Burke sits back. Crosses his arms across his dress shirt. The top two buttons are undone. “Let’s take Cliff out of the equation for a minute. Say he had nothing to do with this. Where would Bailey go if she was upset?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “She would normally go to Jade’s, but she obviously didn’t want Jade with her wherever she was going.”
“So you think she was headed somewhere with a specific place in mind.”
“I didn’t say that. Maybe she just drove around, to clear her head or something.”
Burke nods for me to continue. “You’re doing real good, Kacey. Go on.”
It’s a thousand degrees in here. I unzip my jacket, shrug out of it. “Maybe while she was driving around, something happened. She could have had a beer or two at the party—if she got into an accident, she may have panicked. I mean, she would never call her parents in a million years. She’d sooner wait by the road for help, I guess. And maybe she ran into the wrong person?”
Burke holds up one hand, twirls his pen through the fingers on the other.
Burke is watching me. “I know this is hard. Would you say that Bailey was the type to trust a stranger who pulled over to give her help?”
“Not really. I mean, it’s a small town. There aren’t a lot of strangers.” I realize I’m making Bailey sound na?ve. “She—she knows there’s bad people out there. She’s just the type of person who thinks that nothing bad is ever going to happen to her.”
The corner of Burke’s mouth tugs upward. “You remind me of my daughter a bit, Kacey. You notice a lot about people. That’s something special.”
A swell of pride. I tamp it down, but not before a smile quivers on my own lips. That’s when I see something flash in Burke’s eyes. It’s the look of a hunter with a rifle cocked and aimed. The satisfied tug in his expression when he knows he’s got a perfect shot at his prey.
He is playing me. He wants me to feel important. I grip the edge of the table. He thinks everything I just said is bullshit. “Is there, like, a point to this?” I ask.
Burke’s smile flickers. “I’m just comparing theories. Most folks I talked to figured if Bailey was upset, she would have sought out you or Jade Becker.”
“Are you asking if she was on her way to see me when she went missing?” I ask. “Because she definitely wasn’t.”
In the corner, Ellie’s spine straightens. I’ve said the wrong thing; I imagine her piecing everything together. My not being at the party. How I was so quick to say that Bailey and I never fought.
“Okay, refresh my memory,” Burke says. “The last time you saw Bailey was Saturday, at your stepmom’s café?”
“Yes.”
“What’d you talk about?”
I swallow. “Nothing, really. She got breakfast and left.”
“And what did you do Saturday night, again? From what I hear, you spent most of your Saturday nights with Bailey and Jade. Why was this weekend different?”
“I already told her”—I nod to Ellie—“that I had dinner with my family and went to bed around ten.”
Burke takes a sip from his coffee. “Your statement to Deputy Knepper over here says that the next morning, after you paid a visit to Mr. Sullivan’s house, you and Jade decided together to drive by the Grossos’.”
Had I said that? “I said maybe we should check and see if she was at Cliff’s, and Jade agreed. I can’t really remember whose idea it was.”
“So you suggested looking for Bailey at Cliff’s. Why?”
“Because I thought she might be there.” My tongue feels dry. It’s stifling in here. I want to gulp down the water in front of me but don’t want to give Burke a reason to think I’m nervous. “He was the last person to talk to her at the party. It made sense. At the time.”
I hate the look in Burke’s eyes; it’s like he’s trying to see past me, figure out what he’s missing. Like he suspects I’m nothing but a carefully constructed act: the compliant, quiet one. The reasonable friend. It’s who I’ve built myself up to be over the past year, because if the Markhams knew how I used to be, my happy new life would crumble around me.
“Okay, and instead of finding Bailey at Cliff’s, you found her phone. How’d y’all find it again?”
“Jade called it and it started to ring. We followed the noise to the woods.”
“Here’s what I can’t wrap my head around. If Bailey’s phone was lying out in the cold, how was the battery not dead?” Burke glances at Knepper. “I don’t know about you, but if I leave my phone in the car for even an hour in this weather, it’s done.”
Ellie gives a noncommittal nod.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe it wasn’t out there that long.”
“Okay. So you found Bailey’s phone while you were looking for her at Cliff Grosso’s. Makes sense.” Burke leans on his elbows, toward me. “Now, showing up at that barn and finding the blood? That makes less sense.”
Of course, that’s why I’m here. Does he think that I’m the one who left that blood smear in the barn?
Just tell the truth and nothing bad will happen. My mom said that to me when I was a kid, after I’d gotten into a scuffle with a girl during a kickball game in elementary school. She’d said I kicked the ball into her face on purpose because she and her friends wouldn’t let me sit at their lunch table. I remember sitting in the principal’s office waiting room, my mom’s hand in mine.
Just tell the truth and nothing bad will happen.
It’s such a load of bullshit. If I start from the beginning, tell Detective Burke everything, Ashley and my dad will definitely blame me for what’s happening with Lauren.
There’s only so much people are willing to forgive. That’s the truth that trumps everything else.
“I already told you why I was at the barn,” I say.
Burke leans forward. “You want to know what I think, Kacey? I think you’re not telling me why you really went to Sparrow Hill yesterday morning.”
I look over at Knepper. She’s watching me, two fingers touching her chin, like I’m a painting she’s trying to decipher. Burke taps the table. Look at me.
“We’ve got three locations”—Burke starts to tick them off on his fingers—“Bailey’s vehicle, the barn, and the property where you found her phone. And we’ve got you, at two of those locations.”
A flutter of panic. “Am I a suspect or something?”
“You’re not a suspect. In fact, I think you’re a witness. I think you know something you’re not sharing with me, something you maybe don’t think is important.”
“I went to the barn because I heard something. A rumor.”
“A rumor.”
“This girl who lives on my street—this kid—she said she saw someone covered in blood running down Sparrow Hill the night Bailey disappeared.”
I’ve caught Burke off guard; he pauses with his coffee at his lips. Sets it back down instead of taking a sip. “That’s quite a story. One that might have been helpful for us to know about.”
“You’d have to know this girl, Chloe,” I say. “She lies all the time for attention. Tells the other kids stories about the Red Woman. I didn’t want to waste your time—I honestly thought I wouldn’t find anything up there.”
“The Red Woman?” Burke looks at Ellie, who clears her throat.
“It’s, ah, a local legend.”