I am the witness.
The thought tattooed itself on Juniper’s skin, driven deeper and deeper by her every frantic heartbeat. Witness. Witness. Witness.
She had been there, on the Murphys’ farm, from the moment that Cal stepped out of the house until everything had been reduced to the freckle of starlight between heavy clouds and blood seeping into the dirt. When she pulled it apart, dissected that night, Juniper could see everything reduced to fragments of a whole. Puzzle pieces that fit somehow, but she couldn’t seem to put them together.
Or maybe she didn’t want to.
I think a witness would crack this whole thing wide open.
Juniper’s skin tingled at the memory of India’s direct gaze, of the fine line of her delicate jaw as it hardened in anticipation of what Juniper would—or wouldn’t—say. India was savvy. She’d solve the mystery sooner or later. Realize the same thing that Everett already had: there was time unaccounted for. Long minutes nobody could explain.
When Officer Stokes looked back at police reports, what would he find? Would he realize that by the time they collected Juniper at her parents’ farm around 11:30 p.m. that her hair was still dripping wet? She remembered sitting in the conference room of the small police department with the weight of her hair sopping the back of her T-shirt and making her shiver with cold. One of the officers wrangled up a dusty blanket from somewhere and tucked it around her trembling shoulders.
It was nearing ten, but Juniper knew that Willa was safe with Cora, so when she pulled into Everett’s driveway, she set her phone to silent mode and stuck it in her coat pocket. She wanted it with her just in case—she didn’t trust Everett for a second—but she also didn’t want it to ring and interrupt them. She had some hard questions to ask Officer Stokes, and she wasn’t about to be sidetracked.
“Juniper,” Everett said when he opened the front door (sidewalk freshly shoveled, porch light on), “I wasn’t expecting a visitor so late.” He gestured to the sweatpants and gray ISU sweatshirt he was wearing, but Juniper just gave him a tight-lipped smile.
He swung the door wider and she stepped inside. The last time she had been in his house, she’d entered through the garage into the laundry room and, beyond that, the kitchen. Now she was standing smack-dab in the middle of Everett’s living room; only a small tiled square separated the front door from the plush, recently vacuumed carpet that ran through the rest of the house. Directly across from where they stood was the elaborate fish tank and the door that she had peeked through. Juniper couldn’t stop herself from glancing toward the office. The door was closed.
“I forgot,” Everett said, following her gaze, “you were quite the fan of my fish tank.”
Juniper almost told him to cut the crap, that they both knew exactly what she was looking at, but she was hoping to play the ingénue a bit longer.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she agreed.
“But I take it that’s not why you’re here.” Everett held up his arms in surrender and gave her a contrite look. “Hey, I’m really sorry about this afternoon. I swear, I wasn’t trying to give you the third degree. I was just asking questions. It comes with the job. Guess I’m not very good at it yet.”
Bullshit. He knew exactly what he was doing, and his good cop/bad cop performance was pathetically obvious. But she accepted his apology with a shrug. “I overreacted. I don’t like talking about—or even thinking about—that summer. Lots of bad memories.”
Everett seemed to take stock of her posture, her words, and something inside him shifted. “Do-over?” he asked. “I promise I won’t grill you about that night. I think we could help each other.”
If he wanted to pretend they were cool, she would play along. “Okay,” she said, sliding off her coat and abandoning it on the floor. She followed him into the living room and sank into the corner of the sofa. Everett lingered over her for just a minute, then gestured to the bottle that was sitting on the coffee table. A beer, half gone.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’d love a glass of water.” She smiled, calculating the distance between where she was sitting and the office door, and wondering whether she could make it there and back before Everett returned. She couldn’t.
When he reappeared a minute later with an ice water, he sat down in the middle of the couch. Their knees weren’t touching, but close enough, and it made Juniper feel vaguely threatened. She was exhausted and shaky, and the truth was that Everett made her skin crawl.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, wiping the condensation from the glass with her thumbs.
Everett’s smile was lopsided and insincere. “Doing what?”
“Reopening the Murphy case. Asking questions about that night.”
“It’s my job,” he told her with a self-important smirk.
“Except it’s not. You’re not a detective, and the DCI unit handles cold cases in Iowa.” She gave him a pointed look. “You’re a small-town cop in Nowhere, Northwest Iowa.”
His smile frosted over, and then he gave up the facade and glared at her. “The murders happened in this town, my town. I have access to the files, the evidence, the community.”
Juniper nodded once, wishing that she could get her hands on those files and boxes of evidence. “And what have you discovered?”
“That’s absolutely none of your business.”
“You’re accusing my brother.”
Everett laughed. “Everyone accused your brother. He was found standing over Calvin Murphy’s body, quite literally holding the smoking gun.”
“No gunshot residue. No motive. He called 911. What killer would do that?” Juniper asked, borrowing from India’s playbook.
Everett seemed to consider her words for a moment. Then he leaned forward, bringing himself close enough to touch. She leaned back. “He did it,” Everett said slowly. “I know that he did. And I’m going to prove it.”
For just a heartbeat Juniper flashed to that night, to the rough-hewn boards biting into the skin of her bare shoulders and the shadow of a man beside her. She felt the blood drain from her face. “You’re wrong,” she forced herself to say.
“We’ll see.” Everett grabbed his beer off the coffee table and took a swig. “I find his behavior highly suspicious. He’ll trip up.”
“He’s awake,” Juniper said, and tried to hide her surprise when that tidbit of information made Everett’s eyes cloud over. The news hadn’t reached him yet.
“Good,” he said, too late.
But Juniper wasn’t sure what to do with his insincerity, so she asked, “Why aren’t you looking into the Tates? Franklin? Sterling?”
“Sullivan.”
“Him too.”
“You’re his alibi,” Everett reminded her. “And Jonathan’s, too. Is there something you’d like to tell me about that night?”
None of them had been where they were supposed to be. It was such an impossible situation. Suddenly Juniper had a splitting headache and she could feel tears forming behind her eyes. Wasn’t this where she always got caught up? She couldn’t believe that either Sullivan or Jonathan was capable of killing the Murphys in cold blood. And yet, had she felt a sense of familiarity in the barn that night? Please, God. No. Don’t let it be someone I love.
“Pinning this on my brother won’t fix anything,” she whispered. “It can’t rewrite the past or undo what happened with Carver.”
“What do you know about Carver?” Everett said icily.
“Nothing, really.”
“Exactly. Nothing. He was a good person, Juniper. Pure and kind, completely innocent. He couldn’t hurt a flea, much less murder someone. He didn’t know what he was saying, but it ruined everything.”
“That’s heartbreaking, Everett, truly, it is, but Carver’s innocence doesn’t prove my brother’s guilt.”
“He died in a group home. Did you know that? Just a couple of years after it happened. A winter flu turned into pneumonia, and before we even knew what was happening, he was gone.”
“I’m so sorry.”