Page 27

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.