signal when they were children. It meant an adult was coming, or Tommy was trying to sneak up on them, or Taybee was eavesdropping again, so they should be mindful of what they said.

Emmy waited for Hannah to nod her understanding before she opened the door.

Hannah was in the first cell, the only female inmate in isolation. The smell was worse than the rest of the jail. The one-piece stainless-steel toilets and sinks were basically an open sewer. Three slits in the exterior walls were fixed with two-inch glass, but they acted less as windows and more as a reminder that there was nowhere to go. Every inch of concrete was painted a bright, plasticky white. The pillows reeked of sweat. The mattresses were an inch of foam resting on more concrete. The vinyl covers smelled like turpentine. The blankets and sheets were thin and scratchy, and Emmy was ashamed to realize she’d never cared about any of these things until the moment she saw Hannah using them.

She said the first thing that came to mind. “I can get you a clean pillow.”

Hannah’s smile was weak. “Just tell the maid to bring it when she does turn-down service.”

Emmy felt the awkwardness of her own smile. “Do you need anything?”

“Dylan made—” Her breath caught. She was struggling to keep up the ruse. “He made sure Davey is with my aunt Barb.”

“That’s good.” Emmy was struggling, too. Her legs couldn’t hold her up anymore. She slid her back down the wall until she was sitting on the cold floor. “I’m sorry.” Hannah held her gaze. “I’m sorry, too.”

Emmy watched her stand up, then slowly walk to the front of the cell. Hannah sat down with her legs crossed. Leaned her forehead against the bars. Stared at Emmy. They could’ve been back in Hannah’s childhood bedroom complaining about their mothers or talking about boys or listening to Sarah McLachlan singing “Building a Mystery” over and over so they could learn the lyrics by heart.

Hannah said, “You’ve got a sister.”

Emmy laughed, because of course a woman in isolation inside the Clifton County jail had heard the latest gossip. “Apparently, she’s some kind of crime genius. All the FBI agents are acting like Mr. Collins around Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

Hannah’s smile was fleeting. “I’m so goddam sorry, Em.”

Emmy’s tears returned, but she did nothing to hide them. There was something to be said for being around someone who’d already seen you at your absolute worst. “He was writing a letter yesterday morning.”

Hannah started crying, too.

“It’s still in his desk, but I’m scared to read it. Couldn’t even go home this morning.”

“Gerald never struck me as the letter-writing type.” Hannah pressed under her eyes with her fingers. “What do you think he said?”

Emmy let her shoulders rise up in a shrug. “Milk. Eggs. Bread.”

Hannah’s bawdy laugh boomed off the hard surfaces. Emmy laughed, too. It felt so good to get out something other than grief.

Hannah asked, “Do you remember that letter Cole wrote you from camp?”

Emmy remembered. “‘Dear Mom. They said I could have ice cream if I wrote you a letter. Signed, Cole.’”

They laughed again, but it died down quickly. This wasn’t a girls’ night out. They weren’t sharing a bottle of wine at the biergarten.

Hannah said, “I’m glad you found Dylan. He’s a good man.”

“Too good,” Emmy admitted. “I kept waiting for him to leave. Then Mom got worse, and Dad got sicker, and I told myself that it was too much, that he was going to leave me, but he didn’t, so I left him.”

“Wow, so surprising you couldn’t handle your emotions so you chickened out and never spoke to him again.” Hannah had earned the sarcasm in her voice. “Is there any other circumstance in your life where you might have made a similar mistake?”

Emmy couldn’t manage a laugh this time. In the twelve years that had slowly marched past, she had never once thought to reach out to Hannah. She had waited and waited for Hannah to make the first move, and now they were here.

“It’s all right,” Hannah said. “Paul made it clear that it was you or him. Looks like we both made the wrong choice. Took me longer to figure it out, though.”

Emmy wiped her nose. She had come here for a reason. “Is that why you’re talking to me now, because you finished things with Paul two months ago?”

Hannah didn’t take the opening. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m literally a captive audience.”

Emmy’s nose wouldn’t stop running. She wiped it with her sleeve. “Myrna always appreciated that you knew how to use the word literally.”

Hannah reached back for the roll of cheap toilet paper beside the toilet. The one-ply had the texture of cardboard. She rolled it out around her hand, then offered it through the bars. Emmy leaned forward. Their fingers touched. They both held on for a few seconds before leaning back.

Hannah said, “If it helps, I finally understand why it was so hard for you to leave Jonah.”

“It wasn’t hard,” Emmy said, though the divorce had felt like death by a thousand petty manipulations. “It’s like you always said. I was too stubborn and too loyal to somebody who wasn’t loyal to me.”

“We both know how he treated you,” Hannah said. “It’s easy to look from the outside and say that you should walk away. But when you’re in it yourself, when you see how much your child needs a father, when you tell yourself the man you fell in love with is still in there somewhere . . .”

Emmy heard the sadness as her voice trailed off.

“I kept thinking Paul would change back, you know?” Hannah spooled out some toilet paper for herself. “I thought eventually he would—well, not move on, because you can never move on from losing a child—but I thought he’d find a different way to deal with it. To realize that he had a living child who needed him. A wife who needed to mourn alongside him. But he couldn’t pull himself out of it, and it took me too long to see that he was pulling us down with him. I waited too long. I should’ve left years ago. It would’ve prevented a lot of pain.”

Emmy tapped her throat again, reminding Hannah to be careful.

“I know,” Hannah said. “But it’s complicated, Em. It’s so much more complicated than I realized, and I’m sorry.”

Emmy felt the familiar tightness in her chest, her body’s way of warning her that she needed to keep her emotions trapped inside. But she couldn’t this time. Not now. Not with Hannah. “It’s my fault, Han. It’s my fault you lost your most precious thing.”

Hannah didn’t offer her absolution. She just smiled her sad smile. “She was precious, wasn’t she?”

Emmy took in a deep breath. She felt the tightness start to release. All these years, she had lived with the sadness, but never once had she been able to share the grief. “She was.”

“The last thing I said to her was to put on some fresh sunscreen. You’d think I’d told her to climb Mount Everest. She just rolled her eyes and stomped off.” Hannah was laughing as she dabbed at her eyes. “You gotta hand it to her. She let herself get sunburned just to spite me.”

Emmy took in another breath. She remembered one of the last times she’d seen Madison. Not floating in the pond. Not even under the oak tree. Emmy was standing in the autopsy suite at GBI headquarters listening to the medical examiner call out the bright red sunburn on the back of Madison’s legs.

“All this with Paisley Walker,” Hannah said. “I keep wondering if Carol’s thinking about the last thing she said to her. Like, was it just another morning, or were they fighting about something, or were they happy or sad?”

Emmy could see that Hannah wasn’t looking for an answer to the question. Jail was nothing if not a place for reflecting on all the bad things that had happened in your life.

“The second Madison hit twelve, we started fighting. Swear to God, all she did was sit around trying to think of ways to make me feel like shit.” Hannah was smiling, but Emmy could recall the exquisite torture of Madison’s insults. “Then out of nowhere, she’d drop a compliment, like say that my dress was pretty, or my hair looked good, and I’d feel like I won the fucking lottery.”

Emmy laughed. So did Hannah.

“The thing is, you and I still saw her as a child, but she was only three years away from being an adult. Graduating high school. Going to college. Getting married. Having children of her own. But in that moment, that day she turned fifteen, she was still trying to figure herself out. Testing all the different kinds of people she wanted to be. Pissing me off. Pushing boundaries. Wanting so desperately to be a woman. Still feeling like a child.”

Emmy remembered the sense of limbo from her own teenage years.

“That’s the part that makes me so fucking sad,” Hannah said. “We didn’t really get to meet her. Madison will always be trapped between those two people. The woman we didn’t get to meet, and the girl we used to know.”

Hannah’s sadness filled the room. Emmy couldn’t help but feel it, too. They weren’t just mourning Madison. They were mourning themselves. Emmy had lost herself to Jonah’s insecurities. Hannah had lost herself to Paul’s grief. Virgil had joked about how raising girls could kill a man, but he had no idea how fucking hard it was to grow yourself into a woman.

“Oh,” Hannah said. She was looking at the door. She’d been imprisoned in this small space for almost thirty hours. Every part of her senses was attenuated to movement on the other side of the glass.

Emmy looked to see who was there. The tightness came back to her chest when she saw Jude. The woman’s scowl was an exact replica of Myrna’s when Emmy had done something stupid or disappointing.

Hannah mocked, “‘Miss Bennet, you ought to know that I am not to be trifled with.’”

Emmy smiled at the Lady Catherine impression, but she knew Jude had her reasons, too. She stood up, telling Hannah, “I’ll see about that pillow.”

Jude stepped back into the sallyport so that Emmy could open the door. Cole’s badge was on a lanyard around her neck.

Emmy asked, “Did you steal that from my son?”

“Are you taking me to task for not following procedure when you just spent twenty minutes tainting the GBI’s case against a suspected cop killer?”

“It was closer to fifteen minutes.”

“You can wipe that smirk off your face,” Jude snapped. “We both know your entire conversation was recorded. There’s no way a jury will see you two joking around and believe that Hannah is guilty. She can’t even be called as a witness now. The prosecutor would be laughed out of the courtroom.”

“Okay.” Emmy fished her badge out of her pocket. “Can you explain to me why Adam Huntsinger’s probation officer called to ask if I wanted Adam put back inside?”

Jude scowled again. “Why did the PO call you? I told Brett to take care of it.”

“Why are you giving my deputies orders?”

“What did you tell Adam’s PO?”

Emmy had to end this game of question ping-pong. “I told him to do whatever he wants because only a fool would weaponize the sheriff’s department against Adam Huntsinger while we’re under intense public scrutiny.”

“So your fifteen minutes with Hannah Dalrymple was . . . ?”

“None of your goddam business.” Emmy waved her badge to open the door. She heard the angry thuds of Jude’s motorcycle boots echoing behind her as they walked down the hallway.

Jude said, “Adam Huntsinger admitted that he had sexual contact with Cheyenne Baker.”

Emmy froze. Her hand had been reaching out to open the next door. The lanyard swung like a pendulum from her laminated badge. She turned around, silently repeating the information in her head so that she could understand it.

Jude said, “He told me that Cheyenne normally charged fifty bucks for a blow job, but they traded for weed.”

Emmy had lost the ability to speak.

“He said she had a lot of customers, that she was saving up her cash, talked a lot about leaving town—no surprise there. He also said that they didn’t do vaginal penetration, but consider the source.”

Emmy started nodding, if only to let Jude know that she was listening.

“He said he never touched Madison. Claimed she was too young for him, but I don’t know about that, either.” Jude reached past Emmy and used Cole’s badge on the door. “Is it left or right?”

“Left,” Emmy managed. The initial shock was starting to wear off. Now, she didn’t know whether to be envious or impressed that Jude had been in town for less than twenty-four hours and somehow managed to break Adam Huntsinger. “We heard the rumors that Cheyenne was selling herself for sex. There was no proof, though.”

“What about the source of the drugs?”

“What about it?”

“Adam claims that Woody was using Cheyenne to expand into the North Falls market. Pretty risky, but I imagine the mark-up made it worthwhile. North Falls people would never go down to the truck stop to save ten bucks on an eight ball. It’s the same theory with the sex. Why pay a seasoned sex worker twenty bucks a blow when you can have a North Falls teenager for fifty? For a lot of these guys, breaking the taboo is part of their fetish.”

Emmy cleared her throat. She wasn’t going to ask Jude how she’d managed to get this information out of Adam. Her sister really was some kind of witch. “We suspected Woody was Cheyenne’s supplier. We never had any proof. Virgil tried to get him to voluntarily come into the station for an interview, but he refused.”

“Smart move for a teenager.” Jude stopped a few yards away from the conference room. “What’s your take on Woody now? Is he worth talking to about Paisley?”

Emmy shook her head. She felt like she was still playing catch-up. “He’s too smart. He’ll lawyer up immediately. We’ll burn through an entire day waiting for his attorneys to come down from Atlanta, then they’ll file a harassment suit against us by the end of the week.”

“You’ve never run a sting on him?” Jude asked. “It seems to be common knowledge that he’s dealing drugs out of the back of your ex’s bar.”

“Clayville PD leaves him alone. I honestly don’t know if they’re scared or being paid to look the other way. The biker gangs running heroin up from Florida are rich and ruthless. The chief claims he doesn’t have the resources to launch that kind of far-reaching investigation.”

“What was Dad’s excuse? I get why he wouldn’t use the sheriff’s office, but he could’ve called in the GBI or the DEA.”

“I never asked. I assumed he didn’t want to upset Cole.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to upset Jonah,” Jude said. “Did Dad know that he abused you?”

Emmy parted her lips to draw in air. She wasn’t so easily bewitched. She glanced at the open doorway. Her son was probably in the conference room. Virgil, too.

She told Jude, “I asked Virgil to help us run through the case. He was chief deputy when Madison and Cheyenne went missing. He tracked down all the phone calls and cell tower data. I figure we can split this up into teams. Me and Virgil on the Adam is guilty side. You and Cole on the Adam didn’t do it side.”

Jude’s long pause was clearly meant to convey that she was choosing to move on. “I’m not sure that I have a side. I want to keep an open mind. It’s still possible that Adam murdered Cheyenne and Madison.”

Emmy crossed her arms to give her hands something to do. The remark about Jonah had stirred the ghosts in her body. “Because Adam got oral from Cheyenne?”

“Because Adam continues to make the most sense. The only reason he’s off death row and on parole right now is because he raped a woman in Metter twelve years ago.”

“But Barbara Jericho was twenty-two when he raped her. Madison and Cheyenne were fifteen.”

Emmy would’ve missed Jude’s change in expression if she hadn’t been watching her so closely. There was something hard about it. Something familiar.

She asked, “What are you not telling me?”

Jude’s expression changed again. “Statistically, men who rape don’t only rape one time, and generally, they don’t only have one victim.”

“Clifton is a typical American county. We’ve got thousands of open rape cases and hundreds of untested rape kits. We don’t have the money or resources to go through all of them, and even if we did, it would be too late to help Paisley Walker.”

“Adam was never arrested for a sex crime? Or held on suspicion?”

“Never,” Emmy said. “The only recurrent theme in his arrests was driving without a license.”

Jude’s expression changed yet again. This time, she was clearly thinking through all the alternatives. “Take Dad and your pride out of it. Is Adam guilty or innocent? What’s your gut telling you?”

Emmy’s gut was all over the place. “I’ve never been able to get a read on it. I just let my brain take over and look at the facts. Logically, Adam’s the one who makes the most sense. The district attorney thought the same thing. So did twelve jurors.”

“Okay,” Jude said. “What do we know?”

The question didn’t hurt as much this time. “Adam’s fingerprints were on Cheyenne’s necklace that I found outside his basement apartment. Millie saw Adam with Madison that morning at the pond. Both their DNA was found on cigarettes they smoked. Walton’s Jetta had the same brand tires as the tire tracks at the soccer pitch and on the backroads. There was a mark on the front bumper that was consistent with hitting the back wheel on a bicycle. Adam had access to the same kind of pistol that was used to murder Cheyenne. His fingerprints were on the bag of weed inside Madison’s pocket.”

“Tap the weak spots.”

“The evidence was all consistent with and not matched exactly.” Emmy knew she was basically quoting Cole from yesterday morning. “None of the pistols matched ballistics. We didn’t find any fingerprints or DNA in the Jetta that matched the girls. We never found any size eleven boots that matched the shoe prints. We couldn’t match the treads on the Jetta to the impressions left at the scenes. Adam admitted that he’d sold pot to Madison. He said that Madison asked him to fix Cheyenne’s broken necklace, and that it must’ve fallen out of his pocket. We never found Cheyenne’s flip phone with her initials scratched onto the case. We never found the hammer that was used to break Madison’s hands and feet. We never found another abduction or murder case that had a matching MO.”

Jude cut through the noise. “The flip phone belonged to Cheyenne. The hammer was used on Madison.”

“You think he kept them as trophies?”

Emmy’s heart started tapping like a drum. They’d always assumed that Adam was a pedophile who’d gotten caught, not a serial offender with more victims. She couldn’t let her mind race to what this could mean for Paisley Walker.

She said, “I’m assuming Adam’s the killer. You said that he’s probably raped before. Do you think he could’ve killed other children before Madison and Cheyenne?”

“There have been fewer than two dozen cases of double child abductions in the United States since the nineteen-seventies. It’s incredibly rare. Statistically, we know from the profiles of those offenders that they were more likely to have previous rapes, abductions and murders in their criminal backgrounds.”

Emmy heard the academic-like shift in Jude’s tone. “Madison and Cheyenne weren’t his first victims.”

“Their abductor knew what he was doing,” Jude said. “Taking them wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. He groomed them. He knew their schedules. He knew how to get to Cheyenne. He knew how to get to Madison.”

“He knew how to get to Paisley.”

“Did you search for similar cases where a hammer was used to break the hands and feet?”

“I found two cases, but the victims weren’t children. One was a nineteen-year-old in Tillar, Arkansas. The other was a twenty-one-year-old in Hidalgo, Texas. The bones were broken, but not systematically, and we couldn’t find any proof that Adam had ever been out of state.”

“If it was Adam—if—and if he was traveling for the purposes of committing a crime, he would know to cover his tracks. Turn off his phone. Get rid of receipts. Only use cash.” Jude took her phone out of her purse. “I’ll reach out to my point person at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Their database is more thorough than the FBI’s.”

“How is that possible?”

“The FBI relies on law enforcement to send them the data. Reporting is not mandatory, and compliance is spotty. The Center actively goes searching for the data themselves.”

Emmy could feel a bead of sweat roll down the back of her neck. “We should tell Seth Alexander. Paisley could be missing a personal item that was taken as a trophy.”

“No.” Jude looked up from her phone. “Let’s keep this between ourselves for now. Don’t even tell Cole.”

“My son can keep a secret.”

“I know, sweetheart, but sometimes just knowing a secret is harder than keeping it.” Jude glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. “If we find the trophies, we find the killer.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Seventeen

Jude studied the findings from Madison Dalrymple’s autopsy report. Contusions, abrasions, blunt force trauma, petechia, shattered bones, dislocated jaw, broken hyoid. There were nearly one hundred pages of photographs with descriptions detailing the torture and abuse the fifteen-year-old child had suffered over the course of several hours before she was strangled to death.

Every bone in Madison’s hands and feet had been shattered with a blunt force instrument. Several blows had been brought down with such force that the almost perfect impression of the head of a sixteen-ounce general purpose claw hammer could be made out in stark relief. The destruction had occurred early on in the child’s abduction. The swelling was so pronounced at the time of her death that the skin had ruptured.

The fact that Madison had been kept alive for at least twelve hours gave Jude pause. The predator had access to a location that was safe enough, secure enough, that a screaming child would not be heard. Considering the more rural nature of Clifton County, that information did nothing to help narrow down a location. In fact, nothing that Jude had found so far had narrowed down anything.

In predatory kidnappings, the abductor generally has one driving purpose: to sexually abuse a child. Once the act is complete, they begin to develop a permission structure in order to justify what they knew would happen all along: murdering the child. Jude had heard so many predators relay their excuses so many times—

I didn’t want to hurt her, but she could identify me.

I couldn’t let one mistake ruin my life.

I was scared my mother would find out.

This isn’t who I am; I’m a good man.

Once the murder occurs, the only thing left is figuring out where to dispose of the body. Water is the far superior choice since trace evidence will be washed away, though the fact that Cheyenne and Madison’s killer had chosen Millie’s pond was completely illogical. Jude and Henry had spent almost every summer swimming in the cool waters. It was a gorgeous spot for sunbathing, but the pond was completely exposed in the middle of Millie’s seventy-acre backyard.

Jude slowly paged back through the colored photographs. During the course of her career, there had been so many similar photos, so many shocking descriptions, but Jude had never found that magic off switch that anesthetized her to the cruelties that could be inflicted on children.

She took off her reading glasses to give her eyes a rest. She’d already reviewed Cheyenne’s comparatively sparse autopsy report. The girl had been shot in the forehead with a .22 rimfire pistol. Death had been immediate. There had been no signs of sexual abuse, though the multiple contusions and edemas on her body indicated that the predator had violently beaten her with his fists before she’d died. To Jude’s thinking, the most remarkable finding between the two autopsies was the fact that the killer had not broken Cheyenne’s hands and feet the way he had with Madison.

She picked up her pen and wrote a note on her legal pad to follow up on the nineteen-year-old murder victim in Arkansas and the twenty-one-year-old victim in Texas who’d both had their hands and feet broken with a hammer. Jude wanted to see their autopsy reports. The use of a hammer in violent attacks wasn’t uncommon, but the location of the broken bones certainly was. She had a feeling that her contact at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children would be able to find more cases.

Jude put down her pen. She looked at the whiteboard at the head of the conference table. No leads had been important enough to call out. The monitor showed a black screen with the bouncing Clifton County Sheriff’s Department seal. They’d been going at it for almost three hours.

Cole, Virgil and Emmy still had their heads down as they reviewed hundreds, possibly thousands, of data points. Only Cole was using a laptop. The rest of them had opened up the boxes from Virgil’s basement. The contents were sorted into stacks of printed photographs, statements, depositions, reports, trial transcripts, thumb drives with CCTV footage, and the various detritus that accompanied major cases.

Every item was Bates stamped with a corresponding number and code to indicate that the evidence had been logged. There were handwritten notations on every phone number that had been called, every lead that had been followed. Jude had come to recognize Emmy’s habit of using random capital letters that must’ve driven Myrna insane. Gerald hadn’t just taught her to be a good cop. He’d taught her the importance of keeping your paperwork in order.

Jude took a moment to study Emmy’s profile. Her head was bowed over the trial transcripts from The State of Georgia v. Adam Johnathan Huntsinger. Her uniform was crisp, her hair neatly pinned on top of her head, but the haunted look from the funeral home hadn’t left her eyes. It wasn’t exhaustion but anxiety that seemed to be eating her from the inside out. Jude knew what it was like to read through old cases, the memories that could resurface along with the brutal details. There was a sort of dreaded relief when you located a body. You’d achieved a goal, your soul-crushing quest was finally over, but at a horrible expense.

You carried those memories with you for the rest of your life.

Cole stifled a yawn. He stood up from the conference table and went into the tiny kitchenette at the back of the room. Jude followed him for the chance to stretch her legs. She was glad to see he was making a fresh pot of coffee. The disturbed look on his face was new. He’d probably thought he was being brave by volunteering to take on reading Dale Loudermilk’s case. Emmy had kept out the pornographic photos of children that Dale had downloaded onto his laptop, but sometimes the stark descriptions could be just as haunting. Prosecutors were incentivized to make them as lurid and disgusting as possible.

Jude asked, “You okay, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, but man, what an evil bastard.” Cole started scooping coffee into the filter. “Mr. Loudermilk taught at my school. I’m glad Jonah made me sign up for band instead of chorus.”

Despite the circumstances, Jude felt herself smile, because of course Cole had taken band. “What did you play?”

“Tambourine.” The sly grin was back on his face. The boy certainly loved pissing off his father. “Why don’t you sound Southern?”

“It comes out when I’m angry, drunk, or tired.”

“I heard it when you were angry at Brett, that’s for sure.”

Cole filled the carafe with water from the sink. “It’s hard to believe that guy taught in the same school as Tommy and Celia, but they never knew how gross he was.”

“The thing about pedophiles is, they don’t just groom their victims. They groom everyone around them.” Jude stepped back so he could fill the reservoir with water. “It’s a standard part of their playbook. They’re the nicest guys you know. They’ll help you move a couch or cut your lawn or volunteer to drive you to a doctor’s appointment. That way, when a child finds the courage to tell the truth, no one believes such a good guy would ever do anything so unspeakable.”

“His wife stuck by him until she died a few years ago.” Cole punched on the coffee maker. “Even after Dale confessed as part of his plea deal, she wrote a letter to the judge asking for leniency.”

“I’m sure Dale told her he was only taking the deal because he had no choice, and it was all a big misunderstanding.”

Cole looked surprised. “How did you know?”

“Because that’s what they all do, sweetheart.” Jude rubbed his arm. She was pleased that he didn’t pull away this time. “Let’s get back to work.”

Emmy looked up from the trial transcript when Jude returned to the conference room. As usual, she dove right in. “You said you need a body to accurately profile a killer. You’ve read the autopsies. What’s your profile?”

“The same.” Jude couldn’t sit down anymore. She crossed her arms, stood at the head of the table as if she was teaching a class. “He’s a white man who works in a skilled position that requires some education or training. He has frequent contact with children and is trusted in the community. He’s likely married, possibly with a family of his own.”

Cole said, “To cover himself, right? So nobody suspects him.”

Jude nodded. “Right.”

“Here’s the problem.” Emmy sat back in her chair. “That’s not Adam. He’s not skilled. Never married. Always in trouble. Driving around with an open bottle of Jack and a joint in the ashtray and no driver’s license. He was incredibly suspicious. Kids called him the Perv because he was always hanging around high schoolers.”

“She’s right.” Virgil looked at Jude over his glasses. “I know this is your specialty, but even if you take Adam Huntsinger out of it, that profile doesn’t exactly narrow things down, especially in a state of eleven million people, roughly half of them men.”

“He’s local to Clifton County,” Jude said. “He had time to develop a relationship with Madison and Cheyenne. He left their bodies in a very public place. I’m shocked Millie didn’t see him weigh down the girls in the pond. When I was a kid, she was always looking out her kitchen window to make sure no one was cutting through her yard.”

Virgil said, “Millie was out with everybody else searching for the girls.”

Emmy added, “She went home to take her blood pressure medication. I had nearly a dozen voicemails from her that day, but I didn’t call her back until we realized that Cheyenne would’ve cut across her property to get to the backroads. That’s when she told me that Adam was called the Perv. Should’ve called her earlier.”

Jude could hear the self-recriminations in her voice. Missing something right in front of you was a terrible guilt to carry. So was spinning your wheels in a conference room full of boxes. Jude had a decision to make.

She said, “We’re going to get case blind if we keep staring at documents. Let’s turn this around. Stop looking at the crime through Cheyenne and Madison’s eyes. Look at it from our killer’s perspective. I want us to start fresh and pretend that Adam doesn’t exist. We’ll call the perpetrator the Bad Guy. When did the Bad Guy meet the victims? How? Where?”

Virgil said, “Cheyenne’s first burner phone came online in August the year before, so that’s probably the time that she met him.”

Emmy said, “Madison got a birth control prescription from Dr. Carl in September. Cheyenne was the one taking the pills, though. I found the blister pack in the attic above her closet. She started them October first. My guess is the Bad Guy met her at the outlet mall. That’s where kids hang out. He took his time grooming her because he knew she’d keep showing up.”

“Your feeling is that he met Cheyenne first?” Jude asked.

“Yes,” Emmy confirmed. “If the Bad Guy really was local, it would be stupid to approach Madison. Everyone knew Hannah was my best friend.”

Jude could hear the same note of regret in her voice. “Does Cheyenne fit the Bad Guy’s victim profile? Controlling parents, rebellious teen?”

“Yes,” Emmy confirmed again. “I guess Madison did, too, but not as much. Paul, her father, had a tracker on her phone. Hannah tried not to helicopter, but it’s hard not to smother a kid who’s pulling away. Then Cheyenne moved to Clifton and she and Madison were Velcroed to each other. Virgil tracked hundreds of texts and calls a day between them.”

Virgil said, “That’s not an overstatement. I’ve got the logs here.”

Jude waited as he shuffled through some paperwork. She could see the black AT&T logo at the top of the pages. Emmy’s handwritten summations were below the Bates stamp.

“Here we go.” Virgil pushed his glasses up his nose so he could read it. “July Fourth, there were eighteen phone calls between Madison and Cheyenne’s second burner. There were ninety-seven texts back and forth. Then it comes up on six o’clock, and they stop all communication. It doesn’t pick back up until eight, but all the calls and texts are from Madison. There’s no response from Cheyenne. The last ping from her phone on the North Falls cell tower was at five fifty-eight. It never pinged again. She must’ve powered it off.”

Jude said, “Or the Bad Guy did.”

“Here’s the thing.” Emmy stood up from her chair. She’d obviously found her second wind. “The neighbors say Cheyenne left the house on her bike around three thirty. We don’t know what she was doing for those two and a half hours before she turned off her phone. Nobody saw her in town. There weren’t that many CCTV cameras on the streets or in stores back then. Most people were at one of the fireworks shows.”

Virgil said, “Only one cell tower served North Falls. The geo-data wasn’t as precise, so we couldn’t narrow down where Cheyenne was other than in the North Falls city limits.”

“How hot was it that day?” Jude asked.

“Hundred degrees in the shade,” Emmy answered. “That’s a good point, though. She had to be somewhere with air conditioning. The library was closed. Maybe the Chilly Treat?”

Virgil said, “They were all interviewed. Nobody saw her.”

“Maybe the neighbors were wrong about the time Cheyenne left the house?” Emmy guessed. “Or maybe she circled back without them seeing?”

“Okay.” Jude could feel them spinning their wheels again. “Cheyenne had three phones. The flip phone, the first burner, and the second burner. Tell me about them.”

Emmy answered, “The first burner was confiscated by Celia at school. Cheyenne did a factory reset on her way to Celia’s office.”

“The reset wiped it completely clean,” Virgil said. “Quantico couldn’t get anything off it.”

Emmy continued, “We found Cheyenne’s second burner in her back pocket when the bodies were recovered. The device was submerged in the water too long to be able to recover any data. We never found the flip phone, but we know that Cheyenne carved her initials on the case—C.B.”

Virgil took over, anticipating the next question. “Madison’s iPhone was found crushed on the soccer pitch. The GBI lab wasn’t able to recover anything. None of the devices were backed up to the cloud. We found a laptop that Cheyenne’s mother donated to the church, but it was wiped clean. The family desktop computer was clean. Madison’s laptop was clean. All of the digital footprints were either wiped, lost, or didn’t exist in the first place.”

Jude thought of something. “What kind of flip phone was Cheyenne using?”

“Nokia,” Virgil said. “Used to belong to her father, Felix. He passed it down to her when he got an iPhone. They didn’t want her going online without them knowing.”

“What’s the model?” Jude asked.

“I’ve got it in here somewhere.” Virgil started shuffling through a thick stack of papers. “Gonna be a minute.”

Emmy nodded at Cole to give him a hand.

Jude told her, “Let’s put the focus back on the Bad Guy. What was his July Fourth like? You’re assuming he was supposed to meet Cheyenne on the backroads, right?”

“Theoretically,” Emmy said. “We don’t know if he surprised her, or they planned to meet. Her necklace and her blood found on the stretch behind Taybee’s farm.”

Jude couldn’t stop herself from chuckling. “Of course Taybee got the farm.”

Emmy rolled her eyes but stayed on point. “If the meeting was planned, I’m assuming that the Bad Guy told Cheyenne to turn off her phone at six. He wouldn’t know that we couldn’t geo-locate her position from the cell tower. My guess is she was supposed to meet him around six thirty. They were going to do whatever they were going to do. Then, Cheyenne was going to meet Madison at the park by eight at the latest.”

“Why were the Bad Guy and Cheyenne meeting?”

“For sex?”

Jude had to ask, “An hour and a half for a blow job?”

“Maybe she was finally going to agree to penetration?” Emmy shrugged. “Fifty bucks for oral versus several hundred, maybe even a thousand, for full-on sex. Cheyenne wouldn’t know how long it would take if that was really her first time. She tried to pretend like she was sophisticated, but she was still a child.”

Jude could see the pain in Emmy’s expression. She had known Cheyenne Baker. The theoretical had become personal.

Jude said, “All right, Cheyenne and the Bad Guy were going to meet for sex around six thirty. He was meant to pick her up on the backroads. Then what?”

Emmy shrugged, but said, “If we’re still talking about what the plan was, maybe Cheyenne thought the Bad Guy was going to take her to his house or a motel room. She probably romanticized it. He wouldn’t have told her it was going to happen in the back seat of the Jetta.”

Jude asked, “And then?”

“I think Cheyenne was supposed to meet Madison at the park by eight o’clock,” Emmy sounded more certain of the timeline now. “Madison was very anxious when I talked to her between eight fifteen and eight thirty. Then, she tried to talk to me again around eight fifty, but I blew her off. I think she waited until the fireworks started around nine, then she went looking for Cheyenne.”

Jude watched Emmy’s jaw stick out as she clenched her teeth. The self-recriminations were writ large in her expression. Jude knew there was no use in trying to smooth them away.

She said, “That leaves a roughly two and a half hour gap between our Bad Guy abducting Cheyenne on the backroads and abducting Madison at the park.”

“Right. That’s what’s always bothered me.” Emmy leaned her elbows on the back of the chair. “I’m the Bad Guy. I’m driving around in my Jetta. I’ve got Cheyenne and her bike in my car. I wait two and a half hours until the sun sets, then I go look for Madison at the park, but I bring Cheyenne and her bike with me.”

Jude said, “In dual kidnappings, generally they threaten one girl in order to get the other girl to comply.”

“But we know the Bad Guy had a gun. That’s a hell of a persuader. And he obviously had a secluded location he took Madison to, somewhere isolated enough to torture her for hours.” Emmy lifted her shoulder in a stiff shrug. “Why not take Cheyenne to that place, chain her up, then go looking for Madison? Even with virtually nobody in town, it’s risky keeping her in the car.”

Jude said, “So risky that when the Bad Guy drives onto the soccer pitch, Cheyenne manages to escape. She runs toward the trees. The Bad Guy shoots her in the head. He goes after Madison. He puts them both in the car and off they go.”

“Not exactly,” Emmy said. “Before he drove off, he took time to move their bikes. Madison’s was in the middle of the soccer pitch. Cheyenne’s was over by the trees. And from what we could tell, he laid down Madison’s bike. He threw Cheyenne’s maybe ten feet away from the field until it hit a tree.”

“He was angry with Cheyenne, but he was composed enough to try to misdirect the search.” Jude had seen Emmy’s meticulously drawn map of the first crime scene. “You’d have to be strong to throw a bike that far.”

“You’d have to be strong to swim to the middle of the pond with both girls chained together,” Emmy said. “He dragged the bodies out there, then chained them to a concrete block with a twenty-foot length of chain so that they floated up like a couple of kites in the water. He wanted them to be seen.”

Jude watched Emmy press together her lips. She knew what those memories felt like.

“I dunno.” Virgil looked up from his search. “Sounds to me like the Bad Guy was panicking. Didn’t know what he was doing. Took Cheyenne with him in the car, maybe decided to go somewhere with Madison on the fly.”

“No,” Jude said. “He staged the bikes. He staged the bodies. He wasn’t panicked. He was meticulous.”

Emmy started shaking her head. “That doesn’t sound like Adam Huntsinger.”

Jude had to agree. Adam was impulsive, uncontrollable. He wouldn’t have worried about being caught. He would’ve been too focused on driving away.

“Found it.” Cole walked over to the laptop and started typing. The monitor at the front of the room flickered, then mirrored his screen. He said, “Cheyenne’s flip phone was a Nokia N93i.”

Jude recognized the model. The device was chunky, nearly an inch thick when folded. When it was opened, the top part of the phone swiveled to act as a viewfinder.

Cole indicated the thick, rectangular hinge on the clamshell. “What’s that?”

“That’s a 480p video camera,” Jude said. “The slot on the side is for a miniSD card that holds around two gigs of data.”

Emmy had walked over to the monitor to look at the phone. “I found highly sexualized photos taped to the back of Cheyenne’s locker. They showed her and Madison dressed in slinky, matching bra and panty sets. Madison was in white. Cheyenne was in black.”

“Madonna/whore.” Jude felt a warning shiver through her body. She didn’t like where this was going. “Did the photos look staged?”

“I wouldn’t call it a professional shoot, but someone put some thought into making sure it was nondescript. Unfinished concrete floor. Walls painted flat white. Bare king-sized mattress on the floor.” Emmy didn’t produce the photos from the files, probably because Cole was there. “Only one of the shots completely crossed the line. Cheyenne was nude, lying on her back on the mattress with her legs spread apart. We wondered if there were other pictures that showed the man who’d taken them.”

“Which would mean that Bad Guy had motivations other than sexual. The girls could send him to prison.” Jude asked Virgil, “You never found any miniSD cards?”

He shook his head. “No, and I have to admit, I didn’t do a deep dive on the phone, either. I just assumed it was a regular flip phone.”

Cole asked, “Could she text on that thing?”

“Yes,” Jude said. “Look at the letters under the numbers. You had to hit the numbers up to three times to select one letter.”

Emmy said, “Twelve years ago, you couldn’t text large video files. Wi-Fi wasn’t everywhere like it is now. That amount of data would blow through the family cell phone plan. Her parents would’ve noticed.”

Cole asked, “How would you watch the videos?”

Jude said, “The phone came with a cord that jacked into the back of a television, or you could take the miniSD and plug it into an adaptor that connected to your computer.”

Emmy asked, “Why do you know so much about this phone?”

“Because pedophiles loved it,” Jude said. “Back then, even the smallest camcorders were bulky and hard to conceal. At the time, this was the highest quality stereo and video phone on the market. You could stick it in your pocket and head to the playground.”

“Damn,” Cole muttered.

Virgil said, “Felix Baker had the phone before Cheyenne.”

“Felix had a solid alibi.” Emmy slid one of the thumb drives across the table. The label had her tight handwriting. “This has footage of Felix walking in and out the front door of the factory at the times he gave us, plus it shows his car in the parking lot, plus there were cameras back in the office space where he worked that showed him at his drafting table, plus license plate scanners caught him going to the river basin.”

Jude asked, “Did the scanners catch anyone else who looked suspicious?”

“Nope.” Virgil picked up another heavy stack of papers and dropped them with a loud thud. “Our system wasn’t compatible with GHP. Had to go through all of these line-by-line. The Jetta didn’t show up anywhere. And not that you asked, but there weren’t any unusual phone numbers in the raw data from the cell phone tower, either. I personally tracked down every number that wasn’t from around here.”

“What about other Jettas?” Jude watched them all exchange glances. “What?”

Virgil said, “The factory was stamping out Jetta drive trains back then. Everybody had a Jetta.”

“Okay.” Jude was always a fan of stating the obvious. “We’re all thinking that Cheyenne had a video on the Nokia that showed the Bad Guy, right?”

Everyone nodded.

“And Cheyenne was probably blackmailing the Bad Guy, right?”

Only Emmy and Cole nodded.

Virgil said, “Blackmail is pretty sophisticated. She was only fifteen.”

Emmy looked like she wanted to laugh. “I caught Tommy sneaking one of Penley’s cigarettes when I was eight and blackmailed him into buying me candy for the next four years.”

Virgil held up his hands in surrender.

“Okay.” Jude went to the whiteboard. She recited the salient details as she wrote. “Cheyenne scheduled a meeting with the Bad Guy on the backroads at six thirty. She was supposed to exchange the Nokia with the miniSD for money. Then she was going to meet Madison at the park at eight o’clock. Madison was anxious because she knew about the plan. This implies she knew that it wasn’t entirely safe.”

Emmy picked up the narrative, “Cheyenne had sixteen grand in her closet. She was saving up money so that she and Madison could leave town. She was selling blow jobs. Selling drugs. Taybee’s daughter, Kaitlynn, heard Cheyenne talking to Madison about an older man she was seeing. Cheyenne joked that she wished the guy’s penis was as big as his wallet. If the contents of the video were damaging enough, I doubt we’re talking a thousand bucks. She must’ve demanded a hell of a lot more. Enough for them to finally leave town.”

Jude felt part of the puzzle finally clicking together. “That could explain the two and a half hours that elapsed between the two abductions. Cheyenne was clever. She might have been hedging her bets. Let’s say she took the Nokia to give to the Bad Guy, but not the miniSD card. The Bad Guy would have been furious. We know from the autopsy report that he beat the hell out of Cheyenne before she died.”

Emmy said, “She held out for two and a half hours before she told the Bad Guy how to find Madison.”

They all went silent as the details of what had really happened that night started to sink in.

Emmy cleared her throat. “The girls were fucking with him. They thought that they were the ones in control, that they were pulling the strings, but the Bad Guy always had the power.”

“Keep going,” Jude told her.

“He found out that Cheyenne’s first burner was confiscated at school. She assured him that she’d reset the device before she’d handed it in to Celia. He wanted the SIM card so that it couldn’t be traced back to him. Madison cut it up, but she didn’t give it to him. She left it in her locker instead of throwing it away or giving it to the Bad Guy.”

“Because?” Jude asked.

“Because she was being an asshole or trying to tease him or because she was a stupid kid who didn’t understand how dangerous the game was.” Emmy’s shrug belied her words. “It’s the same reason Cheyenne never picked up her confiscated phone, even though she was allowed to. She just got another burner. Meanwhile, the Bad Guy knew how high the stakes were. He could get caught. His life would be over, his freedom gone. The girls were only thinking about the things they could gain. They never considered what the Bad Guy had to lose.”

Jude felt another puzzle piece snap into place. “There’s another component at work here. Pedophiles seek out children because they’re easier to manipulate. They can’t handle grown women. Cheyenne and Madison’s killer would’ve been enraged that they were trying to take away his power. The girls didn’t understand that the game could turn deadly.”

Emmy scattered half a dozen crime scene photographs onto the table. Jude recognized the backroad by the white fence that delineated Taybee’s farmland.

“Cheyenne’s first crime scene,” Emmy began. “According to the GBI’s analysis, the Bad Guy chased Cheyenne down this portion of the backroads in his car. They found bike tire tracks where she was weaving back and forth, trying to shake him. He wasn’t going fast, but he tapped the rear wheel of her bike hard enough to bend the rim and break the spokes. Cheyenne lost control of the handlebars and landed in the ditch, here. You can see there was quite a bit of blood.”

Jude studied the spray of blood in the photo. Cheyenne had landed hard enough to scatter the gravel. She said, “The Bad Guy knew he was going to kill her. There’s no way to walk back hitting a child on a bike. He knew that he wasn’t going to leave a witness.”

Emmy said, “The only reason he didn’t kill her immediately was because he realized the miniSD was missing from the Nokia.”

“With Cheyenne, it was transactional, not sexual,” Jude noted. “That’s the exact opposite of how he dealt with Madison. She was taken somewhere remote so that he could have time with her. He tortured her for hours. He let his fantasies play out.”

Emmy found a school photograph of each girl. Unlike with the others, she carefully placed each one on the table. “Madison still had her baby fat. She looked like a child. Cheyenne looked like a young woman.”

A reverent silence filled in the room. They all needed a moment to absorb the brutality behind the deaths. Madison’s face was almost cherubic. Her front tooth was snaggled. She had long blonde hair down past her shoulders. Cheyenne’s dark hair was shorter, cut in a choppy shag. Her make-up was heavier. Her lips were pouting in the photo. She was trying so hard to be older, to live a life that had been snatched away from her.

Jude took a deep breath. “Madison was held in an isolated location for at least twelve hours. The Bad Guy could’ve kept her longer. Why didn’t he?”

Emmy said, “After Millie told me Adam Huntsinger was the Perv, news got out pretty quickly that we were looking for him. Dad and I went straight to his parents’ house. Clayville PD spotted his truck parked in front of the Hang Out. Dad and Virgil went to pick him up. I got a call from Hannah maybe five minutes after they left. If she knew, everybody knew.”

Jude asked Virgil, “How long had Adam been at the bar?”

Virgil shrugged, but said, “Your uncle Penley guessed maybe an hour.”

“It’s not Adam.” Emmy sounded dead certain. “Everything we’ve outlined so far points to a control freak capable of strategic thinking. The abductions and murders of Cheyenne and Madison were well planned and executed. Adam Huntsinger’s impetuous and stupid. His rap sheet is filled with dumb people crimes—open container, drunk driving, moving violations. He can’t even remember to bring his driver’s license half the time. There’s no way he could’ve pulled this off.”

Jude said, “We’re not at the point where we know anything for a fact. Let’s keep an open mind.”

Emmy started shaking her head again. She looked shell-shocked. “We got it wrong.”

“Let’s look at alternatives.” Jude went back to the whiteboard. She wrote Adam’s name at the top. “We’re all familiar with the case against Adam. Who were the other men in Cheyenne and Madison’s lives that came up during the investigation?”

Virgil took over when Emmy didn’t respond. “Felix Baker is Cheyenne’s father, Paul Dalrymple is Madison’s, Dale Loudermilk had them both in his choral group. Wesley Woodrow had a drug angle that could’ve overlapped. Dr. Carl Whitlock saw Madison as a patient.”

“We’ve eliminated Felix, but I’ll leave him in.” Jude wrote out the names below Adam’s, then added Father Nate. “Cheyenne’s family was Catholic, right?”

Emmy started to rally. She thumbed through a stack of folders. “We ruled out Nate. He was in Smyrna meeting with the Archbishop of Atlanta. I drove up there to talk to him myself. This is a photo from that day.”

Jude looked at the photograph. Nate was standing alongside a bunch of other fat, white men in fancy dresses, all giving a thumbs up to the camera. “What’s the drive to Smyrna from North Falls? Three hours?”

“Just about,” Virgil said “Nate was up there for the entire day. Highway Patrol tracked his Cadillac on both their scanners and traffic cameras.”

Jude had to admit that she was impressed. Gerald had known Nate for decades, but they’d still run the lead back to the root. “What about Paul?”

“He was with Hannah,” Emmy said. “I saw him off and on the whole day at the park. So did Brett Temple. Paul was intoxicated by the time the fireworks show started.”

Virgil supplied, “Dr. Carl was with his son, Jack Whitlock, all night. They alibi each other. I ran down the browsing history on Jack’s computer. He was online the entire evening but for the forty-five minutes when he went to watch the fireworks with his dad in the backyard.”

Jude remembered Carl. He’d been one of Tommy’s friends. “What about Walton Huntsinger? He’s the town dentist. Everybody I knew went to him when we were kids. Were Cheyenne or Madison his patients?”

“He did an emergency filling on Cheyenne when they first moved to Clifton, but Walton was out of town over the Fourth.” Emmy opened another folder. She slid a photograph across the conference table. “This is a selfie we printed out from Walton’s phone that proves he was nowhere near North Falls when the girls were abducted. There’s an organization called the Tooth Troopers he volunteers with. They were working out of the American Legion Hall in Bridgeport, West Virginia, for three days. Walton rented a car since the transmission was slipping in his Jetta. That’s why Adam had access to it.”

Jude looked at the selfie of Walton Huntsinger standing in front of a stone building. She easily recognized his lined face. Same affable smile. Same squinty eyes. Same jet-black hair. “The family certainly loves their hair dye.”

Cole said, “He was pretty old back then. He’s probably peeing dust by now.”

“Cole.” Emmy scolded. “Walton’s only a few years older than Virgil.”

“I’m not peeing dust, son.” Virgil gave Cole a sharp look before finding a yellow carbon copy of a rental car receipt. He slid it in Jude’s direction. “The Hertz over in Verona verified Walton took out a car on July second and returned it about half an hour before Emmy and Gerald found him at his house.”

Emmy said, “His suitcase was still in the hall. He was in the shower when Dad knocked on the front door.”

“All right.” Jude went to the next name. “What about Woody?”

Virgil took over again. “He was at Lake Allatoona with his father’s people. They got rowdy with another group on the lake. The cops got involved. Couple of folks went to the hospital. Stirred up all kinds of shit. Real patriotic way to celebrate the Fourth.”

Emmy placed another photo in front of Jude. “Here’s Woody’s mugshot from the arrest.”

Jude couldn’t look away from the teenager’s face. He had a nasty smirk on his lips. His beady eyes glared back at the camera. She could see tattoos on his bare chest. A fresh gash on his forehead. There was something eerily familiar about his features. She felt a chill go down her spine.

Jude asked, “Is Woody related to Bubba Rawley?”

“Yep,” Virgil confirmed. “That’s his grandson. Tanya abandoned him. He was raised by his grandmama. She died a few years back. Fentanyl.”

Jude made herself look away from the photo. “What was he charged with on the Fourth?”

“Originally? Drunk and disorderly with a side of assault,” Virgil said. “Lawyer got it kicked down to public nuisance.”

Emmy tapped one of the memory sticks. “This has the footage of Woody’s police interview. Stone cold, just sits there refusing to answer any questions until they give up.”

“Takes after his grandfather.” There was only one name left on the board. Jude said, “Dale Loudermilk. What was his alibi?”

“He didn’t have one,” Emmy said. “He was at home by himself that week. His wife was visiting her sister in Carrolton. He had two days off from the rec center. His neighbors were at the fireworks show. No one saw him until five thirty on the morning of July fifth, when he was seen by a neighbor in the driveway washing the car.”

Jude remembered a detail from the podcast. “What made you follow Dale in the hallway at school that day?”

Emmy didn’t reach for a photo or tap a memory stick. She went to the laptop Cole had been using. She clicked through several folders until she found what she was looking for. Jude looked at the monitor. A school hallway filled the screen. The color was washed out, the blue lockers blending into with the tan-looking floor. Two of the lockers were open, one several down from the other.

Emmy said, “I was standing with Celia in her office when we saw Dale on one of the CCTV monitors. He didn’t know that the hall camera was fixed a few days before. The open locker belongs to Cheyenne. The photos of her and Madison in matching bras and panties were taped to the back.”

Jude watched Dale Loudermilk appear on the screen. She had seen the man’s booking photo, but in three-dimension, he looked exactly the way she expected him to: perfectly normal, like every other teacher you’d find at any school in America. Tan cargo shorts. Green shirt from the rec center. Bushy mustache. He was walking down the hallway, but he stopped at Cheyenne’s locker. Several seconds passed as he looked at the photos inside. Then his head turned left. Then right. Then he reached inside.

Emmy said, “That’s the nude photo of Cheyenne where she’s exposing herself. I left it face-down inside the locker.”

Jude kept her focus on Dale. He was staring at the obscene photo. His face was only in profile, but she could see no emotion. Time spooled out. Nearly half a minute passed before he returned the photo to the locker and walked away.

Emmy said, “I spliced together the footage to track him to the auditorium.”

Jude followed Dale’s progress down the long hallway. His hands kept moving in his pockets. He was distracted, not paying attention to the fact that Emmy was trailing him from several yards away. He did a cursory look to the left and right before he opened the doors to the auditorium. Another angle showed Dale walking across the lobby toward another set of doors. Seconds later, Emmy jogged through, catching the door before it closed.

Emmy stopped the video. “There weren’t any cameras behind the stage.”

Jude let her appreciation show. “You didn’t confront him. You followed him instead. That shows damn good instincts.”

“Well,” Emmy shrugged it off. “Maybe not. Dale looks a hell of a lot better for this right now than Adam Huntsinger.”

Cole asked the obvious question. “Why didn’t y’all think Dale was the murderer?”

Emmy listed it off, “None of the photos on his laptop were of Cheyenne and Madison. They were both fifteen years old. All of the girls in Dale’s collection were between the ages of nine and eleven. We spent hours going through every piece of footage from the school’s CCTV to see if there was anything on camera that showed Dale acting inappropriately with either Madison or Cheyenne. We found nothing to link them. We did extensive interviews with all the teachers and every student who had even a passing association with the girls. We talked to people at the rec center and the outlet mall. And whenever Dale drove them home from choral practice, the times made sense. Practice ended at five, and the girls were home ten minutes later. Both Hannah and Ruth testified to the times at Adam’s trial. There wasn’t a shred of evidence that we could use to pin it on him.”

Virgil said, “And Adam made more sense. You know the reasons, but my money is still on him. For what that’s worth.”

Jude still wasn’t sure. She looked back at the names on the board again. She’d been gone for decades and she had a passing familiarity with at least four of them. “Do we know if any of these men on our list knew each other?”

“I mean—” Emmy shrugged. “Most of them are North Falls people. They might know each other in passing. We only looked at them in relation to the girls.”

Jude asked Virgil, “Did they ever call each other on their phones?”

He paused for a moment, as if he needed to let the question sink in. “We didn’t have probable cause on a warrant for anybody but Adam and Dale, and there was no record of those two communicating with each other.”

Jude asked, “Was Adam on his parents’ cell phone plan?”

Virgil paused again. He wasn’t a man who was used to missing small details. “Yeah, I got copies of all the family call logs going back six months. The landline, plus Walton and Alma’s cell phones. They’re all in a box in my basement. Didn’t think we would need them.”

“Hold on.” Emmy had her hands up like she needed everything to stop. She asked Jude, “Do you think Adam was using his parents’ phones to communicate with an accomplice?”

“Accomplices in serial abductions aren’t common, but they’re not rare, either. Typically, it’s a man and a woman caught up in folie à deux, but when it’s two men, the crimes can be exceptionally brutal. Leopold and Loeb. The Toolbox Killers. The Hillside Stranglers.”

Emmy looked shaken. “If Adam had an accomplice, that person could be the one who took Paisley.”

Jude said, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. These are theories right now. We don’t have anything concrete.”

Virgil volunteered, “I can call the prison and see if we can get Adam’s visitation logs.”

Emmy said, “Use Dad’s office. Don’t let anyone else hear you.”

Jude added, “Ask for a list of all the guards on his tier and any prisoners who did meal and mail delivery service or rolled the library cart. Get all the scans of his emails and any other correspondence.”

“Wait.” Emmy stopped Virgil at the door. “Call Dooley State Prison, too. I want to know who’s had any contact with Dale Loudermilk. Check all the same things, plus his commissary. See if anybody on the outside is making his time inside a little easier.”

Jude said, “Dale was caught red-handed on the porn. He knew he was going to be doing some serious time. If he really did have an accomplice, his silence wouldn’t come cheap.”

“Got it.” Virgil gave her a salute on his way out.

Jude looked back at the whiteboard. She felt in her bones that they were getting close. Her eyes scanned the names again. She’d tried so hard not to let her horrific experience with Adam cloud the way she looked at the facts of his case, but his name was at the top of the list for a reason. She remembered Emmy talking about how a lot of the evidence against him was consistent with and not matched exactly. An accomplice could explain the disparities.

She asked Cole, “What kind of car did Dale drive?”

“He drove a truck. White Ford F-150. Six years old.”

Emmy went to the laptop. “The car he was vacuuming and cleaning with a bleach solution at five thirty in the morning was a three-year-old black Audi A4 that belonged to his wife, Esther.”

Jude watched the monitor again as Emmy arrowed through the images: different angles of the trunk, rear and front bumpers, several shots of the interior, the seats, floorboards, steering wheel, and console, another tight shot of the edge of the trunk’s lid that showed where some paint had been chipped off.

Emmy explained, “Dale told us the paint got chipped when he took his lawnmower to get it repaired.”

Jude asked, “He loaded a lawnmower into the Audi and not the truck?”

Emmy’s nod acknowledged the thin excuse. “He did a good job cleaning the car. There wasn’t any paint transfer from whatever the trunk slammed down on. There were no marks that we could see on the front left bumper. Obviously because of the bleach, none of our tests showed positive for blood or body fluids. At the time, we assumed Dale cleaned out the car because he was hoping we wouldn’t find out that he’d given Madison and Cheyenne rides home from school.”

Jude asked, “A plastic tarp was brought up when they dragged the pond, right?”

“Yep,” Emmy said. “Big enough to line the trunk, but there was no forensic evidence on the plastic.”

Cole cleared his throat. “What about the numbers on the sticker?”

Jude had no idea what he was talking about. “Show me.”

Cole worked the laptop to select a photo of the Audi’s interior. The steering wheel was at the center of the frame. He zoomed into the upper left-hand corner of the windshield. There was a small, square decal with a logo for the Speedy Go Garage. Below it was written the date and mileage of when the next oil service was due.

Cole said, “Those high-end cars, you get the oil changed every 10,000 miles or twelve months, whichever you hit first. The sticker says the next oil change is due on July second of the following year, which means the oil service was performed two days before Madison and Cheyenne were abducted.”

“That makes sense,” Emmy said. “Esther’s sister was in Florida the week before. She picked her up on her way back to Carrolton. Dale took her car to get the oil changed while she was out of town.”

Jude found her reading glasses. She got closer to the monitor so she could look at the numbers. Her gut told her that Cole was onto something. She said, “Keep going.”

He went to the whiteboard and started writing. “The sticker says that the next oil change is due when the odometer hits 16,483, right? So if you subtract 10,000 from that number, that means that two days before Cheyenne and Madison were abducted, the odometer was at 6,483, right?”

“Shit.” Emmy pinched her fingers on the trackpad to show the console behind the steering wheel. “The mileage on the odometer is 7,173.”

Cole drew a line under the number so that he could work the problem. “That’s—”

“Six hundred and ninety,” Jude said. “In two days, Dale put 690 miles on the Audi.”

Cole said, “If he went on a round-trip, that would be 345 miles each way.”

Emmy said, “Dale never mentioned a trip out of town.” “Walton went out of town,” Jude said.

Emmy was already shaking her head. “Bridgeport, West Virginia, is a 1,400-mile round-trip from North Falls. Virgil matched the odometer on the rental car receipt. Then, just to be sure, I had Homeland Security check all the flight manifests around the country on those dates to see if Walton Hubert Huntsinger’s name was on any of them. It wasn’t. Then, there’s this—”

Jude turned back to the monitor. Emmy used Google Earth to find the American Legion building in Bridgeport, West Virginia. She clicked to expand the street view.

Emmy said, “This is the same building as the one behind Walton in the selfie on his phone. And the metadata from the jpeg gives the same location. He was definitely in West Virginia.”

“Okay.” Jude took off her glasses, asking Emmy, “What’s your gut saying?”

“That Dale and Adam were working together.”

“What’s your reasoning?”

Emmy held up her hand and counted off the points. “We know that Adam had contact with both girls. He was seen smoking weed with Madison. He admitted to you this morning that he got oral off Cheyenne. We know that someone was producing child pornography. We know that Cheyenne had child porn of herself in her locker. We know that Dale collected child pornography. We know that he looked at the illicit photo of Cheyenne and didn’t blink. We know that he did a psychopathic deep clean of his wife’s Audi at five thirty in the morning.”

“That’s persuasive, but not definitive,” Jude said. “We need to figure out where Dale went in the Audi.”

“Esther’s dead, so we can’t ask her, and the sister in Carrolton refuses to talk to us. Wants to keep the past in the past, she says.” Emmy was looking at the mileage calculations on the whiteboard. “That’s about ten hours of driving round-trip. Madison was kept somewhere for at least twelve hours. But why would Dale drive her that far away, then bring her back and chain her body to Cheyenne’s, then leave them both in Millie’s pond?”

Jude’s earlier bad feeling came roaring back. “He could’ve taken her to someone. A customer, maybe.”

“Like, sold her?” Cole asked.

“Maybe,” Jude said. “That could explain the photos in Cheyenne’s locker. The girls were both probably tricked into posing for them. They would have no idea they were being offered for trafficking.”

Emmy covered her mouth with her hands. She was clearly thinking about the last twelve hours of Madison’s life. She disappeared into the kitchenette before Cole could see the tears streaming down her face.

Jude knew better than to go after her. She asked Cole, “Do you know how to plot out travel distance from a center point?”

“You mean can I tell you all the towns that are within 345 miles of North Falls? Yes, ma’am.” Cole sat down at the laptop. “Maps and mistakes, right?”

“Maybe.” It was hard for Jude not to pick up on his enthusiasm. It was also hard for her not to remember the many times she’d been in this situation before. “One step at a time, sweetheart. We’re still in a marathon, not a sprint.”

Emmy’s phone vibrated on the table.

Jude watched the Caller ID scroll across the screen—

CLIFTON CO SHERIFF DISPATCH

Emmy came back into the conference room. She was dry-eyed as she tapped the phone to answer. “Marla, you’re on speaker.”

“Chief.” Anxiety infused the word. “Adam Huntsinger called into nine-one-one. He’s demanding to speak to you.”

Emmy’s brow furrowed. “Is Brett still tailing him?”

“Yes, ma’am. Brett’s last check-in was outside the Huntsinger house five minutes ago. I’ve got his cruiser on GPS set up fifty yards down from their driveway.”

“Check on Brett and put Adam through to my phone.”

“Transferring now, chief.”

A series of low tones played through the phone’s speaker, then there was the phlegmy sound of heavy breathing.

Emmy’s chest rose and fell as she took a quick breath. “Mr. Huntsinger, this is Chief Clifton. What can I do for you?”

“You can go fuck yourself,” Adam hissed. His words were slurred. He’d clearly helped himself to more in the hours since Jude had left the bar. “What the fuck, lady? What’d I ever do to you?”

Emmy took another shallow breath. “Mr. Huntsinger—”

“I found what your sister hid in my fucking truck!” he yelled. “I’m not going down for it this time. I got nothing to do with that little bitch that’s gone missing.”

Emmy looked at Jude, who could only shake her head. Cole did the same. Neither of them knew what Adam was talking about.

“Mr. Huntsinger.” Emmy’s tone stayed tightly controlled. “I need you to calm down and tell me what you found in your truck.”

“You fucking calm down, lady. I’m done talking.” Adam didn’t hang up, but Jude heard the familiar sound of a man taking a long pull from a bottle. “I’ll tell you another thing, bitch. You better get that fucking cop off of my street right now or I swear to God, I’m gonna take this fucking shotgun and blow his fucking head off.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Eighteen

Emmy launched her cruiser up the exit toward Elsinore Meadows. She’d put on her blue lights to clear cars from her path. The siren was off for a silent approach. All that she could hear over the roar of the engine was the blood rushing through her ears. Her hands gripped the wheel. Sweat was pouring under her armored duty vest. As she hit the long stretch of road, she tried not to think about making this same trek yesterday morning with Cole in the back seat and Gerald at her side. Her thoughts had been filled with dread. Paisley Walker missing. A mob of vigilantes screaming for blood. Not knowing that her entire life was about to change in the blink of an eye.

This time, she had left Cole at the station. He had balked, but her son knew how to follow orders. Emmy had claimed she needed him to keep working with Jude, but the truth was, she couldn’t function if she thought about taking Cole with her to confront an armed felon with nothing to lose. She had already lost both parents. Her world would cease to exist if she lost her son.

Up ahead, Emmy could see a line of black, marked SUVs parked on the shoulder. Rick Tuttle stood in the middle of the street with his heavily muscled arms crossed over his bulging duty vest. The city of Verona chief of police was six-three and built like a linebacker, though he hadn’t stepped on a football field since they were both in high school. A group of six equally imposing men surrounded him. Verona PD wore camo with combat boots and enough equipment on their vests to mount a small war. Brett looked like a toddler playing cops and robbers by comparison.

Emmy pulled in behind the last SUV. Jumped out of her cruiser. Tightened the straps on her vest as she walked. The air felt heavy with tension. The clouds in the sky had turned gray. Rain was making its way from the Gulf. She focused her mind on Adam Huntsinger. If their theory from the conference room was correct, he had an accomplice on the outside. That man could be raping and torturing Paisley Walker right now. There was still the chance that she would be found alive.

“Chief.” Brett jogged to meet her. He was certainly awake now. “I spotted Adam inside the house ten minutes ago. He went around closing all the curtains. Had the sawed-off shotgun in his hand. No sign of his parents, but Walton’s car was in the driveway when he got here.”

“We have to assume his mother’s inside the house, too. Alma hasn’t driven in years.” They had reached the group of men. Emmy told Rick, “Thanks for being here. I’ve still got my people out looking for Paisley Walker.”

“No problem. Happy to help.” His mirrored sunglasses showed the reflection of the road behind her. Emmy forced herself not to think about Cole running down the street with his vest flapping.

She asked, “What’s the sitrep?”

Rick said, “We got SWAT on the way from Ocmulgee. They’re twenty minutes out.”

Emmy wasn’t going to wait for SWAT. “Adam’s parents are home, Walton and Alma. They’re both in their late seventies. Alma is completely blind. Adam is armed with a shotgun. He already threatened to shoot my deputy. He’s been drinking all day.”

“Which is why we’re standing down for SWAT,” Rick said. “I’m not losing one of my guys. Not for a pedophile and two old people.”

Emmy felt her teeth set. She had to crane up her neck to look at the six strapping men around her. All locked and loaded. All cosplaying badasses.

“Okay.” She turned to Brett. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Brett asked.

“To do our damn jobs.”

Emmy started jogging toward the house. Her eyes glanced across the dark stain on the asphalt where Gerald had fallen. The feeling of cleaving threatened to return, that sense of sudden emptiness. She knew with every fiber of her being what her father would want her to do right now. The Verona SWAT team wasn’t just trigger happy. They prided themselves on not taking prisoners. Emmy wasn’t sure about a lot of things, but she was certain that Adam Huntsinger couldn’t talk if he was dead.

“Chief.” Brett jogged beside her. “What’s the plan?”

Emmy took a shallow breath. She was too anxious to be relieved. “Go around back. There’s two exits: one off the kitchen and one off the back porch. If Adam comes through either one, you’ve got to protect yourself, but if there’s any way, try not to shoot him. We need him to talk. He could tell us how to find Paisley.”

Brett gave a curt nod. “Yes, chief.”

Emmy slowed her pace so Brett had time to skirt around the side of the house. She took out her phone. Turned on the camera. Stuck it into the breast pocket of her duty vest so the lens faced out. Gerald had been against body cams, but whatever happened between Emmy and Adam Huntsinger was going to be recorded. Even if it was buckshot hitting her in the chest.

She glanced into Walton’s black Toyota Corolla as she walked by. Adam’s old Chevy truck was parked closer to the house, stopped at a sharp angle. The back tires had dug deep tracks into the gravel. The cab was empty, but there was an open toolbox in the truck bed. Yellow plastic, busted handle. The lid was open. Emmy saw a bunch of rusted wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers.

Emmy unsnapped the safety strap on her Glock, wrapped her fingers around the grip, and walked up the porch stairs. The windows were dark. There were no twitches behind the curtains. She could hear a TV loudly playing somewhere in the back of the house. Emmy didn’t have to consider her options. She did the same thing her father had done the day before. Raised her hand. Rapped her fist on the solid wood. Knocked hard enough to be heard over the television, but not so hard that the door shook on its hinges.

Emmy took three steps back, angled herself away from the door in case Adam decided to shoot through it. She kept her hand on her Glock and waited.

The door didn’t open, but the volume muted on the television. In the silence, she listened to the old floorboards creaking inside of the house. She thought back to that fateful day twelve years ago. Gerald trying the locked front door. Emmy going around the side. Looking in the basement. The sound of Gerald calling her back to the front.

Emmy knocked again, softer this time, but with purpose.

“Adam?” The woman’s voice sounded frail and distant. “Is someone at the door?”

Emmy heard murmurs of conversation closer by. Two men were arguing. One louder than the other. Adam and Walton. The conversation died down quickly. There was the sound of more floorboards creaking, feet shuffling, then the front door swung open.

Walton Huntsinger’s face was drawn. His eyes looked tired behind his thick glasses. His unnaturally black hair was combed over to hide the baldness.

Emmy asked, “Dr. Huntsinger, are you and your wife safe?”

“Yes, thank you.” His voice sounded beaten down. They had been here once before. He knew how that had ended. “Adam’s in the kitchen. Follow me back.”

Emmy stepped into the house. Nothing had changed. The only thing missing from the front hall was Walton’s suitcase. Emmy walked past the spot, her mind conjuring the image of the black Samsonite with the colorful golf umbrella hooked through the handle and a red nylon man’s wallet with the Georgia Bulldogs logo shoved into the zippered pocket. She followed Walton down the long hallway past the living room, then the dining room, then into the kitchen. The bright yellow walls had faded, but the appliances finally matched. A keychain with a fob for the Toyota was on the counter.

Adam was sitting at the kitchen table. His mouth curled up at the corners when he saw Emmy. He stared at her through his thick glasses. There were three items in front of him:

Penley’s sawed-off shotgun from the bar.

A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

A sixteen-ounce general purpose claw hammer.

Emmy felt her breath catch. The wooden handle was almost black with dried blood. The blood around the steel head was brighter, newer.

Paisley.

Adam said, “Leave us be, Dad.”

Walton didn’t look at Emmy. His feet shuffled across the floor as he left the kitchen. The room somehow felt smaller without him.

Adam said, “Sit down, chief.”

Emmy didn’t sit down. Her eyes flickered to the windows. The curtains on the door weren’t fully closed. She saw Brett reaching for the doorknob. His Glock was in his right hand. Emmy shook her head, telling him to stay outside.

She asked Adam, “Where’s Paisley?”

“Fuck you,” he said. “Wrong question.”

Emmy knew what he wanted her to ask about. It was the reason he’d called her. “Tell me about the hammer.”

“You fucking know about the hammer.”

Emmy’s eyes followed his right hand as he placed it flat on the table. Close to the bottle. Close to the shotgun. Close to the hammer. Any one of them could hurt her. She leaned back against the counter, putting herself out of swinging distance. She felt her mind racing with questions.

Why had he called 911 demanding to speak to Emmy? Why had he threatened Brett’s life? Why had he left the hammer on the table like a cat bringing her a dead bird? Was his accomplice trying to frame him? Was Adam trying to fake her out?

Emmy took in a deep breath, forced herself to turn a question back on him. “Was that hammer inside the toolbox in your truck?”

“Exactly where your sister put it.”

“Why would she do that?”

“You know why.”

Emmy held her breath again when Adam’s hand moved, but he only grabbed the bottle. His eyes stayed on hers as he drank. His throat made a loud gulping sound. Then he slammed the bottle back on the table. She watched his left hand slither up next to the shotgun. The snake tattoo practically pulsed around his arm. She knew that he was trying to scare her. To make her show fear.

Emmy wasn’t going to give it to him. “Where’s Paisley?” “Why the fuck do you keep asking me about that stupid little bitch?”

Emmy let the silence play out until Adam got antsy. He shifted in his chair. Started to tap his fingers against the bottle of Jack. She asked, “Adam, what are we doing here?”

“I’m having a drink.” His lip snagged on the gap between his teeth when he grinned. “You want one?”

“No.” Emmy let her hand move from her Glock and rest on the counter behind her. She knew that she could reach her weapon far more quickly than Adam could reach his. “You called me on the emergency line. You are clearly drunk. You told me you had a shotgun. You threatened to kill my deputy. Did you think I was going to come in here and shoot you? Or did you want to talk?”

He stopped tapping. “You’re not gonna believe me anyway.”

“Try me.”

He held up his hands in an open shrug. “I didn’t hurt ’em. None of ’em. I don’t know where Paisley is. I didn’t have nothing to do with Madison or Cheyenne. Jesus Christ, who named these kids? It’s like a shirt, a street and a fucking city in Montana.”

“Wyoming.”

“Shit.” His hands dropped back on the table. “Just like your smartass sister. Always correcting people. Still thinks she’s fucking better than everybody else.”

Again, Emmy waited a few seconds to make sure he was finished. “If you didn’t kill Madison and Cheyenne, then who did?”

“That podcast bitch said Dale did it.”

“Okay,” Emmy said. “What’s your proof?”

“Don’t you think I would’a said twelve years ago?” He slammed his fist so hard on the table that the hammer jumped to the edge. “Do you know what it’s like sitting on death row just waiting for somebody to stick a needle in your arm and kill you for something you didn’t even fucking do?”

“Tell me who else it could be.”

“You stole twelve years of my life,” he said. “You and your daddy. He wouldn’t even listen to me. I told him I didn’t do it. I told everybody. Nobody believed me. Not even my own goddam family. I’d still be waiting for my execution date except for that prick with the podcast.”

Again, Emmy waited for his anger to dial back down. “Who would want to frame you, Adam? Who would put that hammer in your toolbox?”

“The person who killed them girls!” he yelled. “The same dude that took Paisley! For fucksakes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!”

Emmy waited again. “I thought you said that Jude put the hammer in your truck.”

“Maybe she’s in on it, too.” He waved away the inconsistency. “Somebody’s trying to jam me up. I never did nothing wrong. Just sold pot to kids so I could have a little fun.”

“Who would frame you?”

“You’re the fucking police. Why don’t you figure it out?”

“Let’s talk it through. Is there someone in your life who would want to do you harm?”

“Only the whole fucking town. Didn’t you see ’em out there screaming for my head when your daddy got shot?”

“What about a friend?” Emmy asked. “Somebody who might want you to go back to prison.”

“Fuck, nobody talks to me. I don’t got no friends. I’ve got lawyers. I’ve got that podcast prick trying to get me to sit down for an interview like he’s Walter Cronkite.” Adam pointed his finger in her direction. “Don’t think I don’t know he’s trying to trick me. Hang me up on that rape charge from that bitch I don’t even remember.”

Emmy watched him grab the bottle, take another swig. Again, she waited until he was finished. “Let’s go back to twelve years ago. Talk to me about before you were arrested. Who’d you hang around?”

“People. I don’t know. They all peeled away once you motherfuckers told everybody I was a goddam pedophile.”

“Did you have somebody you were close to back then?” Emmy asked. “Somebody you shared your interests with?”

Adam didn’t explode again. His demeanor changed. His eyes narrowed. He started drumming his fingers on the table. Moved his hand an inch to the left, then the right, then back, like he was trying to decide whether to grab the hammer or the shotgun. “What are you asking me about?”

She shrugged. “I’m trying to help you figure out who put that hammer in your truck.”

“Why ain’t you asking Dale these questions?”

“Dale Loudermilk is in Dooley State Prison serving out the rest of his sentence.”

“Shit.” Adam crossed his arms, sat back in the chair. “You know that fucker was here, right?”

Emmy felt her heart tremble. This time, she needed to stretch out the silence to regain her composure. “When was Dale Loudermilk here?”

“Changed out the blade on his lawnmower when I was doing repairs in the shed.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the backyard. “Motherfucker didn’t even pay me.”

Emmy remembered Dale’s lawnmower story. He’d used it to explain away the chipped paint on the Audi’s trunk. “When was this?”

“What do you care?”

“I care because you just told me that Dale Loudermilk was at your house. I want to know when exactly he was here.”

“When exactly,” he mimicked.

“Adam—”

“You know who did it, don’t you?” Adam started tapping the table again. “You know, but you’re protecting him.”

Emmy tried again, “Adam—”

“North Falls people,” Adam said. “They always protect their own, don’t they?”

“He’s from North Falls?” Emmy couldn’t keep the eagerness from her voice. “The man who has Paisley lives in North Falls?”

Adam’s mouth twisted into a smirk. He wasn’t looking at Emmy. He was looking at the phone in her vest. “I want a lawyer.”

“Adam—”

“I want a lawyer.” Adam slowly raised his hands into the air. “I want a lawyer. I want a lawyer. I want a lawyer.”

Emmy stared at him, silently begging him to change his mind. But he didn’t. He kept his hands raised. Emmy turned to the door, nodded for Brett to come in.

She broke the shotgun. The damn thing wasn’t even loaded. “Adam Huntsinger, you’re under arrest for threatening the life of a law enforcement officer and violating the terms of your bail.”

Adam made a show of keeping his mouth tightly closed.

“Stand up.” Brett’s handcuffs came out. He grabbed Adam’s arm.

Emmy remembered her phone was still recording. She took it out of the vest pocket, stopped the video. She told Brett, “Take him out to Rick. Let Verona have him.”

“What the fuck?” Adam’s hands were already cuffed, but now he was resisting. “You can’t hand me over to Verona. They’ll put a bullet in the back of my head.”

Emmy asked, “Where’s Paisley?”

“I don’t know where the fuck she is!” Adam lunged at her, but Brett yanked him back. “You can’t give me to Tuttle! Jesus Christ!”

“Last chance,” Emmy said. “Where’s Paisley?”

Adam’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “Fuck you!”

Emmy stepped back, knowing what was coming. Adam hurled a glob of spit in her direction. Brett slammed him face-down onto the counter, started patting him down, emptying his pockets. Keys to the Chevy truck. Packet of Marlboro Reds. Wallet. Android cell phone. Ziploc with stray stems and seeds. A pack of rolling papers. A plastic Bic lighter.

Emmy told Brett, “Read him his rights. Get some evidence kits on your way back in so we can process all this.”

“Yes, chief.”

Emmy tuned out the sound of Brett’s voice as he recited the Miranda Warning. She could hear Walton’s familiar shuffle down the hallway. His expression turned heartsick when he realized what was happening in the kitchen.

“Dad!” Adam screamed. “Dad! Get the lawyer! They’re trying to murder me!”

Walton stood silently by while Brett shoved Adam out the side door. Emmy could still hear Adam screaming for help as he was escorted up the driveway.

“My Lord.” Walton steadied his hand on the counter. His head was bowed. He’d deflated like a balloon. He couldn’t look at Emmy when he asked, “Is it that other girl? Paisley Williams?”

“Paisley Walker.” Emmy inserted some gentleness into her tone. “I’m sorry, Dr. Huntsinger. I think Adam had something to do with her abduction.”

“This is my fault. I should’ve never hired that lawyer.” Tears dropped onto the floor. He still couldn’t look at her. “Is there anything I can do now? Could she—could she still be alive?”

Oddly, some of the tightness left Emmy’s chest. Both Walton and Alma had stopped helping with the Madison and Cheyenne investigation once they’d realized they could possibly be responsible for sending their son to death row. Maybe now with Paisley’s life on the line, they would make a different choice.

She asked, “Can you and your wife answer some questions for me?”

Walton took a raspy breath. He knew what she was really asking. “It’s not me you want. Alma’s always been closer to Adam. He always confided in her. It was just easier between them. Maybe I wanted too much. Asked too much.”

“Paisley could still be alive.” Emmy tried not to push him too hard. “Her parents, Elijah and Carol, they’re desperate to find her. Their hearts are breaking. She’s their only child.”

Walton took another raspy breath. “I don’t know that Alma will agree to speak. She’s always doted on Adam. Never seen the bad, only the good.”

“Would you ask her?” Emmy tried to make it easy on him. “I could make some coffee or tea. We don’t have to talk about Adam if she’s not comfortable with it. I can answer any questions about what’s going on and why he was arrested.”

The neutral offer pulled him over the line. “Alma’s Sanka is in the cabinet by the sink.”

Emmy watched Walton shuffle back up the hallway, take a left toward the stairs. The orange-branded jar was in the same cabinet as the coffee cups. Emmy only knew about the instant coffee because her aunt Millie drank it by the gallon. She grabbed the kettle off the stove. Started to fill it at the kitchen sink. Her gaze wandered to the window.

The backyard was overgrown where the shed had been. Only the stained concrete slab remained. Emmy could still remember the absolute terror as she’d busted through the rotted wood hoping, praying, that she would find Madison alive. Then Gerald was holding her. Virgil was looking down at her with concern. The heat inside the shed had been so intense that they were all soaked in sweat.

She placed the kettle on the stove, turned on the gas. Emmy leaned her hands on the counter. She looked down at the detritus from Adam’s pockets. Wrapping papers and cigarettes. An Android phone. A red nylon man’s wallet with the Georgia Bulldogs logo.

Emmy suddenly tensed.

The tickle. The bad feeling. The Don’t Feel Right.

She stared at the wallet, but she didn’t see it. She was back in the foyer twelve years ago. Gerald was climbing the stairs. Walton motioning Emmy back toward the kitchen to find the basement key. His black Samsonite suitcase stood beside the door. A colorful golf umbrella was hooked through the handle. A red nylon man’s wallet was sticking out of the zippered pocket. The Georgia Bulldogs logo was printed on the front.

It was the exact same wallet that Brett had taken out of Adam’s back pocket and dropped on the kitchen counter moments ago.

Emmy had to swallow the spit that had pooled into her mouth. She checked the hall to make sure Walton wasn’t on his way back to the kitchen. Her fingers felt clumsy when she carefully peeled apart the Velcro. She waited, listening for sounds in the house.

Nothing.

The wallet had sixteen dollars in cash. A receipt for a pack of cigarettes and gas from the station up the street. No credit cards. No photos. The plastic sleeve for the driver’s license had yellowed over the years. The photo was barely visible. She had to break open the plastic to get it out. Emmy checked the dates. Adam had been forty-nine years old when the license was issued. He’d measured six-feet two-inches and weighed 190 pounds. The license had expired while he was still on death row. The address belonged to the house she was standing in.

All of the obvious explanations fell apart as soon as she could think of them. There was no way Walton had used the cheap nylon wallet for twelve years. Even if Adam had found the wallet lying around, there was no reason to put his expired license inside. He’d been out of prison for less than a week. The plastic sleeve had pressed against the license for so long that the print had transferred onto the inside.

Emmy studied the license photo. Adam was unsmiling, almost hostile. His hair was dyed jet black. There wasn’t even gray at the temples. His face was already lined, the skin pockmarked from acne. He could easily pass for a man seventeen years his senior.

And a man who was seventeen years his senior could easily pass for Adam.

Same thick glasses. Same unnaturally dark hair. Same wiry build. Just yesterday, Emmy had mistaken Adam for Walton when he’d stood at the door talking to Gerald. She could easily see a harried TSA worker at the airport making the same mistake.

Emmy felt her jaw clench. She drew in a strained breath. Tried to check herself. Was it really this simple? After twelve long years, after pulling Cheyenne and Madison out of the pond, after losing her father, after pushing herself to the point of exhaustion in the quest to find Paisley, was it really as simple as a cheap nylon wallet? And was it all down to a single clue that Emmy had stated at least three times over the last few hours?

Every time Adam had been arrested, he hadn’t had his license on him.

Was that because Walton was using his son’s ID to cover his tracks? Was Adam telling the truth about being framed? Was Dale Loudermilk’s accomplice actually Dr. Walton Huntsinger, a white male who worked in a skilled position that required education and training? Whose job brought him into frequent contact with children? Who was a trusted member of the community? Who was married with a family of his own?

Emmy positioned herself in the kitchen so that she could see into the empty hallway all the way to the foyer. She dialed Cole’s number on her phone.

“Mom,” he said, “I’m still with Jude. Are you okay?”

She made her voice low. “Put me on speaker so she can hear this.”

There was a click, then Jude said, “I’m here. What’s wrong?”

“I need you to look at all the regional airports within a 345-mile driving range of Clifton County.” Emmy pressed the phone to her chest so she could listen for sounds in the house. Then she put it back to her ear and whispered, “I think Walton drove the Audi to a small airport. He used Adam’s driver’s license to purchase a round-trip ticket with cash. He flew to Bridgeport, West Virginia. He took a selfie in front of the American Legion building to prove that he’d been there. Then he caught the return flight back. Then he drove the Audi to North Falls. Then he abducted Cheyenne and Madison.”

There was dead silence on the line.

Emmy said, “That’s why Walton’s name didn’t come up when I had Homeland Security check all the flight manifests—he was flying under the name Adam Johnathan Huntsinger. Walton’s the one who put those miles on the Audi. He’s the man Cheyenne was joking about when she said she wished his penis was as big as his wallet. Walton sneaked back into Clifton so he could meet her on the backroads. Then he went after Madison. That’s why Dale was cleaning the Audi with bleach. Walton was his accomplice. Everything we thought we knew about Adam is true about his father.”

Jude still didn’t respond. Emmy braced herself for another series of hedges, a reminder that they didn’t really know anything for certain, that this was a marathon, not a sprint.

“Cole.” Jude’s tone was sharp. “Regional airports have a limited number of carriers. It’s easier to look at which regional airlines fly out of Bridgeport, West Virginia, and backtrack it to a smaller airport that’s within our driving range.”

Emmy’s ears were straining so hard that she could hear Cole typing on the laptop. She looked at her watch. Counted the seconds as they ticked past. The kettle started to boil. Emmy reached over and took it off the stove. She turned off the gas. Went back to her position so she could see straight through to the foyer. Her hands were dripping with sweat. She could barely keep enough air in her lungs.

“Shit-shit-shit.” There was an edge of excitement in Jude’s voice. “The SouthJet Airlines website says they’ve been flying between the North Central West Virginia Airport in Bridgeport, and the Northwest Alabama Airport since 1997. They have a Bombardier CRJ that makes two round-trip flights every day.”

Cole said, “Muscle Shoals is almost exactly 345 miles from Clifton County. That’s around a five-hour drive each way.”

“The flight times can’t have changed that much in the last decade,” Jude said. “If Walton left on the first flight out of Muscle Shoals at eight thirty in the morning, that would give him roughly an hour to take the selfie at the American Legion in Bridgeport before flying back to Muscle Shoals. The return flight lands at noon. He would’ve been back in North Falls by five. He didn’t have to meet Cheyenne on the backroads until six thirty.”

“It’s him.” Emmy couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her own mouth. “It was him all the time.”

“Mom,” Cole said, “I looked up the distance between the Bridgeport American Legion Hall and the airport. It’s literally point-four miles away. All Walton had to do was walk down the street and take the selfie, then walk back and get on a plane.”

“There’s more,” Jude said. “I had Cole look up the tires on the Audi A4. They use the same brand Michelin all-weather tires as the Jetta.”

“That’s why the treads were consistent with, but not matched exactly,” Emmy said. “We thought the Bad Guy was driving the Jetta, but he was in Dale’s Audi.”

The kitchen side door opened. Brett was back with a handful of evidence collection kits. Emmy motioned for him to be quiet as he shut the door.

She told Jude, “Twelve years ago, when Dad and I came here looking for Adam, the front door was locked, but the side door leading down to the basement was unlocked. I walked down the stairs and saw Cheyenne’s necklace on the grass. Walton must have put it there when he got home from Millie’s pond.”

Brett dropped one of the evidence kits.

Emmy continued, “Walton told us he didn’t hear Dad knocking on the door because he was in the shower, but that was a lie to explain why his hair was wet. He’d just come from chaining up the bodies in the water. And his keys to the Jetta were on the kitchen counter. He told me they were usually upstairs. He was already pushing us toward Adam. That’s why he stole Adam’s license. The plan if he ever got caught was to pin it on his son.”

“It worked,” Jude said.

“Jesus,” Emmy whispered. The enormity of the crimes kept hitting her. Not only the horrors visited on Cheyenne and Madison, but the sadism of letting your own child rot away on death row.

“Focus up,” Jude said. “What’s your gut telling you?”

Emmy’s gut was loud and clear. “That Walton started sweating bullets when the podcast came out. Then Adam was freed, and he knew that Dad and I would reopen the investigation into Cheyenne and Madison. He’s trying to frame Adam again so we don’t dig too deep. He took Paisley yesterday morning. He planted the hammer in Adam’s truck today. It has to be the same one that he used to hurt Madison. It’s right here on the kitchen table. There’s blood all over it. Some old, some fresh. I’d bet Walton used it on Paisley so that it ties Adam to her, too.”

“How old is Walton?”

“Not so old that he couldn’t hit a teenager’s bike and point a gun at her head. And you said it yourself, Paisley is used to following orders.”

Jude said, “Cole and I will come to you.”

“No, I’ve got Brett. The cavalry riding in might spook him. I think I’ve persuaded Walton and Alma to talk to me about Adam. Let’s see how it plays out. If I can break Walton, we could still find Paisley alive.”

Jude’s careful silence made a brief return, but she said, “Okay.”

Emmy ended the call. She told Brett, “Put the kettle back on.”

He was turning the knob to light the gas when Walton appeared in the foyer at the top of the hallway. He was shuffling like an old man, but Emmy was on to his tricks. She knew what a frail seventy-eight-year-old looked like. They held onto walls and chairs because they were afraid of falling. Walton had his hands clasped in front of his belly. He was walking toward her in a straight line. This was a man who still had life in him—a life that he was using to hurt others.

She told Brett, “Deputy, use a teaspoon and a half of Sanka, otherwise it tastes like brown water.”

“Yes, chief.” Brett started opening and closing drawers looking for a spoon.

Walton had reached the kitchen. He told Brett, “Silverware’s over by the dishwasher.”

Brett looked nervous. “Thank you, sir.”

“Dr. Huntsinger.” Emmy stepped in front of Brett. She made herself smile at Walton. “I really appreciate your help with Adam. This isn’t like the last time. Paisley Walker is still missing. If she’s alive, we have to do everything possible to find her. And if she’s dead, we need to be able to bring her home to her mother and father.”

Walton looked sad as he shook his head. “I pray to the Lord that she’s still alive, but I’m sorry I don’t have better news. Alma is refusing to speak with you. She’s never been able to see Adam for what he is.”

Emmy wasn’t going to give up. “Would it be okay if I asked you some questions? Maybe there’s something you remember from before. Something Adam said that didn’t make sense at the time.”

“Adam never really talks to me. Even back then, he only ever reached out when he needed financial help, usually for a lawyer.” Walton shook his head again, projecting an air of sadness. “I helped him too much. Maybe if I’d let him go to jail all those times before, he would’ve straightened out. I’ll never forgive myself for what he did.”

Emmy caught the injection of pathos. She could see the game he played so clearly now. He leaned into his earnestness, his age, his good deeds, his position in the community, to cover for the sadistic cruelties in his heart. She took this revelation as a guide. “Dr. Huntsinger, I know you’ve done nothing all your life but try to help people. You’re a good man. I need you to do this one good thing for Paisley and her family.”

Brett had leaned against the counter. Emmy could hear the gas burning under the kettle as Walton pretended to think through the consequences. He glanced at the table, but she didn’t offer to sit with him. She leaned her back against the chair, making sure he couldn’t reach any of the weapons.

“Dr. Huntsinger, I’m begging you.” Emmy suffused her tone with desperation. “Help me bring Paisley back to Elijah and Carol Walker. She’s only fourteen years old. No more than a child. Surely you understand what it feels like when you know your baby is in danger.”

Walton took a sharp breath, like the very thought pained him to his core. Emmy waited out the next part of the show. She could tell he was thinking through all of the possibilities. He had to be nervous that a cop was in his house. He would want information.

She had one trick left. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you. We’ll get out of your hair. Brett—”

“Wait.” Walton tried a weak smile. “I’m so sorry about your father. He was a decent man. Despite what Adam was, Gerald always treated us with respect. He never blamed me and Alma for how he turned out.”

Emmy let him talk.

“We were pariahs once he was arrested. Alma had to take retirement. I nearly lost my practice. Your family was always so kind to me.”

Emmy didn’t know how he’d managed it, but he had tears in his eyes. “Thank you. My father always said he admired you.”

Walton took a handkerchief out of his back pocket, dried his eyes. “I feel like I have so much to make up for. I shouldn’t blame Alma for coddling him. I didn’t see Adam for what he was, either. I can’t carry the loss of another little girl on my conscience. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Thank you, sir. I know this is difficult. I know you love Adam.”

“I do,” he said. “God help me, but I do.”

The kettle started to whistle. Emmy heard Brett slide it off the stove, stir granules into the mug. Her eyes stayed on Walton. A bead of sweat had rolled down the side of his face.

She said, “Dr. Huntsinger, please could you think back to the period before Madison and Cheyenne were abducted? Was there a place Adam liked to go to? Somewhere isolated where he could be alone?”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t have any idea about that. Adam never told me where he was going or when he’d return. He’d come and go at all hours. Still does, if I’m being absolutely honest. I haven’t seen him much since he was released from prison.”

Emmy took a second, pretending to let that information sink in. “Do you remember if Adam had any friends or people he spent a lot of time with?”

Walton tapped his fingers to his chin, making a show of trying to recall. “You know, Adam never had a lot of friends. Not even in school. I pushed him to try sports or join a club, but he was always a loner.”

Emmy noted his inflection on the word loner. “I know that Adam worked a lot of different jobs. Was there any place where he made friends with his colleagues?”

Walton pretended to think again before slowly shaking his head. “Not that I know of. I’m sorry. He’s always been secretive. I never understood what made him so angry. His mother and I tried our best. It was just so hard. We never knew what would make him explode.”

Loner. Volatile temper. Dangerous. It was like he’d googled the signs of psychopathy. She said, “That’s a terrible way to live.”

“You never want to say it out loud, but to be afraid of your own child . . .”

Emmy let him have his moment. “Adam used to repair lawn-mowers, right?”

“I let him use the shed out back. It was going well for a while.” The weak smile reappeared. “As with everything else Adam attempted, it fell apart eventually. He stopped doing right by people. I was getting calls at work. Alma had recommended him to some of the teachers at school. Teachers don’t make much money, as you know. They couldn’t afford to waste it.”

Emmy took the opening. “Adam told me that Dale Loudermilk was one of his lawnmower repair customers.”

The silence in the kitchen was different this time. More stifling. More telling.

“Dale Loudermilk?” Walton took off his glasses, started to clean them with a fresh corner of his handkerchief. “There’s a terrible name from the past. I heard he died in prison.”

Emmy watched him put the glasses back on. He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. She couldn’t hear a change in his voice or see a shift in his features. What she noticed most of all was that he’d stopped blinking.

She said, “Dale’s alive and well in Dooley State Prison.”

“Oh?”

“Did you ever see Dale hanging around Adam?”

He still hadn’t blinked. “Yes, now that you raise the question. I think I saw them together in the shed a few times.”

“Were they ever in Adam’s basement apartment together?”

His eyelid had started to twitch. “Yes, come to think on it. Dale was here a lot. They were very secretive, the two of them. Alma had started to complain.”

“About Dale being here?” Emmy asked.

“Not as much as all that, but that Adam was distracted.” Walton took a quick breath. “The agreement was that Adam got to live in the basement, but he was supposed to drive Alma to school and back. He was always late. She couldn’t see well even back then. Macular degeneration. Hit her in her fifties. She’s completely blind now, poor thing.”

Emmy felt a lightbulb clicking on in her head. “I guess Alma had to sell her car when she stopped driving. Do you remember the make and model?”

Walton finally blinked, glancing at Brett, then back at Emmy. “I’d have to ask her about that. She bought it on her own. Took Adam with her to the dealership to help negotiate. I think he wanted the car more for himself than her. He kept the spare key even after Alma sold it. Said he lost it, but he lies about so many things.”

Emmy didn’t respond this time, but she wondered if she’d been incredibly naïve about his bullshit twelve years ago, or if Walton had lost his touch in the ensuing years. He kept putting Adam front and center, first by saying he didn’t know anything about Adam’s whereabouts, then calling him a loner, then intimating that he’d kept the key to the Audi. It was all so clear to her now. The man was desperate to put his son back in prison.

Walton said, “Anyway, I’ll ask her what she remembers. I was working a lot at the time. Volunteering. I’m in a group called the Tooth—”

“Troopers,” Emmy finished. “Did you guys ever volunteer in Hidalgo, Texas, or Tillar, Arkansas?”

“I don’t—” Walton started scratching the side of his neck. “I don’t recall exactly. We get around. Lots of people need our help. We go to the most desperate areas. People deserve health-care. It’s one of my passions. Giving back. Helping the least among us.”

Emmy could tell that she was about to lose him. She had to give it one last try, if only to get his lies on the record with Brett as a witness. “Dr. Huntsinger, how well did you know Dale Loudermilk?”

“Oh, no, not well at all. Just to say hi to around town. Or when he was here with Adam, of course. As I mentioned, they spent a lot of time together. Alma and I were surprised as anybody when he got arrested. Terrible thing. People trusted their children with that man. The whole town felt the betrayal. You can’t get that back once it’s lost.” Walton’s hand dropped back to his side. His fingernails had left deep scratches on the side of his neck. “You know, I wish I could be of more help. My memory’s not what it used to be. It was a long time ago.”

“Twelve years,” Emmy said.

“I should—” Walton motioned toward the hall. “I should check on Alma. She gets scared lately. Completely depends on me for everything. Her life would fall apart without me. You understand?”

Emmy understood exactly what he was saying. He wanted a pass on murdering and raping children because his wife was blind. “What about Paisley? Is she scared, too?”

Walton chewed his lip. His animal instinct had told him that Emmy was on to him. She could practically see his brain working the odds. In the end, he plastered on the goofy smile, pretending he was still the same hapless old man. “You can search the house, officer. You have my permission. Check the basement. Adam’s truck. Whatever you need. We have nothing to hide.”

“It was nice of you to keep his truck for him,” Emmy said. “And all his things. Like his wallet and driver’s license.”

Walton’s eyes went to the wallet on the counter. She could tell he was remembering the suitcase in the foyer, the way the wallet had stuck out of the front. He knew that he’d made a mistake back then, and he rushed to cover it now. “Alma held onto Adam’s belongings. She always believed he was innocent.”

“Really?” Emmy asked. “What made her think that?”

Walton’s goofy affect disappeared. “I should go check on her. See if she needs anything. Take all the time you need searching the house.”

“Dr. Huntsinger?” She waited for him to turn back around. “The Sanka?”

“Oh, right.” Walton reached for the mug Brett offered. “Thank you.”

Emmy watched him walk back up the hallway. The shuffle was gone. She could tell he was doing everything in his power to maintain a normal pace. He made it as far as the foyer, then he took a quick turn and hurried up the stairs.

“Jesus, you almost had him,” Brett whispered. “What now?”

There was no what now as far as Walton Huntsinger was concerned. He hadn’t confessed. He hadn’t broken the law. Emmy had to find another way to get him.

She told Brett, “Bag the wallet.”

Emmy grabbed a pair of gloves from one of the evidence kits. She lifted the hammer between her thumb and index finger to place it in a bag. The coppery tang of blood hit her in the back of the throat as she logged it into evidence. She waited until Brett had done the same with the wallet to relay his orders.

“Search every square inch of this place. Secure any weapons or ammo. Keep a close eye on Walton. Let me know if he tries to leave. Look at paperwork, receipts, anything that might indicate there’s another location where he could be hiding Paisley. She’s still our priority. If we get him on Paisley, we’ve got him on Cheyenne and Madison.”

“Yes, chief.”

Emmy walked out the side door. Rain was spitting from the sky. She texted dispatch to send a unit to help Brett with the search. By the time she reached the road, the rain had started in earnest. The Verona police SUVs were gone. She ran to her cruiser, tossed the evidence bags into the passenger seat. She didn’t call Cole until she was turning down the side road that ran along the interstate.

“Mom?” He sounded excited and panicked at the same time. “You’re on speaker. What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” It was harder to keep her voice calm for her son than when she was talking to a murdering pedophile. Emmy silently reminded herself that the only thing that mattered now was finding Paisley Walker. “Walton didn’t break, but he knows I’m on to him. He practically begged us to search the house. I guarantee he’s hidden another piece of evidence to frame Adam. He’s desperate to throw us off his trail.”

Jude asked, “What do you have?”

“Nothing concrete.” Emmy wiped the rain off her face. “I bagged up Adam’s wallet and the hammer. It’ll take days to get everything tested. We need to find a smoking gun we can point at Walton’s head right now. He won’t tell us how to find Paisley unless his back is against the wall.”

Jude didn’t respond. Emmy could practically feel her exchanging a look with Cole about the futility of believing there was still a chance that Paisley was alive.

Emmy couldn’t let herself go there. She was not going to give up hope. “Did you get those flight manifests out of Muscle Shoals and Bridgeport?”

Jude said, “I called in some favors. We should have it back within the hour.”

Emmy muttered a curse. An hour was too long. “Those cases I told you about in Arkansas and Texas. We should see if Walton was there with his charity.”

“Already in the works,” Jude said. “We’ve also been calling storage facilities within a 100-mile radius to see if Dale, Walton, Alma, or Adam’s names come up on rentals. What else do you need from us?”

Emmy tried to comb through her conversation with Walton for some kind of lead to follow. “The Audi A4. Search the title. Did Esther buy it new or was it a private resell?”

“Checking now,” Cole said. There was a stretch of silence, then, “Holy shit. We’ve got an overlap. Esther Loudermilk bought the Audi from Alma Huntsinger three years before the abduction.”

Emmy wanted to slam her fist into the dashboard. Everything she’d missed twelve years ago was suddenly coming into sharp focus. “Remember Dale said the paint on the Audi’s trunk got chipped when he took his lawnmower in for repairs? Obviously, one of the bikes chipped it, but guess who was doing lawnmower repairs out of the shed in the backyard twelve years ago?”

Jude answered, “Adam Huntsinger.”

“It gets better,” Emmy said, though it was exponentially worse. “Walton admitted that Dale was hanging around the house a lot back then. He was trying to implicate Adam, but he didn’t realize he was also implicating himself.”

“These narcissists always give the game away.”

Emmy wasn’t playing a game. She gripped the steering wheel to steady herself. Her body felt as if it was charged with an electric current. Part of her felt sick for all that she’d missed, another part felt terrified that none of this was leading them to finding Paisley. “Did Virgil get anything back on who had contact with Adam and Dale at the prisons?”

“Not yet,” Cole said. “I think he’s still in your office. I’ll go get him.”

“Cole, wait.” Emmy veered the cruiser into a quick U-turn, driving back the way she’d come. “Tell Virgil I’m going to swing by his house. I want to pick up that box that has Walton and Alma’s call logs. We might find a number on Walton’s line that doesn’t belong. If we can trace it back to Dale, then we can bring in Walton.”

Cole said, “Got it, chief.”

“Emmy.” Jude’s voice had a tense quality that Emmy had never heard before. She was afraid. “Think about what this means. He gave up one of his trophies.”

The hammer.

Jude said, “Predators don’t sacrifice their toys unless they’re desperate. That’s the time they’re most dangerous. They make mistakes. Not just the good kind that help us, but the bad kind that get people killed.”

Emmy tried to ignore the certainty in Jude’s tone, to pretend like her sister hadn’t written the actual book. “Do you think you can talk to Adam again? He thought you were the one framing him. You clearly have a way of pushing his buttons.”

“What did he say about me?”

“Nothing specific.” Emmy could tell there was more to the story, but she could only navigate one crisis at a time. “Adam is being held at the Verona jail. If he finds out his father was trying to send him back to prison, he might get angry enough to talk. As far as we know, Walton’s been inside his house for the last day and a half. He could’ve left Paisley chained up somewhere. She could go up to three days without water.”

“Sweetheart, you know Paisley’s already gone. All we can do now is work to give Elijah and Carol some peace.”

“You can’t make me give up on her.” Emmy’s voice caught on the last word, but she didn’t care. “I’m going to find her, Jude. I’m not going to fail this time.”

“Okay.” Jude’s sigh was from resignation. “Tell me what to do.”

“Don’t wait for the flight manifests to come back. Go at Adam with what we think we know. You’re the best interrogator we’ve got, and Adam’s the only suspect who might be stupid enough to talk. I need you to help get him there. He has to know more information about his father. A place they used to go when he was a kid, an old family property with a hunting cabin. If you can turn Adam on Walton, I bet you can turn Alma, too.”

Jude didn’t fight her. “I’ll leave now.”

Emmy ended the call. Held tight to the steering wheel. Rain started slapping against the windshield. The wipers could barely keep up. She took a sharp turn into Virgil’s driveway, then reversed into the spot beside the horse trailer. Emmy ran across the yard toward the basement. Her boots slid on the concrete steps. She was reaching over the doorjamb for the key when her phone started to buzz.

She had to shout over the shush of rain. “What is it, Brett?”

“Chief,” he said, “something weird’s going on with Alma Huntsinger. I went upstairs to check on her. She’s not making sense. Can’t keep her eyes open. Swear to God it’s like she’s drugged.”

Jude’s warning was still in Emmy’s head. This was a predator’s most dangerous time. She asked, “Where’s Walton?”

“Downstairs in the den. He’s got the TV up so loud it’s shaking the windows.”

“Call an ambulance. Backup should be there any minute.” Emmy slid the key into the lock. She kicked the bottom of the door to unwedge it from the frame. “Brett, don’t let your guard down with Walton. He plays up being old, but he’s still dangerous.”

“Yes, chief.”

Emmy had to kick the door closed to keep out the rain. She tucked her phone back into her vest. Flipped on the fluorescent lights. She went to the closet in the back, ran her fingers down the labels on the file boxes wedged into the cramped space. Emmy recognized some of the names from Virgil’s cheating spouse investigations. She didn’t see her handwriting on any of them, but there was one at the very bottom with Virgil’s old-fashioned script.

CALL LOGS

She didn’t have time to be careful. She got on her knees and yanked at the box, trying to dislodge it like a Jenga piece. Instead of sliding out, the cardboard split at the corners. The other boxes collapsed on top of her, pounding into her shoulders and the top of her head. Emmy fell back, her arms flying up to protect her face. Dust swirled into her nose and down her throat. She was seized by a sneezing fit. There was a gash in her forehead. Emmy touched her fingers to the wound and pulled back blood.

“Shit,” she mumbled, rolling onto her side, sitting back up on her knees.

Papers were everywhere, typed, handwritten, photographs, receipts. Thankfully, the contents of the call log box were still intact. She slid it over. The top page had Walton Huntsinger’s name and address. The AT&T logo with its familiar blue globe was in the corner. Emmy thumbed through the stack, noting the dates and numbers. Alma’s cell phone account. Walton’s cell. The landline. Everything from twelve years ago was all there.

Emmy started to lift out the stack of papers, but her arms didn’t quite get the message. Her hands hovered in the air. She felt her brain struggling to make a connection. It was like a swarm of bees was suddenly inside her skull.

She opened her mouth. Took a deep breath.

Police agencies ran on paperwork. Every document that was handled by the Clifton County Sheriff’s Department was Bates stamped with a searchable code and date. The information was recorded in a log, and the log told you who was responsible for verifying the information. This policy had been in place going back to the last century. Even if a document wasn’t part of trial discovery, even if it wasn’t scanned into the server, you stamped the page at the bottom and you filed it in the appropriate place so that it could be easily retrieved if needed.

None of the papers in the box had a Bates number.

They didn’t have Virgil’s notations, either. That was the other rule. If you tracked down a phone number, you wrote down the information you’d found out. That way, if you went on a vacation or if you keeled over at your desk, the next deputy could pick up your work.

Emmy pulled out a random page. Held it up to the light. She noticed dots of Wite-Out over some of the digits in the phone numbers. New numbers had been written on top with a fine-tipped pen. Emmy hadn’t seen the opaque correction fluid since she was in middle school. Myrna had used it to fix typos when she was creating tests on her old Smith Corona typewriter. If you had neat enough handwriting, you could substitute the correct letter or number, then you could make a photocopy, and no one could tell the difference.

The Wite-Out was cracked and yellowed. Emmy used her thumbnail to scratch it away. She held it up to the light again. The original phone number was as familiar to her as the landline to her family home. She had called it countless times as a young mother whose son loved riding horses, as a deputy in need of advice from a trusted mentor, as a friend who wanted to share a glass of wine or dinner.

It belonged to Virgil Ingram.

Emmy looked at the old photocopier that was pushed against the wall. The ancient dot-matrix printer. The early 2000s Dell desktop. Everything a person would need to tamper with evidence before Bates stamping the faked documents and scanning them into the police server.

Blood dripped into Emmy’s eye. The gash in her forehead was still bleeding. She was in a daze when she stood up. Her mind was numb to the implications of what she’d found. She could only silently recite the facts. The phone number that appeared multiple times in Walton Huntsinger’s call logs belonged to Virgil. Wite-Out had been used to alter the number so that it could not be traced back to Virgil. None of the real evidence had been processed through the system. There were no stamps. No notations. The evidence had been sitting inside a box that only Virgil had access to.

Emmy was on autopilot when she pushed aside the boxes to clear a path to the first aid kit on the wall. She pried open the rusted door. The blood from her fingers left a streak on the white metal. No Band-Aids or bandages were inside, just sixteen hooks of the kind you’d hang keys on. Only, there were no keys inside the box. Each hook held a small, clear bag with pieces of jewelry inside. A thin silver bracelet with the initial K. A gold necklace with a cross. A Klutz friendship bracelet. A small Gryffindor badge. A pair of star-shaped earrings like you’d buy for a child who’d just gotten her ears pierced.

Trophies.

She reached for the old flip phone that rested in the bottom of the cabinet. Black with a mirrored front. Nearly an inch thick. The hinge was an elongated rectangle with a camera lens inside. Emmy flipped open the phone. Read the model number: Nokia N93i. She turned it over to look at the back. Saw the initials scratched into the plastic: C.B. She pried open the tiny door on the side. There was a blue miniSD card in the slot.

Emmy was breathless when she looked up at the ceiling. She didn’t see the stained tiles. She saw Virgil walking down Felix and Ruth Baker’s driveway two hours after Madison had been abducted. He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Holding a handkerchief to the deep scratches on his arm. Warning them about the sticker bushes on the side of the house. Covering the three deep gouges that a fifteen-year-old girl’s fingernails had dug into his skin.

She saw Virgil sixteen hours later. Emmy had collapsed on the floor of the shed in Walton Huntsinger’s backyard. Gerald was holding her steady. Virgil was reaching down to offer his handkerchief. The cotton was wet. So was Virgil’s hair. He’d picked at his shirt collar. His uniform was stuck to him like cling film because his skin was still wet from dragging Cheyenne and Madison’s chained bodies to the middle of Millie’s pond.

She saw the photocopier. The computer. The altered call logs that hid Virgil’s constant communications with Walton Huntsinger on and around the Fourth of July. The Nokia flip phone. The girl’s jewelry. The trophies he’d taken off his other victims. The blatant way he’d hidden everything in plain sight inside the basement of his own home.

Twelve years ago, Virgil had been in charge of tracking down all of the electronic devices. They had taken him at his word when he’d told them the burners couldn’t be traced. The license plate scanners had come up with nothing. The cell tower data was useless. The man working the Hertz counter had remembered seeing Walton when he checked in the car. The mileage added up. Cheyenne’s donated laptop had been clean. Her burner phone had been sent to Quantico. The second burner that was found in her pocket was too waterlogged. There was no evidence that tied the girls to anyone but Adam Huntsinger.

Virgil had sat at the conference table listening to Jude lead the case against Madison and Cheyenne’s killer. He had offered to track down Dale Loudermilk’s prison contacts because he knew one particular name would appear on the list: Virgil Ingram, a white man working in a skilled position that required education and training. Whose job brought him into frequent contact with children. Who was married with kids of his own.

Emmy’s hand went to her mouth, but she couldn’t make a sound. The blood had stopped pumping through her heart. The ice water in her veins was frozen solid. She was stunned beyond reason. Every part of her life, every step of the way, Virgil had always been there. He was her father’s most trusted deputy. The man who’d taught Emmy how to be chief. The pedophile who had raped and killed Cheyenne Baker and Madison Dalrymple. The monster who had taken Paisley Walker.

The door slammed open.

Emmy jumped, dropping the phone, nearly tripping over the boxes. In an instant, she knew that there were no excuses to be made, no lies to tell, that would get her out of this situation. Virgil had seen her through the window, probably watched as she made each discovery. He held a pistol by his side. It looked like something out of a World War II movie. Ruger .22 rimfire. One-button takedown. Bolt-action. Drop-down mag.

Instinctively, Emmy tried to step back. Her boot thudded against the heavy box of call logs. She said the first thing she could think of. “Jude knows about Walton. She knows about you, too.”

Virgil grinned, but his eyes were a flat, menacing black. “She knows about Walton because I led her to his door, but you wouldn’t be alone in my basement right now if she knew about me.”

The coldness in his voice brought out a shiver. “How did you get here so fast?”

“I was already out handling some business. Cole called to let me know you were dropping by.”

She knew what business he was handling. Paisley Walker was dead. It was only a matter of time before Virgil murdered Emmy, too.

“Gotta say baby girl, you would’ve made a good sheriff. Gerald would’ve been proud.”

Emmy should’ve been terrified, but a stillness had washed over her body. It was the same feeling she’d had on the road with her father. This time, Emmy held onto her senses. Her vision sharpened on Virgil. She slowly reached for her Glock. She felt the rough, plastic grip with her fingers.

He said, “Don’t.”

She wrapped her hand around the weapon. The safety strap was already hanging loose.

Virgil lifted the Ruger, pointed it squarely at her chest. “I said stop.”

Emmy gripped the gun, but kept it holstered. She did the calculations. From fifteen feet, the .22 caliber round would punch the hell out of her, but it wouldn’t penetrate her armored vest.

He seemed to make the same assessment. He raised the gun so that it was aimed at her head. “What you figured out, I want you to know you were right. I met Cheyenne at the outlet mall. I was working security for extra money to help Peggy set up the storefront.”

Emmy made herself shrug. “I don’t care.”

“You’re still going to listen.”

He waited for her to argue, but Emmy realized she needed time. “How long did it take to groom her?”

“It’s not grooming if you’re giving them what they want, and believe me, baby, Cheyenne Baker wanted to be fucked.” He studied her face, clearly hoping for a reaction. “She was a virgin our first time, but goddam, she knew what she was doing. Nothing was off the table. She never said no.”

Emmy’s hand had started to sweat around the Glock. She used her peripheral vision to take in her surroundings. Wall to her left. Barber chairs to her right. Nowhere to duck. Nowhere to hide.

“I had to go slower with Madison. Build up her trust. Make her feel like she was special.” Virgil let his tongue show between his lips. “You remember what she was like. So damn prickly. I love a challenge.”

She crooked her finger around the trigger, felt the sliver of the built-in safety. She would have milliseconds to draw and fire. She couldn’t waste time.

“Girls that age, they’re so fresh and open. All they want is to be loved. They need somebody to guide them. Somebody to show them how their bodies work.”

Emmy slowly started to inch the Glock out of the holster. There were fifteen rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber.

“You were right about the video on the Nokia, too. Walton’s always been careless, but I should’ve known better. I didn’t know she was filming us with her phone. All that glorious fucking and sucking would’ve buried both of us under the prison.” His eyes scanned her face again. He wanted a reaction. “It’s one thing to say a stupid little bitch is lying, but Cheyenne had the actual proof. The second she tried to blackmail us, both of their lives were over.”

Stress caused tears to slide down Emmy’s cheeks. She mentally walked herself through drawing the Glock, pulling the trigger.

“Don’t cry, Emmy Lou. You were that age once. So young and stupid. All arms and legs.” Virgil licked his lips again. “Do you know how hard it was for me to leave you alone?”

Emmy stopped moving. She was paralyzed by the question. “If Jonah hadn’t had you first, I could’ve shown you how good it feels to be with a man.”

Emmy took a shaky breath. Her resolve faltered. The stillness started to ebb.

“Emmy Lou,” he whispered. “Beautiful, misguided Emmy Lou.”

She was sickened by his intimacy. “What about Dale?”

“Madison and Cheyenne weren’t his type.”

“You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie?” Virgil waited for an answer that wouldn’t come. “I figured Dale out years before it happened. He did me some favors. I didn’t send him to prison.”

“We figured him out, too.” Emmy struggled to throw him off balance. “Walton drove Esther Loudermilk’s Audi to Muscle Shoals. He used Adam’s driver’s license to fly to West Virginia and back. Then he drove back to North Falls so he could abduct the girls with you.”

Virgil laughed. “God, you’re so fucking sharp. That’s exactly what he did. Adam was always leaving his wallet lying around. Dumbass had no idea Walton was using his ID. The photo outside the American Legion was my idea. And it was a good one, too. Once you saw that picture, you stopped looking at Walton.”

“Tell me where you left Paisley. Let me bring her home to Carol and Elijah.”

“Baby girl, that’s not gonna happen.” Virgil’s chest rose as he took a deep breath. “I’ll make you this promise. For Cole’s sake, I’ll leave your body where he can find it.”

Emmy felt something click inside of her head. A timer going off that she hadn’t realized was counting down. She kept her eyes locked with Virgil’s, her body as still as possible, her hand wrapped around the gun, her finger resting on the trigger.

Then she banged the heel of her boot against the box behind her.

Virgil looked down for a split second, but a split second was all that Emmy needed. She pulled the Glock out of the holster, raised it into the air and started firing as soon as the muzzle cleared.

The first bullet ricocheted off the floor. The second hit his foot. The next shattered his kneecap, then another dug into his thigh, then two more ripped open his groin and hip, another three blew apart his chest, then she lost count as Virgil’s body flailed back and forth like a boxer was beating him down to the floor.

He didn’t fall so much as sink onto his back. Emmy heard a rapid clicking. The sound echoed into the corners. The clip was empty. Her finger wouldn’t stop pulling back on the trigger. She panted out a sharp breath. She couldn’t let go of the gun. Her muscles were too cramped. The stiffness went into her arm, locked her elbow. She had to bang the back of her hand against a barber’s chair to make her fingers release. The gun clattered to the floor. Knocked into the broken Nokia. Came to rest against a cardboard box.

The stillness was back. Her training took over. She kicked the Ruger out of Virgil’s hand. Pressed her fingers to the side of his neck to make sure he was dead. Patted down his pockets to look for other weapons. Lifted her phone from her vest to call dispatch. Emmy’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t speak. Her vocal cords felt paralyzed. She texted Cole instead.

It was Virgil. He’s dead.

Emmy watched the dots bounce as Cole tried to compose an answer. Then they stopped, and the phone started to ring. Her finger hovered over the green button to answer the call, but she couldn’t press it, couldn’t even control her hand. The phone dropped. The glass cracked.

The tremble started in her chest. She felt it spread down into her belly and up into her shoulders. She watched it move down her arms, flutter into her fingers. Everything was shaking. Her teeth began to chatter. Her eyes felt jittery. She couldn’t focus. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t even breathe. She stumbled toward the door. The rain had passed. She blinked in the sudden burst of sunlight, tried to clear her vision. Virgil’s truck was in the driveway. Emmy’s cruiser. The horse trailer.

Vomit erupted from her mouth. Emmy was doubled over. She retched into the grass. Bile splattered her boots, stained her pants. She was on her knees again. Tears wept from her eyes. All the emotions she’d kept in check came roaring out. She started sobbing. Over Cheyenne. Over Madison. Over the fact that she had killed one of the two men on earth who could lead her to Paisley Walker’s body. He had confessed. He had told her everything. But he hadn’t told Emmy how to find her.

Emmy sat back on her heels. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. She looked up to the dark clouds. A gentle mist caressed her face. She could see the sun trying to come out.

“Dad,” she whispered. “Please tell me what to do.”

There was no answer, but now more than ever, Emmy longed for her father. The rudder steering her in the right direction. The gentle prompts that made her see the clues that were right in front of her.

What do we know? What do we think we know? What are we missing?

Emmy felt the questions working their way through her brain in slow, lazy arcs, the same way that Emmy and Hannah used to coast their bikes down the backroads. She forced herself to stand up. She looked back at Virgil’s house. The lights were off. The curtains were open.

In most predatory kidnappings, the bodies are found within twenty miles of the abduction site. The area is generally familiar to the kidnapper. He oftentimes revisits the scene to relive his crimes. He usually conceals the bodies in some way—covered with leaves, buried in a shallow grave, submerged in water, hidden in an abandoned building or shed, disarticulated and disposed of in a landfill.

Virgil wouldn’t take Paisley to his home. He would want to keep her somewhere isolated, contained, accessible. A place where he felt comfortable. A place that he could return to so he could relive his crimes. A place where Emmy had watched him loop a chain around a hasp lock the same way he’d looped a chain around the concrete block at the bottom of Millie’s pond.

The barn.

Emmy started running down the hill. The grass was soaked. Her foot slipped. She stumbled, catching herself with her left hand. Her wrist exploded with pain. Emmy jumped back up, kept running. She slid down the last part of the slope on her ass, then she was up again. Sprinting thirty more yards to the barn.

Hope took hold again. Stupid, pointless hope. Virgil hadn’t told her that Paisley was dead. There was a slim chance, a statistical anomaly, that Paisley Walker could still be alive.

The chain was still tied through the hasp lock. Emmy wrenched it away with one hand. Threw open the barn door. Light and shadow danced around the interior. The sun split through the cracks in the old boards. She felt it strobe across her face as she checked the empty stalls, the tack and feed area, the equipment room, the office.

“Paisley!” she yelled. “Paisley Walker!”

Her voice traveled up to the rafters. Emmy stepped back so she could see up into the hayloft. Bales of hay were stacked up like a fortress. The ladder was missing. Emmy searched the barn, ran past the stalls again, pushed open the back doors. She found the rickety fourteen-foot ladder on the ground behind the barn. Fire shot through her sprained wrist as she dragged it back inside. She could barely get it upright, but somehow managed to line the side rails up to the notch in the loft floor. She used one hand to climb, the other throbbing like a metronome as she navigated her way toward the top.

“Paisley!” she screamed.

Emmy waited, her ears straining for a response.

Nothing.

She climbed the rest of the way. There was only a narrow ledge between the hay bales and the railing. Emmy went up on her toes, but she couldn’t see over the top. The bales were stacked four high, jammed end-to-end. They were at least fifty pounds each.

Emmy jogged down the ledge, pressing her palm against each section, searching for a weak spot. She didn’t find it until the end of the row. One of the bales gave way. Emmy shouldered the rest of them over. She could only see darkness beyond. She took a small flashlight out of her vest pocket. Climbed over the fallen bales. Virgil had stacked them three deep. She didn’t think about the fact that they were there for soundproofing. For cover. For soaking up blood and fluids and misery.

Her boot thumped against solid wood. The darkness crowded in. Virgil had paneled over the walls and ceiling. The sun couldn’t slice through the gaps in the boards. The beam from the flashlight was weak. She started to scan the area back and forth. A glimmer of bright white stopped her.

Skechers sneaker, pink laces.

Emmy tried to summon the stillness, but the despair would not be ignored. She saw the matching shoe. A blue hoodie with the Eras tour logo. Wadded-up black leggings. A pink sports bra. A pair of underwear with a Hello Kitty pattern and pink elastic, because fourteen-year-olds were still little girls.

The light started to shake from the tremble in Emmy’s hand. The beam shifted up. Bounced into the far corner.

“No . . .” Emmy whispered. “No . . .”

Paisley Walker lay on her side. Blood spotted her face, her torso, her legs. Her eyes were closed, lips swollen. Her hands were grotesquely misshapen. The skin was black where the blood had pooled around the shattered bones. Her feet were the same, the arches curled the same way Cole’s had when he was a baby.

Emmy went to the girl. The ceiling was low. She had to crawl across the floor. She put her flashlight down, let the beam bathe Paisley’s face.

“Paisley?” Emmy could barely say the name. She pressed her fingers to the girl’s wrist. “Baby, can you hear me?”

Emmy closed her eyes, trying to drown out her own racing heartbeat as she felt for a pulse. Paisley’s wrist was too bloated. Fluids bulged out her skin like a water-filled balloon. Emmy laid down beside the girl. Gently turned her face away from the floor, held the weight of her head in her palm. Pressed two fingers to the side of her neck.

Again, Emmy closed her eyes. She didn’t think about Madison or Cheyenne or even Paisley. She thought about her precious son. Giving birth to Cole had nearly killed her. Emmy was supposed to be on bedrest for a month, but she couldn’t stop herself from going to the nursery every few hours to make sure he was okay.

Her first solo call-out as a sheriff’s deputy had been for a baby who’d died from SIDS. Emmy had been terrified that the same fate would befall her little boy. She could still remember the elation every time she pressed her fingers to his carotid artery and felt the quick tap of blood pumping through his precious heart. It was the same sensation she felt now with Paisley.

“Oh, God!” Emmy cried.

She was alive.

“Paisley Walker.” Emmy held the girl’s face between her hands. She made her voice firm, commanding. “Paisley, I know you can hear me. You need to look at me right now.”

The girl did not respond. Emmy was torn between staying and leaving to get her phone. She was saved the decision by the distant wail of sirens. She had terrified Cole by not answering his call. Every cop in the county was probably barreling down the road.

“Paisley!” Emmy shouted. “Do you hear those sirens? We’re gonna get you back home to your mama and daddy, but I need you to open your eyes and look at me, baby. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

The girl still did not respond. Emmy was about to try again when she saw movement behind the eyelids, like two marbles sliding under a silk cloth.

“That’s right,” Emmy said. “Look at me, sweetheart. Show me those beautiful eyes.”

At first, all that Paisley could manage was a narrow slit. Her pupils were giant black circles in a sea of red. Emmy turned the flashlight toward her own face. Leaned in closer so that the girl could see her.

“Paisley,” she said. “I’m Sheriff Emmy Clifton. You’re safe. I’m here to help you, okay?”

The girl’s eyes closed, then slowly opened again. Her lips peeled apart. Her breath smelled stale and sickly.

She whispered, “The . . . the man . . .”

“He’s dead,” Emmy told her. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I . . .” Her voice trailed off. She closed her eyes. But she didn’t stop talking. “I was on my bike and . . . and he hit me and I . . . I fell down . . . and I was . . . I was so scared and . . . and . . .”

“And what, baby?” Emmy wiped the tears that leaked from her eyes. “You can tell me all about it. I’m not going anywhere.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

Chapter Nineteen

Emmy sat beside Cole in the viewing room inside the sheriff’s station. The only light was from the two monitors, but Emmy didn’t focus on the images. She looked down at her right hand. The memory of Paisley Walker’s pulse lingered in her fingertips. The girl had been flown to the children’s trauma center in Atlanta. She was severely dehydrated, on the brink of death, when Emmy had found her. There was no telling whether she would regain the use of her feet and hands.

But she was alive. She was breathing. She was talking. She was with Elijah and Carol, and she was safe.

Everyone was acting like Emmy was a hero, but there was no hero in this story. All that Emmy could think about was Hannah’s words the night that Madison and Cheyenne had gone missing. They’d both still been holding onto the tiniest sliver of hope that Madison would be found alive. Hannah had asked the most obvious question—

How the hell is she ever going to recover from it?

Twelve years hadn’t brought Emmy any closer to an answer, but if being a Clifton had taught her anything, it was that some things were easier to endure than to examine.

She clasped together her hands, trying to get the tapping sensation to go away. Emmy was rewarded with a horrific pain in her left wrist. She couldn’t breathe through it. The ribs in front of her heart were bruised. Virgil had fired one shot from the Ruger before he’d started to fall. K-5, center mass. The .22 had punched Emmy’s armored vest like a compressed bolt. She hadn’t felt it at the time, but now, every breath was a misery.

Cole rested his hand on her arm. She knew he was worried, but there was no way Emmy was going to lie in a hospital bed while Walton Huntsinger was interrogated.

“I’m fine, baby.”

She looked past him to the monitor that showed Walton slumped at the table. Jude and Seth Alexander were sitting across from him. Seth looked exhausted. His tie was pulled down. He was hunched over a notepad he’d rested on his crossed leg. He wasn’t transcribing the interview. He was noting inconsistencies. His pen had scribbled furiously at the beginning. Now, he only made a stray mark here and there.

In contrast, Jude looked invigorated. Nothing Walton had said managed to rattle her. As Walton had walked them through the disgusting details of his sickness, she had remained completely impassive, at times seemingly bored. He might as well have been telling her about the price of cotton futures. He’d had no idea she was setting a trap until it was too late.

Emmy wasn’t too proud to admit that her sister had given a master class in interrogation. Seven long, brutal hours had passed since Walton had been arrested, but Jude had carefully broken him down piece by piece until finally, eventually Walton had given in.

The sound of Seth flipping a page on the notepad shushed from the Bluetooth speaker.

“Okay.” Jude’s tone was crisp and professional. “Continue.”

Walton looked at Seth’s notepad. The last bit of his good guy facade had fallen away. Only the child rapist and murderer remained. “I guess it was around ten days before the Fourth. Cheyenne told me to meet her at my office at midnight. I thought we were going to have some fun, but Cheyenne showed me the video.”

“How did she show it to you?”

“On the Nokia N93i. It was the good kind with the video camera you could hide in your pocket. Virgil didn’t even know she had it. I told you she was sneaky. He’d given her an iPhone burner, but he checked it all the time to make sure there was nothing that could lead back to us.” Walton shrugged. “She was such a damn good liar.”

Jude stayed on point. “What did you do when Cheyenne showed you the video?”

“I snatched the phone away from her. She started laughing. I checked the slot for the memory card, but it was empty. She told me she’d put it in a safe place.” Walton took off his glasses and dropped them on the table. “She said if I didn’t give her 50,000 dollars, she would send Emmy Clifton the part of the video that showed all of us together.”

“All of us?” Jude repeated.

“Me, Virgil, Cheyenne, and Madison,” Walton recited, putting his crimes officially on the record. “Cheyenne thought it was funny, some kind of sick joke. She didn’t give a shit that our lives would be ruined.”

Emmy bit her lip. Walton and Virgil were not the victims here.

Jude asked, “What about Madison? Was she in on the blackmail scheme?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t her idea.”

“How do you know that?”

“Madison would’ve never tried to hurt us. She was a good girl. Anything bad she got mixed up in was all because of Cheyenne.”

Emmy tasted blood in her mouth. Neither girl was bad. They’d been victimized by two sadistic predators.

“All right.” Jude kept her preternatural calm as she continued walking him through his crimes. “What did you do after Cheyenne showed you the video?”

“I panicked. I called Virgil. He told me we would take care of them both over the Fourth of July holiday.”

“Tell me your plan.”

“Virgil’s plan,” he corrected. “I’m not shifting blame. I’m telling you he was always in charge because he was a cop. He knew what he was doing. How to keep us safe. He told Cheyenne to meet us on the backroads because he knew everyone would be at the fireworks shows. She was going to give us the phone and we were going to give her the money.”

“What was she going to do with fifty grand?”

“Move to Atlanta with Madison. They were going to leave in three months, on Halloween night so no one would look for them.”

Emmy closed her eyes. She could easily see Madison and Cheyenne stupidly thinking they’d had it all worked out. The idea that no one would look for them on Halloween was preposterous.

Jude said, “The plan you just told me—that’s what Cheyenne thought would happen. What were you and Virgil actually going to do?”

“I wanted to pay them off and let them leave town. I knew it would draw too much attention to us if we did anything to them.” Walton rubbed his eyes. “Virgil said that fifty grand would only be the start. That they would keep coming back for more. We couldn’t give them that kind of power over us. I wasn’t on board until Cheyenne upped the pressure.”

“How?”

“Phone calls. Constant phone calls.” Walton scratched the side of his neck. His fingernails had already dug angry furrows into the skin. “Cheyenne called multiple times in the same day. Alma was getting suspicious. There was no plausible reason for a teenage girl to be calling me so often. Or at all, really. Virgil kept saying we had to do something about it, but I was hesitant. We’ve never done anything like that in town. We always make sure to keep our activities away from North Falls.”

Emmy noticed the switch to present tense. Walton hadn’t fully accepted that he was going to die in prison. Maybe that was a good thing. Every one of Virgil’s trophies needed to be tracked to a case. Jude’s contacts had already identified five murdered young women in five different areas that Walton had traveled to with the Tooth Troopers. In every case but one, Virgil’s time sheet showed that he’d taken at least two days off from work. Emmy could remember joking with him about spending all of his time in the company of horses.

Jude told Walton, “Go back to the plan.”

“Virgil told me how to set up my alibi.” Again, he gave a detailed answer. “Dale gave me the Audi to drive to Muscle Shoals. I used Adam’s license to book a round-trip ticket to West Virginia. I paid cash like he said. After I landed, I walked down to the Legion Hall to take the photo to prove I was there. Then I caught the return flight to Muscle Shoals. I drove the Audi back to Dale’s. Virgil met me there. We got in the car, and we collected the girls.”

Jude asked, “Who got in the car?”

“Me and Virgil.”

A new detail. A new question answered. The night of Madison and Cheyenne’s disappearance, Emmy had wondered how one man had controlled two fifteen-year-old girls. Two predators made perfect sense.

Jude asked, “Did you, Dale or Virgil do anything to prepare the car?”

“Uh, yes,” Walton said, as if he’d just remembered. “Dale lined the trunk with a tarp. I think it was black. Virgil was furious because he’d told Dale to duct tape the edges so it was sealed. But Dale was always a prick. He saw everything as a game of chicken.”

Cole whispered a curse. Emmy checked in on him. His hands were balled into tight fists like he wanted to go through the monitor and beat the hell out of Walton.

Jude asked, “How else was Dale involved that night?”

“That was it.” Walton shrugged. “Dale let us use Esther’s car, but he stayed home. I told you he likes them younger. The only reason he helped was because he knew Virgil could arrest him. We were both terrified of Virgil. I don’t have to keep reminding you that he was a cop, but it mattered. He could destroy us in an instant. He lorded it over us.”

Emmy tried not to focus on the pathetic, whining tone.

Jude didn’t seem to have any problem ignoring it. “You and Virgil got into the Audi. You left Dale’s house. Where did you go?”

“We were early, so Virgil drove around for half an hour. He’d arranged to meet Cheyenne at six thirty on the backroads.”

“Did she know you were going to be there, too?”

“No, but that was how Virgil did things. We always had to be together.” Walton scratched his neck until there was blood. “I’ll tell you why he wanted me there. I was his Get Out of Jail Free card. If things went sideways, he was going to kill me and make it look like he’d saved the day. That’s how smart Virgil was. Always strategizing.”

Emmy had no problem believing that was Virgil’s intention. He’d always had the uncanny ability to think dozens of steps ahead.

Walton continued, “Virgil told me that he would make Cheyenne look like a hit-and-run. He was going to work the scene of the accident so that nothing traced back to either of us. He was good at altering evidence.”

Cole cleared his throat for Emmy’s attention. “That’s why they only found one pair of boot prints. The GBI eliminated the impressions from the sheriff’s department.”

Her teeth gritted. She couldn’t imagine all the other cases Virgil had tainted. They would be going back through them for years.

Walton said, “Cheyenne was on her bike when we reached the backroad. Virgil didn’t slow down. She panicked, started pedaling as fast as she could, weaving back and forth. Virgil tapped the back wheel of her bike with the bumper. We weren’t going fast, but the poor thing just flew through the air. He was going to finish the job, but then I realized that the memory card wasn’t in the phone.”

“The miniSD?” Jude asked.

“Yes,” Walton said. “Cheyenne wouldn’t tell us where it was. We took her back to my house. We put her in the shed.”

Emmy felt a burning inside her chest. Another detail explained. Another question answered. Virgil had put himself in charge of processing the shed for evidence. He’d told them there was no trace of either girl.

“Cheyenne was so tough.” Walton sounded impressed. “It took hours for her to give up Madison. Any man would’ve cracked, but she held on to the bitter end. Except for Virgil, she was the strongest person I’d ever known.”

Emmy hated his tone of reverence. Cheyenne Baker had been a fifteen-year-old girl. She didn’t need to be strong. She needed to be safe.

Jude asked, “You didn’t suspect Madison had the miniSD?”

“I totally did,” Walton said. “Virgil wouldn’t hear it. I reminded him how she cut up the SIM card but wouldn’t hand it over. Mad could do that sometimes, just turn obstinate for no reason. In the beginning, she would never disobey us. That’s how Virgil still thought of her, as an innocent little angel. He couldn’t accept that Cheyenne had corrupted her.”

Emmy could only think about the photos she had found in Cheyenne’s locker. One girl wearing a set of white, slinky underwear. The other in black. Good and bad. Madonna/whore.

Jude asked, “What made Virgil accept that Madison had the miniSD card?”

“Cheyenne eventually convinced him, but not without a fight. That girl was hardened steel.” Walton still had the tinge of admiration in his voice. “For hours, she took whatever Virgil doled out. One minute she said her father had the memory card. The next she said she’d hidden it in her mother’s purse. You didn’t know the girls, but Cheyenne protected Madison from a lot of things. She took the brunt of Virgil’s interests. She was out there selling her services for money, dealing drugs, doing everything she could to get away.”

“Why did she want to get away?”

“Her parents were assholes.” Walton sounded like a petulant teenager. “Ruth was cold and violent. Felix was never home. They were both religious freaks. The kind that showed up at the church every time the doors opened. Cheyenne was sick of their bullshit. She wasn’t really a child. She was a young woman with needs. They never let her have any fun.”

Emmy wasn’t a fan of the Bakers, but she wouldn’t call two grown men gang raping a child any kind of fun.

Jude asked, “What did Cheyenne tell you in the shed?”

“It took a while. I told you she always tried to protect Madison. But Virgil found a way to get it out of her. She told us Madison was at the park. Cheyenne was supposed to meet her at eight o’clock under a specific tree.”

Emmy took no joy in hearing her theory confirmed. She could still remember that lost moment under the oak. The irritated look on Madison’s face. The sudden swing of emotions when the girl had looked as if she might start crying. Then there was Madison’s anxiety at the top of the hill. Emmy’s not now that sent the damaged fifteen-year-old looking for Cheyenne on her own.

Seth said, “Cheyenne told you and Virgil where to find Madison and the miniSD card. Then what?”

“We couldn’t leave Cheyenne in the shed because I had no idea where Adam was. He could come home any minute.”

Jude asked, “Why didn’t you kill Cheyenne?”

Walton rubbed his mouth. “As I said, Virgil had an attachment. The fact that she’d resisted him for so long was an aphrodisiac. He wasn’t ready to let her go.”

Emmy’s hand went to her heart. She could feel Cole struggling to keep his composure.

Jude told Walton, “Continue.”

“Virgil put Cheyenne in the trunk, then he put her bicycle on top of her. The lid wouldn’t close. He told me to tie it down with a rope, but I’m better at slip-knotting a suture. It kept bouncing every time we hit a bump in the road.” Walton’s smile was fleeting. The detail was only humorous to him. “We drove to the park to find Madison. Virgil was going to text her on Cheyenne’s burner phone to meet us up in the parking lot away from the crowd, but Madison was already there when we pulled in. It felt like fate.”

Jude prompted, “And then?”

“I foolishly thought we could salvage the situation. I was going to talk to Madison, put some sense into her. I told you, she was a good girl. Without Cheyenne, her entire life would’ve taken a different course.”

Emmy’s head started to shake. Walton’s facade was slipping back into place. There was no way that either of them were going to let the girls live. They were both unrepentant killers.

Jude had picked up on it, too. She told him, “Stick to the facts.”

Walton shrugged, but said, “Virgil pulled onto the soccer field to lure Madison farther away from the crowd. The fireworks had just started. I got out of the car, but Madison was already looking inside the trunk. She was trying to help Cheyenne out. I was scared she was going to scream.”

“What did you do?”

“It’s not what I did. It’s what Madison did. She turned around and looked at me. I felt paralyzed. I didn’t know how to respond. But then Virgil hit her on the back of the head with the hammer.”

Emmy closed her eyes again, praying that the image of Madison being struck wouldn’t haunt her dreams.

Jude asked, “And then?”

Walton heaved out a sigh. “Madison wouldn’t fit in the trunk with Cheyenne and the bike, so Virgil carried her around the car to put her in the back seat. The next thing I know, Cheyenne’s running toward the trees. Everybody from North Falls was down the hill. I don’t remember how the pistol got into my hand, but somehow it went off, and Cheyenne was dead.”

Emmy didn’t need the autopsy report to know that he was lying. She had seen the gunshot wound in Cheyenne’s forehead when she’d first seen the girl in the water.

Jude asked, “This was the .22 rimfire pistol?”

“Yes,” Walton said. “Virgil told me to bring a gun. It was the only one I had lying around. My father liked to shoot for sport. I don’t like guns.”

“Yeah.” Cole sounded furious. “He likes hammers.”

Emmy resisted the urge to soothe him.

“You shot Cheyenne,” Jude said. “Then what did you do?”

“I followed Virgil’s orders like I always did.” Walton shrugged. “He said we had to leave the bikes. They wouldn’t both fit in the trunk, and with Cheyenne bleeding so profusely, we couldn’t put her inside the car. Virgil told me to leave one bike in the middle of the field. He threw the other one toward the trees. Then we shut the trunk and left.”

Emmy resisted the urge to close her eyes again, but her mind still flashed up the image of Madison trapped inside the trunk with Cheyenne’s lifeless body.

Jude asked Walton, “Where did you go?”

He stared down at his glasses. “To the barn. Peggy was out of town. She was due home by the weekend. That gave us time to . . . to plan.”

Emmy knew exactly what it had given them time to do.

Jude asked, “Did you find the miniSD card?”

“It was in Madison’s pocket. Virgil put it back in the Nokia. I asked if I could see the video, maybe get a copy, but he wouldn’t let me. Said it was too dangerous, but I know he watched the video. Who could resist?”

Jude didn’t answer. “Did you have sexual intercourse with Madison Dalrymple?”

Walton paused, but said, “Yes.”

“And Cheyenne Baker?”

“Before, yes.” Walton hesitated. “Not after. That was Virgil’s thing.”

Cole grabbed Emmy’s injured hand. She held onto him, ignoring the pain.

Jude asked, “What about the damage to Madison’s feet and hands?”

“That was—” Walton hesitated again. “We both liked that. We took turns. The way the breaks reverberate into the wooden handle, it’s such a tiny vibration. Almost like a little death with every snap.”

Emmy parted her lips to breathe. Her only consolation was that a jury would hear Walton’s sick, twisted admission and have absolutely no qualms about putting him on death row.

Jude asked, “Who disposed of the bodies?”

“Both of us,” he said. “Virgil knew that Millie had gone back out to help search for the girls. We picked up a concrete block and a length of chain from his barn. We dragged the bodies to the middle of the water, then anchored them down. I barely made it back to the house in time. My hair was still wet when the sheriff knocked on the door. Virgil’s uniform was soaked through, but nobody noticed.”

“Why leave them in the pond?” Jude asked.

“Virgil said he wanted to make sure the bodies were found. That we owed that to Madison’s parents. He knew them, you see. Paul and Hannah. They were good people.”

Emmy hadn’t felt her rage flare up until that moment. Virgil had not chosen Millie’s pond out of compassion. He’d put the girls there as a big fuck you to Emmy and Gerald.

Jude said, “Cheyenne was a patient of yours when she first moved to town.”

“I did an emergency filling, but she wasn’t one of my regulars.” Walton shrugged again, as if he was helpless. “She was Virgil’s choice, though. I was going to leave her alone, but he saw her at the outlet mall and something just clicked inside of him. That’s how it is with these girls. They smile at you or flirt a little bit, and you feel this tug in your heart. You can’t sleep. You can’t eat. All you do is think about them. It’ll drive you crazy if you let it.”

Jude asked, “Whose idea was it to take Paisley Walker?”

Walton’s demeanor changed. He’d been fairly open for the last hour, but now, he crossed his arms, sat back in his chair. “That was all Virgil. I’d never even heard Paisley’s name until I read it in the Herald. Then there were all those angry people outside the house. I thought Virgil was trying to set up Adam again. Then your father told me that he didn’t think Adam did it.”

Emmy leaned forward. She studied Jude’s face in the monitor. Nothing had changed. She looked just as dispassionate as when Walton had described brutally murdering the two girls.

Jude asked, “Did Gerald explain why he thought Adam was innocent?”

“He said North Falls was too small and Adam was too big. Because of the podcast, everybody knew his face. There was no way Adam could get close enough to a teenage girl. The same mob that was outside the house would’ve chased him into the ground.”

Emmy doubted her father had used as many words, but that sounded exactly like the kind of insight that Gerald would’ve had. He’d clearly developed the theory on the long walk down the driveway. Only the bullet from Paul’s gun had stopped him from sharing it with Emmy.

Walton said, “Virgil obviously realized the same thing. He knew he couldn’t pin it on Adam again.”

“Why are you saying that it’s obvious?”

“Because I know how Virgil thinks. I told you I was his Get Out of Jail Free card all along.” Another shrug. “When Adam put that damn hammer on my kitchen table, it might as well have been a gauntlet. I knew Virgil was coming after me.”

“How would the hammer implicate you?”

“My DNA is all over it. Virgil always used gloves. He was never without a condom. He kept himself waxed. He knew exactly what they would find.” Walton gave a bitter laugh. “And if they didn’t find it, he knew how to make it look like the lab had anyway.”

Emmy had no doubt he was right. She’d completely trusted Virgil’s analysis.

Jude asked, “Why did Virgil keep all the evidence? All the paperwork, all the trophies, were in hidden in plain sight.”

“That was how he played the game.” Walton almost sounded envious. “Up until recently, Peggy was living at the house. All she had to do was walk downstairs and she’d find out everything. But she never did. She trusted him. Everybody trusted him—Gerald, Emmy Lou, Father Trask, the whole damn town. He got off on the deception. It gives you a rush knowing you’re smarter than everybody else.”

Jude didn’t point out that he hadn’t been smart enough in the end. “What about twelve years ago? Was it Virgil’s idea to frame Adam for murdering Cheyenne and Madison?”

“No one set him up.” Walton seemed perplexed by the question, despite the fact that he had used his son’s driver’s license for that exact purpose. “That’s just how it happened.”

“What about Cheyenne’s necklace?” Jude asked. “It was found in your backyard.”

“I assume Adam’s explanation is the truth—Madison gave it to him to repair. He tinkered with things all the time. He really is quite good with his hands.”

“A broken necklace was found on the backroads where Cheyenne was hit by the car.”

“She must’ve been wearing a different necklace,” Walton said. “You have to understand, Adam is always in the wrong place at the wrong time. His entire life, all he ever did was screw up. I was constantly having to cover for him.”

“You didn’t cover for him twelve years ago,” Jude said. “He was given a death sentence. He could’ve been executed.”

“Don’t kid a kidder, sugar. You knew Adam from way back.” Walton crossed his arms over his chest again. “We both know that he was always going to end up in prison. His life was a disaster. He was selling drugs to children. He couldn’t hold down a job. He was drunk most of the time. I had a choice to make—his life or mine. I know you don’t think my charity work is meaningful, but I’m proud of all the good I did. I took care of the people no one else would take care of. And I knew Adam would abandon Alma. I had to keep myself out of prison so I could be there for her.”

Cole stirred beside Emmy. He was seething. “Asshole doesn’t care about anybody but himself.”

Emmy kept her attention on the monitors. Jude had looked at her watch. She was pacing herself. There were a lot more murders that had to be covered.

She told Walton, “Why don’t we take a bathroom break?”

“Yes, but—” Walton had a tentative look on his face. “Can you tell me how Alma’s doing?”

Jude turned to Seth. He looked startled. It was the first time in hours that she’d acknowledged he was in the room. “Agent Alexander, do you have an update?”

Seth put down the pad and pen. “The doctors say the dose of lidocaine Walton gave her was toxic, but she’ll live.”

Jude turned back to Walton. “Good news, right?”

Walton didn’t look relieved. He had spent twelve years keeping his wife away from the police. Alma had to know more about his crimes than she realized. “Right. Thank you.”

Emmy heard Cole mumble under his breath again. She waited until Walton was being escorted from the interrogation room before turning on the lights. She looked at her son. “You okay baby?”

Cole’s jaw was clenched. The bone stuck out like an anvil. She was expecting him to rail some more against Walton Huntsinger, but instead he told her, “You sent me that text about Virgil, then you didn’t answer when I called. You always answer my calls.”

Emmy felt remorseful, but she wasn’t going to let it crush her this time. “You’re right. I apologize. I was in a bad way.”

Cole laughed. “Understatement.”

“Your grandmother hates when you imply subjects and verbs in conversation.”

Cole’s smile faltered. “Virgil was right there in front of us the whole time.”

“Longer for me than for you.” Emmy reminded him. “Virgil was a psychopath. He fooled all of us, everybody in town. His own wife and kids had no idea what he was doing. Even Papa didn’t see it. If you’re looking for people to blame, we are all guilty here.”

Cole didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Jude said that pedophiles groom the people around them, too. So that when a kid says something bad is happening, you believe the pedophile and not the kid.”

“She’s right,” Emmy said, but that was cold comfort. “Baby remember what Papa said about mistakes.”

“They can give you an opportunity to forgive.” Cole stared at the empty interrogation room on the monitors. She could tell his perseverance was barely holding. “It’s starting to feel real that Papa’s gone. We’re gonna be at his funeral in a few days.”

“Look at me.” Emmy turned his chair to face her. She couldn’t stop herself from fixing his collar. He’d left the button undone again. “I know I should tell you to feel what you want to feel, but you need to get all of that out before the funeral. It’s not gonna be a private event. There will be a lot of people watching us. The governor will be here, senators, politicians, law enforcement from all over the region, news cameras, photographers. It’s gonna be hard to keep it together, but I’ll be right beside you, and so will Tommy and Celia and the rest of the family. You need to remember you’re a Clifton. Keep your head down and—”

“Do your job.” The nod he gave her was terse, but she knew he would do it. “What about Jude? Will she be there?”

Emmy hadn’t thought it through, but she knew her answer. “That’s up to her. I won’t stand in her way.”

“Me, either.” There was no relief in his expression. “I need to tell you something else, but it’s gonna be hard.”

She silently braced herself for more bad news. “Go ahead.”

“What you did to find Paisley. The choice you had to make with Virgil. I just want to say—” His jawbone craned out a few times as he tried to keep his emotions in check. “I hope I’m the same kind of cop as you one day. I hope I learn to be that good.”

Emmy fought against her own emotions. They were quite a pair, she and her son. Both of them sitting together alone in a quiet room, both fighting the urge to sob uncontrollably. She would have to remedy this eventually, to make herself the safe space for Cole that Gerald had been for her.

But not today.

“Baby I hope you never have to make that choice, but I know you’re gonna be a good cop. You’re already on the right path. I’ve never been more proud of you. You’re very nearly perfect.”

Emmy tugged at his collar by way of things that needed improvement. Then she looked for a way to change the subject. She was too brittle right now to keep setting a stoic example. Fortunately, there was a low-hanging lever she could pull that would bring the difficult part of this conversation to an abrupt end.

“I need to tell you something, too. There’s no good way to get it out, so I’m going to be blunt. Tommy and I decided a while back that when Papa was gone and Grandma had to be moved into the facility, we were going to sell the house.”

Cole sat up in the chair. “What?”

“You need to clear out all your stuff by the end of the month.”

“Mom—”

“I’d put in a quick call to Uncle Penley if I was you. Celia told me there’s no way Tommy will move his hat collection out of the guest room.” Emmy stood up to leave. “Keep watching the interrogation. Let me know if I need to hear anything.”

“Mom—”

“Acting Sheriff,” Emmy corrected, which was enough to shut him up.

Emmy left the door ajar so the air would circulate in the stuffy room. She needed to check emails, arrange the duty roster, check in with the deputies. Her mind filled with a long to-do list as she started up the hallway. Her body had other ideas. A tingle shot through her spine, some kind of primal warning. Not the tickle or the Don’t Feel Right, but a long-simmering grief that she’d spent the last few days keeping at arm’s length. Her office was at the end of the hall. Gerald’s office, too. The lights were still off. His rain jacket was still hanging on the hook.

She pushed open the door to the women’s toilet. To her surprise, Jude was standing at the sink. Her hands were braced on the counter, head down. The unflappable, ice-cold interrogator was gone. Tears were streaming down her face. It was as if every sick, twisted word that had spewed from Walton Huntsinger’s disgusting mouth over the last seven hours had finally caught up with her.

Emmy felt deeply ashamed to witness such a private moment. She started to leave.

Jude said, “Don’t go.”

Emmy felt trapped on the wrong side of the door. Jude looked utterly destroyed. There was no way she wanted anybody to see her like this.

Jude laughed at her discomfort. “I see Myrna taught you to be terrified of tears.”

“I think it’s a genetic predisposition,” Emmy said. “Like how some people think cilantro tastes like soap.”

“That’s a variation on the olfactory receptor genes reacting to the aldehydes in the leaves.” Jude had learned some tricks from Myrna, too. She seemed more composed as she used her finger to neaten her eyeliner in the mirror. Her eyes went to Emmy’s reflection. They had the bathroom to themselves. They were the only two women in the station. “It’s okay to feel your feelings.”

“Sure.” Emmy wasn’t going to stare at her navel in the toilet with her estranged older sister. She put them back on safer ground. “We’ve got Dale on felony murder for Cheyenne and Madison, right?”

“Yes.” Jude went into the stall to get some toilet paper. “He gave Virgil and Walton material support for the crimes. He cleaned the Audi afterward in order to help them cover up the murders. He’ll probably plead down to life in prison in exchange for testifying against Walton. The good news is, Dale will never be able to hurt another girl again.”

Emmy wanted to feel more relieved than she did. “What about Adam? Was he really duped?”

Jude wiped her nose. “That’s what my gut is telling me.”

Emmy’s gut was telling her the same thing. “Adam will still go down for threatening Brett’s life and violating his bail.”

“And rape,” Jude said. “Barbara Jericho deserves justice.”

Emmy hoped she got it. “Dale Loudermilk was on the hook to Virgil. It had to be more than child porn on his laptop. Dale might have actual victims in the real world.”

“You’re right.” Jude leaned against the counter. “I’m going to pull some strings with my old bosses. See if they’ll let me take on Dale as a side project. I think I can get him to talk.”

“Dooley Prison is only a thirty-minute drive from here.” Emmy shrugged. “I mean, I assumed you’d stick around for Dad’s funeral, but—”

“Are you sure, Emmy?” Jude’s poker face was gone again. She was raw, nearly breathless with need. “I’d really like to pay my final respects to Dad, but not if it makes you or Cole uncomfortable.”

Emmy couldn’t stand seeing her so vulnerable. “What about Tommy?”

“He told me he’s good if you’re good.”

Emmy knew that her brother could always be relied upon for at least that. “I’m good.”

“Thank you.” Jude paused, giving herself another moment to reset. “Listen, I know therapy is a dirty word around here, but you’ll need to talk to someone about what happened with Virgil. Not only because of the betrayal. It’s a hell of a thing to kill a man.”

“Yep.” Emmy was going to leave it at that. Of all the things she didn’t want to think about, Virgil was the thing she did not want to think about the most. “How long is it going to take you with Dale Loudermilk?”

“As long as it takes,” Jude said. “I think I’m going to stick around for a while either way. I know we’re strangers, but I’d like to change that.”

Emmy felt the awful sensation of tears stinging her eyes. Her body was working against her again. She had to get some sleep before she turned into a full-on basket case. “You’re right. We’re strangers.”

“We are,” Jude agreed. “But sometimes it’s good to have a stranger around if you ever need to talk it out.”

Emmy blinked, trying to stop the tears. Instead of Jude, she saw Gerald’s office. His empty chair. The photos he’d printed out and framed himself. They used to talk over their desks occasionally, just the two of them, the people who had never talked to anybody had talked to each other.

She said, “Yep.”

Emmy wiped her eyes as she walked back into the hallway. She tried to take in a breath, but the pain from her bruised ribs felt like a burning hot poker pressing into her chest. The usual number of phones was ringing in the squad room. The FBI support staff and volunteers had gone home. Third watch was already patrolling the streets. The two sheriff’s detectives were at their desks. It occurred to Emmy for the first time since Gerald’s death that she was solely in charge of the force now. There was no one backstopping her. No one to turn to but herself.

“Chief Clifton?” Sherry Robertson looked pissed off, which meant she’d seen the video of Emmy and Hannah talking to each other in the jail complex. “Can I have a moment?”

Without thinking, Emmy nodded the woman into her office. She didn’t realize what she’d done until she was reaching for the light switch. The fluorescent bulbs popped on. Two desks, one facing the other. A folding chair that could be turned in either direction for visitors. Emmy looked down at the floor. Her boots had already crossed the threshold. She couldn’t sit right now. She leaned against her desk and waited.

Sherry said, “I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that I’m going to have to release Hannah Dalrymple.”

Emmy wasn’t going to get into that. “What about Paul?”

Sherry crossed her arms, but she didn’t press the Hannah issue. GBI agents were trained to be diplomatic with bumbling local law enforcement. “He’s sobered up and finally listening to his lawyers. They want the death penalty off the table. He’ll confess to shooting Gerald if we agree to life in prison without parole.”

Emmy knew that a plea deal meant there wouldn’t be a trial. Hannah would not be asked to testify under oath. Witnesses would not take the stand. Paul’s defense attorneys wouldn’t try to pick apart the case. He would plead guilty for murdering her father, then he would die in prison.

She said, “Have you asked Tommy how he feels?”

“He said it was up to you.”

Tommy never failed to deliver. “Give Paul the deal. My family’s been through enough. So has his.”

There was nothing more to say. Sherry left. Emmy closed the door. She looked at the empty office. Photos of Cole and Emmy in uniform. Tommy in a porkpie hat. Celia with her cat. Citations on the wall. A picture of the governor, another of the president. There was no paperwork on Gerald’s desk. The last few weeks had been hard on him. The cancer had metastasized to his spine. Some days, the pain had made it hard for him to dress himself in the morning.

Emmy knew that she should take a moment. Give herself time to grieve. Process what she had lost. Find a way to work through it. Instead, she took her phone out of her pocket and called Dylan.

“Babe?” He sounded worried. “Are you okay?”

She realized he wasn’t panicked about the phone call. It seemed like a lifetime had passed between now and Emmy killing Virgil and finding Paisley. For Dylan, it was only a handful of hours.

All she could tell him was, “I’m at the station.”

“Has the GBI interviewed you about the shooting yet?” Dylan sounded like a lawyer. “They’re not allowed to talk to you without representation.”

“My union rep’s on the way.” Emmy felt her throat go tight. She hadn’t called to talk about killing Virgil. “Hannah’s being kicked loose.”

Dylan needed a second. “How did that happen?”

“I tainted myself as an eyewitness by joking with her on the jail CCTV.”

“O-kay,” Dylan drew out the word.

“It’s not just that. No one could put her hands on the gun when it was fired. The GBI couldn’t build the case. They’re going after Paul. His lawyers are talking him into a plea deal to avoid rolling the dice at trial.”

Like Jude, Dylan knew how to let the silence play out, which probably said more about Emmy than about them.

Finally, he said, “I know this is a stupid question, but how do you feel about that?”

“Awful,” Emmy admitted. “Gerald loved Hannah. She was my best friend since forever. Cole adores her. Paul was her husband. They have a child together. Davey already lost a sister to violence. He’s going to lose his father. He almost lost his mother.”

“Those are all accurate statements.”

He was sounding like a lawyer again. “I’m standing in my dad’s office for the first time since he died, and I know if I let myself start crying, I’ll never be able to stop.”

When Dylan leaned into the silence this time, she knew it was because he was shocked. The last time Emmy had talked to him so openly was twelve years ago in a school hallway.

She made herself keep going. “I’ve been waiting so long for them to die.”

Saying the words out loud made Emmy feel like a monster, but she couldn’t take back the truth.

“Not that I wanted to lose them, but when Myrna got diagnosed, it started this clock winding down, and all I’ve heard every day, every week, every month and year since then was this constant ticking. Waiting for her to forget things, to forget places and memories and eventually, to forget me and Tommy and Cole and Dad.”

Emmy leaned back against the door to brace herself.

“And then Dad got his cancer diagnosis, and nobody could really tell us how long it would take for him to die, so another clock started ticking, and I couldn’t take both of them. Not at the same time. We had to watch Dad slowly fail, and meanwhile Mom’s haunting us like a ghost in her own house, and no one could tell us when it was going to end.”

Emmy had to stop to swallow.

“I miss them so goddam much, Dylan. I’ve dreaded losing them for so long, and suddenly, it’s like somebody snapped their fingers and both of the clocks stopped at the same damn time, and they’re just gone. And the worst part is that I’m so fucking relieved it’s finally over so I don’t have to live with that constant ticking anymore.”

She heard Dylan let out a long sigh of breath. “I’m so sorry, cariño. Sometimes, things just fucking suck, and you have to accept it, and there’s no shame in being relieved when the bad part is over.”

She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Will you cook dinner for me?”

“My love, it’s midnight.”

Emmy looked at her watch. He was right. She’d lost all sense of time inside the dark room with Cole. A third day was inching up on the death of her father.

Dylan said, “How about I cook you breakfast?”

“Okay.”

She ended the call. She couldn’t start sobbing in front of the squad. She wiped her nose again. Dropped her phone on the desk. Her chest felt like a cattle prod was pressing into her ribs when she sank into her chair.

“Knock-knock.” Vanna Temple opened the door without being told to come in. She saw Emmy’s face and asked, “Bad time?” Emmy’s eyes threatened to roll. There was never a good time for Brett’s irritating wife. Especially because she was pregnant and smug again. “What do you need, Vanna?”

“I was dropping off a fresh uniform for Brett. You got him working some long hours, missy.” Vanna struggled to sit in the folding chair. Her yellow and white polka dot dress stretched across her belly like a hospital sock. “I thought I should pop in to let you know Brett’s gonna toss his hat in the ring to run for sheriff.”

Emmy smoothed her lips together. The worst part about this conversation was that from the very beginning, her sister had been right.

“We both know you don’t want it,” Vanna said. “Nobody can fill Gerald’s shoes, but Brett’s gonna try his best to make your daddy proud. I hope he has your support.”

Emmy stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. “Where did you get that I don’t want it?”

“Well, it’s just hard work, isn’t it?”

“Are you unfamiliar with the last two days of my life?”

Vanna laughed, though nothing was funny. “I don’t think this town is ready for a female sheriff.”

“This town,” Emmy repeated. “You mean Clifton County, where all the Cliftons live, isn’t ready for another Clifton to be sheriff?”

“Oh, honey, that wasn’t a knock against you. It’s just not the natural order of things.” Vanna’s open shrug implied it was all beyond their control. “Women don’t lead. Men do. They’re the hunters. We’re the gatherers. They’re our protectors. We gotta let them protect us.”

“Who do we need them to protect us from?”

“What’s that?”

Emmy summoned her best Myrna. “From whom do women need protection, Vanna?”

Vanna obviously knew the answer. She wasn’t laughing anymore. “Emmy, don’t be silly.”

“It’s sheriff,” Emmy said. “That’s my title now. I was the chief deputy before. Now, I’m the sheriff.”

“All right, well I see you’re not in the right mind for talking.” Vanna’s smile was tight across her face. “You have a blessed day, sheriff.”

The sting to her parting salvo was somewhat lessened by her struggle to rise from the chair. Vanna left the office door open. Emmy got up to close it. Instead of going back to her own desk, she pushed her laptop over to Gerald’s side. She gave herself a moment before she sat down in her father’s chair.

When Emmy was a child, Gerald would often bring her to the station to give Myrna a break. He would set up Emmy at his desk with crayons and coloring books. He would turn on the radio so she couldn’t hear him talking about cases with Virgil.

She’d always hated coloring. Myrna hadn’t raised her to sit still. Emmy had spent most of her time spinning herself around in her father’s chair until she was dizzy. Then she had gotten older and started spending all of her free time with Hannah. Then Jonah had come along. Then Emmy was wearing a deputy’s uniform and sitting out in the squad room. Then she was sitting across from her father as his chief deputy.

Now, she sat in Gerald’s chair because she needed her back to the wall. Emmy didn’t want anyone to accidentally see what she was doing. She opened her laptop. Went to the cloud backup for her phone. Selected the video from two days ago that she’d recorded on the street outside Adam Huntsinger’s house.

Emmy tapped play.

Dervla Culpepper’s face was pinched with self-righteousness as she filmed the mob of people with her iPhone. Ashleigh Ellis was looking at her watch. Brandi Norton was kneeling down to tie her shoe. The crowd was starting to grow restless again. Moms in leggings. Men in factory coveralls. A few stragglers in business casual. Twenty-six volatile, unpredictable people with more on the way.

By the time Emmy had started the recording, Hannah was already there. Gerald was still inside the house. Emmy had wanted to capture the faces in the crowd because sometimes, occasionally, violent criminals tried to insert themselves into investigations. They pretended to be witnesses or concerned citizens or spectators, or sometimes they volunteered to come out of retirement to help with the case.

There was a cough from the squad room. Emmy waited to make sure no one was heading toward the office. She tapped down the volume when Hannah asked—

Do you think Adam took Paisley?

Emmy touched the trackpad and scrubbed past the conversation. She could still remember how jarring it had felt to hear Hannah ask her a direct question. Their shared agony of watching Gerald slowly, painfully, make his way up the driveway. The comforting warmth of Hannah holding onto Emmy’s hand. The sweat pouring off her father when he’d leaned against the mailbox to catch his breath.

The sight of Gerald’s frailty had been so disconcerting that Emmy had tucked the phone into her vest pocket without stopping the recording. The camera had continued filming for sixteen minutes. By the time Emmy had stopped it, she was covered in blood and sitting inside her cruiser beside her son.

She tapped the key to slow the video back to normal speed.

Gerald was holding onto the mailbox like a crutch. He was so visibly failing. His skin was pale. He couldn’t stand up straight because of the fractures in his spine. His voice was gravelly when he told the crowd—

Paisley Walker is not here. Go home. Let us do our job.

Emmy skipped a few moments ahead. Gerald had pushed himself away from the mailbox. Summoned the ice water in his veins. Stood straight and tall. The tactic had worked. Most people were dispersing, but Dervla Culpepper had shoved her phone into Gerald’s face. He looked exhausted when he responded to her vacuous question.

Ma’am, the case against Adam Huntsinger is—

Hannah screamed Paul’s name.

The camera turned along with Emmy.

The sequence of events happened so fast that now, sitting alone in the office, Emmy had to slow down the playback to quarter speed to understand what had really happened.

Paul aimed the revolver at Emmy’s heart. The crowd scattered. Panic ensued. Screaming. Crying. Pushing. Shoving. Cole was running in the distance. His vest flapped behind him. Then Hannah lunged into the frame, her hands flailing as she reached for the gun.

Emmy leaned closer to the screen. Slowed down the video to a crawl.

She watched the index finger of Hannah’s left hand accidentally slip through the trigger guard at the exact same moment that Paul fired the revolver. The muzzle jerked up and over, which changed the trajectory of the bullet so that it bypassed Emmy and went straight into Gerald’s chest.

Emmy stopped the video. She took a breath. Sat back in her father’s chair.

Hannah had saved her life.

Sherry Robertson would’ve said that Hannah had also helped take Gerald’s.

Emmy stared at the paused image. Smoke still flowered from the revolver’s muzzle. She didn’t need to see the rest. The details of her father’s murder would live with her forever. She dragged the file to the trash. Hit permanent delete. She would buy a new phone tomorrow, submerge the old one in water until the circuits died. No one would ever see the video. No one but Emmy and Hannah would ever know what had actually happened.

A split second. A quick reaction. A fatal moment in time.

Losing a precious thing. Holding onto a bad marriage. Trying to protect a child.

Emmy knew exactly what that felt like.

She also knew that mistakes could be a reason to forgive.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Twelve Days Later

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Chapter Twenty

Jude sat at her mother’s bedside. The lights were out, but the lines of sun between the half-closed window blinds were slowly moving across the floor. Myrna had been asleep when Jude had walked in, which in every way was a gift. Forty-two years had passed since they’d last laid eyes on each other. Jude was nearly twenty years older now than Myrna had been on that long ago day. The shock of finding her mother so reduced was almost too much to bear. Jude remembered a towering, intimidating woman. Someone who would quote Nathaniel Hawthorne to describe your outfit or whip out a red pen to correct your Mother’s Day card.

That Myrna was not the old woman who was wasting away in a hospital bed. She looked so small, so vulnerable. Her skin was nearly translucent. Blue veins crisscrossed her eyelids. The color of her lips was reminiscent of the light pink hydrangeas that still grew in her front yard.

Thirteen days ago, Jude had fine-tuned a very good speech on the five-hour flight from San Francisco, during the three-hour-long drive to North Falls, while she’d walked the last few yards to Milo’s funeral home where her father lay dead. The speech was brief, because her mother had never been one for flowery soliloquies. Most of it was framed in a series of requests, because Jude had assumed that Myrna would, as always, control the balance of the power.

Will you let me see her? Will you let me talk to her? Will you let me bury my grief?

Years of therapy had helped Jude work through so many dark moments in her life. The night that Adam Huntsinger had raped her. The fact that she’d started drinking excessively to numb the pain. Losing Henry to the Flint River. The days and days of waiting for his body to be found. Watching Gerald drink himself into a stupor. Seeing Myrna completely fall apart. Witnessing the final evolution of Tommy’s invisibility. The blame that Jude would always carry for her small part in her brother’s death.

It was a hell of a lot to work through, but none of those sessions had ever gotten Jude to the point where she could forgive herself for giving up her baby.

Forty-two years ago, Jude had been in the full throes of alcohol addiction. She had barely graduated high school. Myrna and Gerald had finally kicked her out of the house. No one had known Jude was pregnant. She had barely admitted it to herself. She was unstable, homeless, living out of the car that she’d stolen from Aunt Millie. Jude had driven to Memphis to start a music career that was never going to happen. She’d ignored the pregnancy until it was too late to do anything but go through with it.

Somehow, by some miracle, Jude was stone cold sober when she’d given birth. Unlike the majority of women, she remembered nearly every single detail from that cold November morning. Particularly the kind nurse who’d warned Jude that the police were on their way up to the maternity ward. They’d wanted to interview her about a hit-and-run where Millie’s car had been seen fleeing the scene.

The nurse had given Jude some diapers and formula in a plastic bag. Blood was still dripping down Jude’s legs when she’d sneaked out through the ambulance bay. The baby didn’t even have a name. No birth certificate. No registration. Just an alcoholic mother who had been living out of a stolen car for seven months.

Jude still didn’t know why she hadn’t abandoned her child at the hospital. She wasn’t delusional enough to believe that her heart had swelled with joy the first time she’d held her baby. That moment had come hours later. Jude had pulled over to the side of the road so she could sleep. The baby had started howling like a siren. Jude had tried everything: feeding, changing, begging, pleading. Then she’d turned on the radio, and Emmylou Harris was singing “Sweet Dreams”.

Back when Henry and Jude were children, Gerald would occasionally take them to the station for a few hours to give Myrna time alone in the house. He would spread crayons and coloring books out on his desk to distract them. Then he would put on a record so they wouldn’t hear him discussing cases with his deputies.

Emmylou Harris had been his favorite. Jude knew all the words of every album. On that cold, dark morning on the side of the road outside of Memphis, she had cradled Emmy Lou in her arms while she sang her the softest serenade. By the last line of the song, only Jude was crying. She couldn’t get over Emmy Lou’s delicate eyelashes. The clear, startling blue of her eyes. The precious curl of her lips. The sweet smell of her head. The insistent tap of her heartbeat against the palm of Jude’s hand.

When she’d sneaked out of the hospital, Jude’s only focus had been to get away from the police. That moment in the car with Emmy Lou had given her direction. Jude had started driving south. Started making plans. She would go to college. She would raise her child. She would become a teacher like her mother. She would earn back Gerald’s respect. By the time she’d crossed the Clifton County line, she had felt elated with possibilities.

All of that had changed when Gerald had opened the door. The weather had been brutally cold, but he wouldn’t let her come inside. Myrna had wordlessly taken Emmy Lou to keep her warm in the kitchen. Millie and Father Nate had been at the table for their weekly card game. Gerald had told Jude to wait on the porch, then closed the door in her face.

She had felt like a lost puppy as she’d looked through the window over the sink. No one would look back at her. Myrna had placed Emmy Lou on her shoulder. Her mother’s jaw had been clenched, the bone jutting out, as she’d stared at the refrigerator door. Jude hadn’t been able to hear what anyone was saying, but the conversation was brief. They had all nodded their heads in silent consensus. Then Gerald and Myrna had opened the door and delivered their decision. They’d framed it as a choice, but it was really an ultimatum: Jude could leave with Emmy Lou, or Jude could go, and Emmy Lou could stay.

Looking back, Jude knew that they were never going to let her leave with the baby. She’d been an alcoholic single mother living out of a stolen car. But then Gerald had promised that he would stop drinking, and Myrna had promised that she would love Jude’s child.

And then Jude had promised her parents that she wouldn’t step foot back in Clifton County until they were both dead.

Sounds intruded from the hallway outside Myrna’s closed door. Two women talking, plates and silverware clattering. Myrna’s hand moved, but only to pull the sheet away from her neck. The sunlight had crept closer to the bed. Jude stood to adjust the blinds. Ended up staring at the parking lot through the slats. She thought about something Emmy had asked outside Carol Walker’s house: why had Jude devoted decades of her life to bringing lost children home to their parents when she’d never once brought herself home to Myrna and Gerald?

It was a good question, but it missed the true purpose of Jude’s twenty-seven-year career.

The twelve photos of murdered girls on the wall of her office, the tedious drives to and from Folsom Prison, the hours spent with Freddy Henley, the years of searching the Pinnacles. The hiking trails. Climbing routes. Nesting areas. Caverns and talus caves that served as home to at least thirteen different species of bats. The Resurrection Wall. Frog Canyon. Bear Gulch. Hawkins Peak. Machete rock formation. Tanya Butler, Natalie Daniels, Honora Rios, Wanda Trochek, Mary Kay Morris, Valerie Lydelle, Jennifer Wu, Mandy Crull, Johna Blackmon, Kayse Nguyen, Steph Haver, Darlene Talbot.

Jude had not found the girls and young women that Freddy Henley had murdered. She had found their bones. Their ashes. Their broken teeth. Her quest was never about reuniting a parent with a lost child. It was to give their parents something that Jude had never had: a place to bury their grief.

She turned away from the window. Myrna still slept. The commotion in the hallway had died down, but the door lever was being throttled. Jude was about to open it when the door swung back.

“Millie Clifton!” Millie announced as she sucked up all the oxygen in Myrna’s room. The lights flipped on. She saw Jude and scowled. “You owe me 3,000 dollars for that car you stole.”

“I sold it to a hooker for 600 bucks in California.”

“I’ll take cash this time, smartass. You’re not gonna leave me holding a bad check again.”

Jude’s only surprise was that she wasn’t demanding interest. “How’d they pull it off, Millie? Myrna just showed up with—”

“Shush!” Millie pressed a gnarled finger to Jude’s lips, forcing her to stop. Then she stumbled across the room with her arms out like Frankenstein, presumably to catch herself if she fell. She grabbed onto the bedside table. Picked up the remote control, pointed it at the TV. Gunsmoke flickered on the screen. Miss Kitty and Doc were standing by a stagecoach. Millie turned up the volume to an uncomfortable level. She dropped the remote, then shuffled back across the room.

Jude picked up where she’d left off. “Myrna just showed up with a newborn and no one asked questions?”

“What’s to ask?” Millie demanded, as if the very idea was insulting. “Myrna slipped on some ice and broke her leg while she and I were visiting the Coleman cousins. Found out she was pregnant when we took her to the doctor. Gerald drove her home so she could recover. We told everybody she was laid up in bed, couldn’t come down the stairs. I stopped by every day to check on her. People dropped off casseroles and pies, but you know how ornery she could be. There weren’t that many clamoring to see her in person.”

Jude knew that part, at least, was the truth. “It was really that simple?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Millie shrugged off the lies. “Gerald told everybody Emmy Lou came out before he could get Myrna to the hospital. Uncle Rudy rustled up a birth certificate. I put the announcement in the paper. Taybee’s Mama donated one of her old baby pictures. Aunt Pauline let Myrna take a year off school to be with her. Emmy Lou was big for her age, but Uncle Enoch reminded everybody the Colemans run large.”

Jude had forgotten how easily Cliftons lied for other Cliftons. “And just like that, I disappeared.”

“That’s the deal you made.” Millie stabbed her finger at Jude’s chest. “All right, little miss. It’s my turn now. You broke your word. Gerald’s dead, but Myrna’s still here. At least her body is. Why are you back? State your purpose.”

Jude wanted to laugh in her granny apple doll face. “I don’t answer to you.”

“Who else is gonna listen? It’s just me and Nate now. Everybody else is dead. Nobody knows you dropped her off and never looked back.”

Jude struggled to keep her voice down. “Do you know how many times I wanted to come home?”

Millie snorted in disbelief.

Trying to justify herself to this noxious old woman was an exercise in madness, but Jude couldn’t stop herself. She had stalked Emmy for years through the North Falls Herald and Celia and Tommy’s Facebook pages. She had made so many plans, bought so many plane tickets, written so many emails and letters that she’d never sent.

“I knew that she was happy,” Jude said. “I knew that Dad kept his promise to stay sober. That he took care of her. That Mom loved her unreservedly. That Tommy and Celia enveloped her in safety. That she had a beautiful, amazing son—my grandson. And I sacrificed what I wanted, what I longed for, what I needed to heal myself, because I didn’t want to blow that up. For her sake. For Cole’s. For theirs.”

“Well, aren’t you a saint?”

“You’re goddam right I am.” The anger sparked on its own. Millie had only known Martha the child. She’d never met Jude the woman. “Why do you think I haven’t told her? She just lost Gerald fourteen days ago. For the past six years, she’s been losing the only person she’s ever known as her mother. I’m not going to walk in after four decades and try to replace Myrna. She doesn’t deserve that. Mom raised a beautiful, smart, wonderful girl. She’s earned whatever peaceful death she can have.”

“Look who suddenly wants to be a good daughter.”

“If you can’t see that I have always loved my parents, then you don’t understand how love works.”

Millie cocked a thin eyebrow. “You’re never gonna tell her?”

“What would be the point?” The question had been on Jude’s mind since she’d arrived in Clifton. She had decided that she was the only person who would benefit from the truth, which meant there was no benefit at all. “If I can be in Emmy’s life as her sister, that’s enough. And if you’re looking for me to pay penance, you of all people know that sometimes knowing a secret is harder than keeping it.”

“I guess you learned that psycho-babble horseshit over in California.” Millie was scowling again, but at least she was backing down. “I’ll give you one bit of advice, toots. You better mind your p’s and q’s around that girl. She’s smarter than you. She’s gonna figure out what happened. And then what are you going to do?”

Jude gave up. “I don’t know, Millie. She’s got a lot of shit going on in her life. Maybe we can help each other.”

“Oh, no!”

They both turned at the sound of Myrna’s voice.

“Look!” She was pointing at the television. “Chester fell off his horse.”

“He’s okay!” Millie shouted. “He’s getting back on! He’s fine!”

Jude barely heard the exchange. Myrna was finally awake. She was looking at Jude. A polite smile was on her lips. Jude smiled back, but there was no glimmer of recognition. Her mother could’ve been looking at a member of staff or a stranger who’d happened by. The moment lasted no more than a second. Myrna’s gaze skipped back to the television.

“Stupid to get your hopes up like that.” Millie never missed a chance to twist the knife. She stumbled toward the remote to adjust the sound to a more tolerable level. “She doesn’t know you from Adam’s housecat.”

Jude had to swallow her grief before she could speak. “Does she know you?”

“No, but I look older than her grandmother and she doesn’t want to be rude.”

Jude could hear the sadness in Millie’s voice. It must’ve been hard to survive everyone who’d ever mattered in your life. She tried to mend fences in the Clifton way. “I’m honestly shocked you’re still standing.”

Millie cackled. “No more than me.”

“I,” Myrna corrected. “No more than I.”

Emmy’s light laughter preceded her into the room. She gave Jude her usual nod. Her uniform was wrinkled. Her sprained wrist was in a brace. She was holding an ancient Whitepages phone book to her chest.

She said, “Mom will never forget to be pedantic.”

Jude smiled, but she saw Emmy look toward Myrna with the same hope for recognition. There was none. There would never be again. She really was gone.

Emmy cleared her throat exactly as Jude had. She placed the phone book on the table. Told Millie, “You left this in the car.”

“I guess I’m in the right place for losing my marbles.” Millie Frankensteined toward the chair and practically collapsed into the seat. “Tell Kaitlynn to bring me some horseradish when she picks me up. Oh, and sweet pickles, but not the big jar. I don’t want them wasting in the fridge.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Emmy motioned for Jude to follow her out into the hall. As usual, she dove straight into work. “The marshals are transferring Walton Huntsinger to Atlanta. He’s agreed to speak with the Texas Rangers about the Hidalgo case. Apparently, the victim was a state senator’s daughter. There’s a lot of heat over there to get her case solved.”

Jude closed the door so she didn’t have to yell over Gunsmoke. “I spoke to my contact at the Center. They’ve got three other possible cases that correspond with the trips that Walton took with the Tooth Troopers. DNA was tested in all of them. If we get a match to Walton, that will bring us up to nineteen total victims.”

“Jesus,” Emmy whispered.

“It’s going to get worse,” Jude warned her. “Walton’s been hurting people for a long time.”

Tension knotted Emmy’s brow. “What about Virgil?”

“The FBI is using face recognition software to scan CCTV footage from smaller airports within a 500-mile radius of Clifton County. They’ve already found Virgil flying out of Augusta Regional and Punta Gorda in Florida. He was using a stolen driver’s license that belonged to a con serving time in Calhoun State Prison. The photo was a damn good match. He didn’t pick it up by happenstance.”

“Calhoun is close to the Alabama border.”

“We’re coordinating with the State Bureau of Investigation,” Jude said. “The GBI is interviewing staff at Calhoun to find out who sold him the license.”

“Do Virgil’s clandestine trips track with Walton’s?”

“Some of them,” Jude said. “But you should know that up until recently, Virgil traveled to show his horses. I think he went solo. There’s no doubt in my mind that he left a string of unsolved cases. It’ll be harder with Virgil. He knew about evidence handling. I’m sure he covered his tracks. We might not ever find out how many girls and women he hurt.”

Emmy’s jaw tightened, the bone sticking out the same way Myrna’s used to. She looked down the hallway. Virgil’s betrayal was a wound that would not soon heal. Jude could see the delicate strands of her eyelashes when she blinked away tears.

“Okay,” Emmy said. “I’ve got to get out of this building.”

Jude expected one of her abrupt departures, but Emmy nodded for Jude to follow her up the hallway. They bypassed the elevator and headed toward the stairs. They’d both been raised by a woman who didn’t believe in dawdling. Jude held onto the railing so she could safely navigate her way down. She’d left her motorcycle boots and jeans back at the motel. The heels and pantsuit were a vestige from her previous life.

Emmy took in the outfit as she rounded the landing. “Does Hillary Clinton know you stole her look?”

“Does Andy Taylor know you stole his?”

Emmy shot Jude a blank stare. “Who’s Andy Taylor?”

“Congratulations. You’ve finally found a way to hurt me.” Jude followed her down the next flight of stairs. “I was at Dooley this morning talking to Dale Loudermilk. He wouldn’t give me the time of day if I showed up in jeans and a biker jacket. This is how he expects a female agent to dress, so this is how I have to dress.”

Emmy had stopped at the next landing. “What did he say?”

“We mostly talked about music, but I’ll get him to crack eventually, and he’ll tell me what else he knows.”

“I guess you have a right to sound sure of yourself.”

“I minored in music for my undergrad. I’ve been brushing up on my classical music so I can hold his interest.” Jude walked the rest of the way down to join Emmy on the landing. “When you cage a psychopath, their personalities tend to flatten out. Prison is lonely. They’re bored most of the time. You have to remember when they’re on the outside, every emotion they show, every action, is something that they’re mirroring. They don’t know how to be good people, so they steal those traits from the people around them. I’m going to mirror Dale into confessing.”

“That description sounds familiar.”

“Virgil Ingram was definitely a psychopath.”

Emmy looked at the brace on her wrist, adjusted the Velcro strap.

Jude had learned to spot the physical manifestations of Emmy’s discomfort. The way she smoothed her lips together. The obvious attempt at breath control. The mind-scrambling changes in subject. The clearing of her throat or fiddling with her phone or, recently, adjusting her brace.

Emmy asked, “Did you get some peace with Myrna?”

Her sadness was so palpable that Jude could feel it in her chest. She said, “When people die, your relationship with them doesn’t end. You find new ways to connect with them.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop hearing Dad’s voice in my head, but with her—” Emmy’s gaze moved past Jude to the stairs. “It’s hard to see her in bed all day. She was always in such a hurry. Move forward. Make plans. Do something. But she eased into her sickness. At first, it was manageable, and then it got a little bad, and then it got a lot bad, and then it hit worse, and looking back, it was years, but right now it feels like minutes.”

These were the most difficult moments with Emmy, the back and forth where Jude didn’t know if silence would help or whether she should gently push. Killing Virgil was a burden Emmy would always carry, but that act of self-preservation had only added weight to the heavier burdens of losing Gerald and the slow march alongside Myrna as she drew closer to her grave.

Jude tried, “I was living in San Francisco back in the late nineties when protease inhibitors came out. They were the first medications that could help stop the HIV virus from replicating into full blown AIDS. Suddenly, all these men and their caregivers who had been living in limbo, dealing with the daily uncertainty of waiting to get sick or waiting to die, had their lives back. They were happy, obviously, but depression levels and anxiety spiked. They had lived under the pressure of uncertainty for so long that they had trouble figuring out how to live. They called it Lazarus syndrome. Coming back from the dead.”

Emmy smoothed together her lips.

“You took care of Myrna and Gerald for a long time. It’s really okay to be happy. Lean on the people around you. Let yourself breathe.”

Emmy asked, “Why is it when Dad talked to me it sounded like advice, but when you talk to me it sounds like a fortune cookie?”

Jude shrugged. “At least I use adverbs.”

Emmy started down the next flight of stairs. She was quiet until she reached the exit door. She turned, telling Jude, “I know who Andy Taylor is. Myrna checked me out early from school one day because the pickle episode was on.”

Outside, the sun cut between the clouds like a razor. Jude looked for her sunglasses as she followed Emmy down a winding walkway to the small garden overlooking a pond. Birds chirped from the trees. Ducks waddled in the shallow part of the water. All of the seating was empty because this wasn’t the kind of place where patients spent much time outdoors.

Jude sat down at one of the concrete picnic tables. She felt a slight chill from the breeze coming off the water. “How’s Paisley doing?”

“She’s doing.” Emmy sat across from her. She pulled at her brace again. “The doctors think she’ll be able to walk with assistance. They don’t know how much use she’ll get out of her hands. The psychological is up in the air. I told Carol and Elijah I’d talk to her whenever she’s ready, but I don’t know how she’s gonna come back from what happened.”

“Either you do, or you don’t.” Jude took off her sunglasses. She couldn’t pass up an opportunity to get Emmy to open up about Virgil. “Denial gets a bad rap, but it can be very helpful on a temporary basis. The problem starts when you stay in denial, because trauma doesn’t go away. It stores itself in the body, particularly with children. The more they try to force it down, the more ways the body finds to push it back out.”

Emmy was paying close attention. “How?”

Jude tried not to sound like she was giving a lecture. “People with trauma are more likely to struggle with mental health issues, to become addicted to substances, to self-harm. Then, there’s the physical component. Over time, trauma can alter your brain chemistry, cause illnesses like immune deficiencies, heart disease, sometimes it can even shorten your life span.”

Emmy smoothed her lips together again. “We’re not talking about Paisley anymore, are we?”

Jude clasped her hands in her lap so that she wouldn’t reach out for Emmy’s. The last twelve days had been filled with deflections about what had happened in Virgil’s basement. She silently prayed that Emmy was finally ready to talk it out.

Emmy took a deep breath. She turned her head toward the water. Jude thought she was going to shut down, but Emmy was nothing if not surprising.

“When Adam got out of prison, I started having these dreams about finding Madison and Cheyenne in the water. I was so relieved when they stopped, but now I’m having dreams about killing Virgil.”

Jude watched Emmy blink away more tears that she would never let fall.

“I saw him in that doorway, and I knew almost immediately that I was going to shoot him. That’s never happened before. I’m not saying that I can’t do my job, but usually, when shit starts to get real, I feel the stress of it. I get so damn jittery that I forget to breathe. But not with Virgil.”

Their eyes met when Emmy finally looked away from the water.

“I felt this stillness in my body. I was completely calm. I knew exactly what to do. My hands weren’t shaking. My heart wasn’t racing. I could see so clearly that it was him or me. And I did what Dad always told me to do. I did my job. I pulled the trigger and killed a man who’s known me all my life, and I didn’t feel a goddam thing.”

Jude asked, “What happened afterward?”

Emmy’s quick laugh was more from shock. “Jesus, I hate when you’re right about shit. I went outside and barfed up the lining of my stomach.”

Jude borrowed a page from Emmy and took a deep, calming breath. “The stillness you’re talking about is a trauma response. There are only three responses you can have: fight, flight, or freeze. You know what flight is. You run away. Freezing is often described as disassociation. You mentally go somewhere else so you don’t have to process what’s happening to your body. With Virgil, your brain chose fight. Dopamine flooded the reward center to reinforce your behavior because it was good for your survival.”

Again, Emmy was paying close attention.

“Feeling invincible can be a rush. The problem comes when you seek out those behaviors for the dopamine reward. You start pushing boundaries, putting yourself at risk, making bad decisions for the thrill of it, hurting yourself in the process.”

“That sounds like addiction.”

“That’s exactly like addiction. Both work on the same reward pathways. They can both alter the structure of the brain and change how it processes information.” Jude shrugged. “Why do you think I was so good at my job? It’s something that serial killers experience, too.”

Surprise flashed in Emmy’s eyes. “Tell me.”

“Some people think serial killers make mistakes because they want to get caught, but the real reason is they’re as desperate as any other addict. The first time they kill, they experience a rush of euphoria. The next time, it’s good, but it’s not like that first time. Their brains have built up a tolerance. They chase the euphoria by pushing boundaries, becoming more sadistic, more craven, to trigger the reaction. The desperation makes them sloppy. All they care about is feeling that rush.”

“The same as alcoholics.”

“The same as me. I took stupid risks and put myself in bad situations. I lost things that mattered. Things that were cherished. Things that I still cherish.”

Emmy picked at the Velcro straps again. “What you asked about Jonah. He didn’t hit me. He pushed me down the stairs when I was pregnant, and I felt so vulnerable. Trapped, if you want to know the truth, because we had Cole between us. After that, I just let him do whatever he wanted. That’s the shameful part of it. He didn’t have to hit me because I always gave in.”

The pain in Jude’s heart felt like glass shattering into millions of pieces. She should’ve been there. She could’ve protected her. “Emmy Lou, I’m sorry I missed so much of your life.”

Emmy’s eyebrows furrowed. “Less than two weeks ago, you didn’t even know I existed.”

Jude felt the danger of flying too close to the sun. She pulled herself back. “You should use fewer than when you’re talking about numbers.”

Emmy didn’t laugh this time. She took a deep breath and held it in her lungs for a very long time. “The night that Cheyenne and Madison went missing, Dad told me something, and I didn’t realize until later that he was talking about you.”

Jude took her own turn of staring out at the lake. Disassociation had always been her brain’s favorite coping mechanism. She tried to anchor herself back into the present. She looked at the brace around Emmy’s wrist. The white band of her watch. Gerald’s Sheriff of Clifton County star-shaped badge that she’d only lately pinned to her uniform.

Jude borrowed Emmy’s line. “Tell me.”

“We were talking about mistakes, and Dad said that he’d made all of his big mistakes early on. That he used to be too rigid. That he’d pushed people out of his life, but he couldn’t change what happened, and it was too late to apologize. He said he had to teach himself to be different. To learn how to forgive.”

Jude looked back at the water.

“Dad was big on forgiveness. For other people. For himself. I think what he was saying was, too much time had passed for an apology to heal things between the two of you. The way he made up for that was to change his life. To stop drinking. To be a better person. To learn to forgive.”

The earnestness in her voice was heartbreaking, but Jude could only think about the fact that a man who’d had the strength to turn his life around, who’d staked his character on forgiveness, had given up on the daughter he’d sent away.

“I’ve been thinking about that statistic you quoted on dual child abductions, that fewer than two dozen cases of double child abductions have been reported in the United States since the 1970s. You literally wrote the book on child abductions. You had to know about Cheyenne and Madison. Why didn’t you come home twelve years ago?”

“That’s a good question,” Jude said, but only to give herself a moment to come up with an answer. “Two vulnerable children were abducted. That hardly seemed like the time for a surprise Clifton family reunion. You and Dad needed to focus on building the case. I wasn’t going to exploit the situation to make it about me.”

“Okay,” Emmy said, but whether she was accepting the explanation or simply moving on was unclear. “I finally went into Dad’s office at the house.”

Jude studied her face. This didn’t have the usual feel of Emmy’s random deflections. “That must’ve been hard.”

“That’s not the point,” Emmy said. “I’m going to have to be blunt because that’s the only way I know how to say this. A few months ago, Dad asked Cole to show him how the printer works. We thought he was printing out photos, but I found his scrapbook in the filing cabinet. He’d printed out a bunch of articles about you. The last one was about how you’d finally located the Talbot girl.”

Jude felt like the world had been pulled out from under her.

“I don’t know how, but he must’ve done a deep dive on the internet. You worked really hard to keep your name out of the Freddy Henley case, but Dad found you.”

She was incapable of responding. Her father had followed her career. He had known that Jude had broken Freddy. That she had found the bodies of his victims. That she had returned all of them home.

Emmy said, “There’s more.”

Jude laughed to give herself a reason not to cry.

“The morning that Dad was killed he was writing a letter. Cole and I walked in on him, and he slipped it into a folder. Then we went to Adam Huntsinger’s house, and—” Emmy shrugged. “He never got to finish it. It’s not clear who he was writing it to, but I think it was meant for you.”

Jude’s heart started tapping like a snare drum. She watched Emmy reach into her back pocket, take out a folded sheet of lined notebook paper. Jude opened her purse, stretching out the act of locating her reading glasses, opening the case. Her hand only shook a little when she put them on. She unfolded the paper. Saw the date. Gerald’s old-fashioned handwriting.

Dear Daughter—

I thought I’d have a million words to say to you, but now that I’m sitting down to write them, I only have three. I’m so

Jude read it again. Then she turned over the page. There was nothing on the back. “That’s it? I’m so—and then nothing?”

“Yep,” Emmy said. “Like death Mad Libs.”

“Proud,” Jude said, because she knew that Gerald hadn’t addressed the letter to her. Emmy lived in his house. He had always called her daughter. “That’s the third word. He wanted you to know he was proud.”

“No, I think the third word was sorry. He was writing it to you. He was telling you I’m so sorry.”

Jude appreciated the generosity, but she knew that was a stretch. “We’ll never know.”

“Maybe,” Emmy said. “But apologies were on Dad’s mind that morning. He brought me and Tommy into his office to tell us he was putting Myrna in a facility. He said that she was already gone. That the woman who was our mother was as good as dead. And he apologized to both of us for waiting so long to put her in this godawful place.”

Jude folded the letter on the table between them. “I’m glad he took that decision out of your hands. It’s a hard one to make.”

“You’re giving me platitudes when I’m trying to give you answers.” Emmy sounded frustrated. “After Dad was shot, we had this moment before he died. He was looking at me, and he wasn’t confused or disoriented. He was right there with me, and he said, ‘Tell your mother I’m sorry.’”

The world shifted again. Jude made herself hold eye contact with Emmy, even as she broke out into a cold sweat. Had Emmy figured it out? Was she trying to tell Jude that she knew?

“I told Mom a few days later.”

Jude’s breath was caught in her chest. Her hands were shaking.

“I felt like an idiot, but I told her. She had no idea what I was talking about. Mom doesn’t remember me, let alone that I’m her daughter.”

Jude tried to steady herself. The guilt of her secret was making her mind leap to the wrong conclusions. She was acting like a suspect during an interrogation. She was going to make a stupid mistake. “What am I missing?”

“The obvious. Think about it. Dad had already apologized to me and Tommy that morning. Then he told me to tell Mom he was sorry. That only leaves you. Dad wrote the apology letter to you.” Emmy unfolded the paper, smoothed it flat on the concrete. “‘Dear Daughter, I’m so sorry.’”

The wind picked at the corners of the page. Jude took off her reading glasses. Folded them back into the case. Emmy was the one who’d missed something. On the morning of his death, Gerald Clifton had said that his wife was effectively gone. He had known as he lay in the street that his own life was reaching its end. His forty-two-year-old agreement would finally be complete. Jude had promised she wouldn’t step foot back in Clifton County until both of her parents were dead. Which meant Gerald hadn’t been seeking forgiveness from Myrna.

He’d been seeking forgiveness from Emmy’s mother, Jude.

“Shit.” Emmy had taken her phone out of her pocket to read a message. “Taybee voluntold me to bring potato salad to the potluck. She’s asking if you can do the deviled eggs. I’ve got Myrna’s recipes. We can help each other if you want?”

Jude looked into the clear, startling blue of her daughter’s eyes.

“Okay.”

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Acknowledgments

First thanks always goes to Kate Elton and Victoria Sanders—twenty-five years, y’all. Wtf?

I would also like to thank my confrere, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, as well as Diane Dickensheid, Christine Kelder, and the team at VSA. Thanks also to Hilary Zaitz Michael for bringing the magic.

At William Morrow, special thanks to Emily Krump, Liate Stehlik, Heidi Richter-Ginger, Jessica Cozzi, Rachel Berquist, Jen Hart, Kaitlin Harri, Chantal Restivo-Alessi, and Julianna Wojcik. At HarperCollins worldwide, thank you so much Jan-Joris Keijzer, Miranda Mettes, Kathryn Cheshire, and last but not least, the amazingly erudite and unceasingly determined Ms. Liz Dawson.

For research: David Harper brought his usual patience and kindness to fielding my peculiar medical questions. John Capo and Charity Norton weighed in on important legal details. Sherry Lang was incredibly helpful and knowledgeable about kidnapping and abduction investigations. PS helped with law enforcement hierarchy, procedural questions, and the stuff that makes me sound smarter than I actually am. Maggie Cherneff and Christina Lim at Snap answered some important safety questions. Thanks to all those named and unnamed for lending me your expertise. Obviously, any mistakes are my own.

Leo Berry-Lawhorn won the Charitybuzz “Name a Character” auction and gifted the dubious honor to Michael Berry-Lawhorn, who I hope is pleased with his complete transformation in a puffy Tyvek suit.

To my father, I’m glad you’re still hanging in there. To DA—I am never as happy as when I am with you.

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About the Author

KARIN SLAUGHTER is one of the world’s most popular storytellers. She is the author of more than twenty instant New York Times bestselling novels, including the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and standalone novels The Good Daughter and Pretty Girls. An internationally bestselling author, Slaughter is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. Pieces of Her is a #1 Netflix original series, Will Trent is now a hit television series starring Ramón Rodríguez on ABC, and further projects are in development. Karin Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta.

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Also by Karin Slaughter

Blindsighted

Kisscut

A Faint Cold Fear

Indelible

Faithless

Triptych

Beyond Reach

Fractured

Undone

Broken

Fallen

Criminal

Unseen

Cop Town

Pretty Girls

The Kept Woman

The Good Daughter

Pieces of Her

The Last Widow

The Silent Wife

False Witness

Girl, Forgotten

After That Night

This Is Why We Lied

EBOOK ORIGINALS

Snatched

Cold, Cold Heart

Busted

Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes

Last Breath

Cleaning the Gold (with Lee Child)

NOVELLAS AND STORIES

Like a Charm (Editor)

Martin Misunderstood

Copyright

Lyrics to “Misguided Angel” by Cowboy Junkies. Words and Music by Michael Timmins and Margo Timmins. Copyright © 1988 by Universal Music - Z Tunes LLC and Paz Junk Music. All Rights Administered by Universal Music - Z Tunes LLC. International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

Will Trent is a trademark of Karin Slaughter Publishing LLC.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WE ARE ALL GUILTY HERE. Copyright © 2025 by Karin Slaughter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2025 ISBN: 978–0-06–333677–3

Version 02252025

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