Page 68

In a panic, I pushed the memory away before it could suck my mind in, focusing my eyes on the recorder that sat on the table. Caleb’s voice came back to me slowly, the vision bleeding away.

He looked up from the page. “Now, that’s a pretty specific detail, but there aren’t too many folks around here who would put much stock into one of Mimi Granger’s stories.”

I suddenly placed the name. Granger was the name on that mailbox—the one in front of the house off the river road. The day I’d come through the door, the woman on the porch had seen me. I still remembered that horrified look on her face.

There was still a glimmer in the room, my surroundings like rippling water. The scene around me was threatening to give way to the rush of the memory.

“Hell, she’s drunk half the time, and that’s why I didn’t worry too much about it,” he said.

I could hear thebutcoming, riding ahead of the words.

“But I have to do my due diligence, don’t I? And just when I went to check it with you and your timeline of that night, you up and disappeared to Norfolk,” he said. “Now, I’m a patient man, so I figured I’d wait until we could clear all this up. Then months went by, and you never came home. And all of a sudden, a few weeks ago—” He reached for the lump of plastic, unrolling it. “Mimi came barging in here with this.”

I leaned forward as the plastic came free, revealing a blue slip-on shoe caked with dried mud. A fabric buckle was fixed to one side. He set it down in the center of the table, and it took every ounce of composure I could muster not to recoil from it. I recognized it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was certain it was mine.

“Apparently, it got stuck in one of the forks of the tedder when they were cutting the west field and baling hay.”

If there was anything to say now, I didn’t know what it was. This wasn’t just fitting the pieces together. He was trying to fit the pieces aroundme.

That fear in Eamon’s eyes wasn’t just about his wife and the entire life she’d burned down when she left this place. It was about the minister. About the night he died.

“You told me that you didn’t have a pair of blue shoes. Is that right?”

“That’s right.” I didn’t hesitate, not wanting to risk even the slightest chance it would inflame his suspicion. All I could do was bank on whatever I’d told him last time.

He nodded. “All right. Is there any reason why Mimi would think she saw you that night? Or why she thought you were covered in blood?”

If I’d walked home from Esther’s, I wouldn’t cut through that field. I’d walk the path along the river.

“No. I don’t know what she saw, but it wasn’t me.”

He folded his hands patiently. “Look, June. I’m not fool enough to believe that a little thing like you could kill a full-grown man with your bare hands. I am, however, inclined to think that a loving wife would protect her husband at any cost.”

My lips parted as his meaning sunk in. It wasn’t me he was after. It was Eamon.

A frantic knock sounded at the door, and Sam sprung forward, opening it. A man I couldn’t see stood on the other side.

“We’ve got a problem out here. Eamon just showed up.”

Tears instantly filled my eyes, my lungs finally expanding. I resisted the urge to stand from the chair, hands twisting into my skirt. I could hear shouting down the hall and the familiar accent-laced rasp of Eamon’s voice found me.

“Speak of the devil,” Caleb said, flatly.

He hit the button on the recorder, making the turntables stop. The machine fell quiet as he got to his feet. “Something tells me this isn’t the last conversation we’ll be having. So, I’d appreciate it if you could stay where I can find you.”

“I will.”

The surface of Caleb’s entire countenance was simmering now, an ominous underbelly to the polite manners. “You be sure that you do.”

Sam opened the door, and I bumped the table as I stood, nearly knocking the box that held the shoe to the floor. I walked out, following the hallway back to the front desk.

Eamon’s voice grew louder. “You can tell me where the fuck she is.”

He stood on the other side of the glass barrier that separated the office from the waiting room. He was straight-backed and stern, his jacket collar pulled up around his jaw.

“Eamon.” Another officer had a hand in the air, a gesture that was meant to calm him down. But Eamon looked like he was coming out of his skin.

“Open the door, Paul.” Eamon wasn’t asking. “Now.”