That seemed to throw her a little. “Okay?”
“I’m sorry, Danielle,” I said. “I don’t know what else to tell you. You didn’t see Sarah Cook at the gas station that night. I thought I could find another way in to helping out your brother, but I can’t. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where else I can look. You should hire someone else, some ex-military guy with a buzz cut and an illustration of a shooting-range target on his business card and maybe he’ll have some entirely conventional approach with better results. And don’t hold this against my brother. He’s nothing like me.”
I hung up and went back to the bedroom. But instead of getting back under the covers, I leaned against the doorframe for a while. I had no idea how I had gotten here: what started as a search for a potential witness to a very old case had turned into a missing teenager, circa now. Along the way I had two viable suspects that were, in retrospect, not all that viable. I’d lied to Sarah’s cousin and wound up with a broken window as punishment. I’d never been able to make sense of the Cook murders at all, which was the very thing I set out to resolve. I’d made a series of connections that maybe didn’t exist, that could too easily be chalked up to small-town syndrome. Maybe too much time had passed to be able to prove anything either way. Maybe none of it was connected in the first place. Maybe the woods below Clover Point were a notorious dumping ground for murderers across the entire Midwest because of the indistinct jurisdictions and general isolation.
But the blue tarp.
The image of the bones rose into my mind.
It almost didn’t make a difference if any of it was connected, not anymore, I tried to tell myself. Mallory and Colleen and Sarah’s parents were still dead, even if no one ever figured out what really happened.
Except that wasn’t true. Of course it mattered. It mattered to Brad and Danielle. And it mattered to Veronica and Shelby and Joshua.
And really, it mattered a whole hell of a lot to me.
THIRTY-ONE
Shelby was making grilled-veggie sandwiches for lunch when I got to their house. “I have an extra one,” she said, “are you hungry?”
“Sure, that sounds great, thank you,” I said. It was warm in the house, and I took off my leather jacket and hung it from the back of a chair at the dining table.
“Guess you had a feeling she was coming, huh, Shel?” Joshua said.
Shelby didn’t say anything. We looked at each other and I could tell that the sandwich was really for Veronica, a hopeful, hopeless gesture. “It’s probably not going to be very good,” she said. “We’re out of garlic and he wouldn’t let me go to the store to get more. So the flavor is like nothing.”
“Shelby,” her father said, an uncharacteristic note of warning in his voice. To me, he added, “She’s getting a little stir-crazy.”
Shelby slammed a skillet down on the stove. “Stop saying that. God,” she said, brushing past us on her way out of the kitchen. A beat later, her bedroom door slammed.
Joshua shook his head. He hadn’t changed his shirt from yesterday and it looked like he still hadn’t slept. “She’s never like this,” he said. “But she hates me right now. I wouldn’t let her go to work at the restaurant. I wouldn’t let her go to the store, I wouldn’t let her go make more copies. She acts like that means I don’t care about Veronica, but of course I do. She’s practically another daughter to me, that girl. The police said there’s nothing we can do except stay safe ourselves.”
“I know.”
“I’m sick over this.”
“I know.”
“Shelby doesn’t remember her mom,” he added. “So it’s like something that didn’t happen to her. But it happened to me. I remember. And this—I just—” He stopped and brought his fist down on the table, hard enough to knock over his beer bottle. It was empty, but it rolled onto the floor where it clinked against something. Glancing over his shoulder, I saw quite the collection of empties in a brown paper bag.
So that was why he hadn’t just driven her to the store for more garlic. This man is her father, I reminded myself, my chest tight.
“Joshua,” I said, “if Shelby wants to make copies, I’ll go with her. It might be good for the two of you, to have a little space. You don’t need to be at odds with each other at a time like this. She’d be safe with me.” And I’d reloaded my revolver, I thought but did not say.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I know you have your own life.” But there was gratitude in his eyes.
“I’d be happy to,” I told him. “Really.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Roxane.”
I patted his shoulder and left him sitting at the table and went down the hall to Shelby’s bedroom. I knocked on the closed door. “Can I come in?” I said.
“Whatever.”
That wasn’t much of an invitation, but I went in anyway. Shelby was sitting cross-legged on her bed, arms crossed. Her computer was open on the blanket next to her, Veronica’s Facebook page on the screen. She didn’t look at me.
“Shelby,” I started.
“I thought you were mad at me or something,” she blurted, beginning to cry. “Or you thought I was so stupid. Because you went away and stopped helping us.”
I closed the door and sat down next to her. “No,” I said. I felt sick. “No, that couldn’t be further from the truth. When I left the other day, I thought I knew something about what might have happened, and I went and made a really stupid choice, and because I was interfering with what the police were doing, I got arrested.”
She finally looked at me, her eyes going wide.
“That’s why I didn’t answer when you called,” I added. “And yesterday, once I got out of jail, I was feeling really bad and I didn’t know how to help you. Your dad said the police were doing everything they could, and I thought I should leave them to it. But then I realized if it was my friend who didn’t come home, it wouldn’t matter to me if the police were doing everything they could. I’d want to do everything I could. Even if that was just something small. So that’s why I came back, to see if I could help you today. Your dad said you want to make more copies of your flyer. I’ll go with you, if you want me to.”
Shelby covered her face with her hands, nodding. “Thank you.”
“Why don’t you finish making lunch for your dad, and we can go. Okay?”
*