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CHAPTER TEN

Emmy sat across from Elijah Walker, Paisley’s father. They were in the police station this time instead of the family’s home in west North Falls. The insurance broker was dressed in the white button-up shirt and dark gray pants he’d been wearing when he’d left for work yesterday morning.

“I can’t—” Elijah’s voice caught. “I can’t remember anything about him.”

She looked at her watch. It was twelve-sixteen in the morning. They had passed the seventeen-hour mark since Paisley had been taken.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Elijah said.

Emmy found herself incapable of looking away from her watch. Dried blood was caked into the crown. Fifteen hours had passed since her father had died. She could barely blink without seeing his face.

“Ms. Clifton?” Elijah asked.

Emmy took a deep breath before looking back up. “It’s Chief Clifton, Mr. Walker. I need you to walk me through your morning again.”

He shook his head. “What’s the point? I’ve told you this same story a million times. You should be out looking—”

“Everyone is out looking for Paisley. The entire sheriff’s department, every force in the quad-city area, the fire department’s search and rescue, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Highway Patrol, and every jurisdiction within a 500-mile radius.

” Emmy clasped her hand over her watch. She could feel the heat from the glass against her palm.

“I’m here talking to you because what you saw yesterday morning could end up being very important. ”

“I don’t know if I even saw—” He rubbed his face with his hands. “It might not even be his truck. Do you know how many trucks—”

“Mr. Walker.” Emmy made herself let go of her watch.

She placed her hands flat on the table. Her leg started shaking.

She struggled to get her anxiety under control.

“We need to reset here. I know you’re frustrated, and I know you want your daughter back, but I promise you, the best way to make that happen is to walk me through what you saw yesterday morning. ”

“It was—” He shook his head again. “A black truck. An older model with a bad muffler.”

Emmy could only think of Adam’s truck, but it was light green and very distinctive, with a front end like Tow Mater from the Pixar Cars movie. “When you say older model, do you mean like last century or—”

“I’m not a truck expert. I wasn’t even paying attention. I was on my phone.”

This was new information. “Who were you calling?”

“Nobody. I was listening to my messages from overnight. Clients call me when they have accidents. I call them back and we go over details. I glanced down for a second. Then I looked up and he was there. I almost hit him.”

Another new detail. “Did you see his face?”

“I couldn’t see through his windshield. It happened fast. But I remember thinking that the truck was like the guy’s truck. Anthony, I think. Something like that.”

“Good.” Emmy was careful not to say the name back to him so it didn’t imprint. “Tell me about the driver.”

Elijah gave another frustrated sigh. “It was four months ago, okay? I don’t remember the details.

I was getting the mail and he pulled up, told me he’d been working on the street.

I don’t know whose house. But he said he had some leftover pine straw from another job and he could spread it around the flower beds if I wanted. ”

“Okay.” Emmy assumed the man had been driving around with bales of straw hoping to snag some cash. “Did he get out of the truck to talk to you?”

“No, he was leaning his arm on the window.”

“Was he at eye-level? Was he higher or lower than you?”

“Eye-level, I guess.”

Emmy guessed that meant the truck was mid-sized, which eliminated Adam’s 1982 Chevy. “Do you remember how much he charged?”

“Do you know how many people I pay during the year?”

She tried another tack. “You’re at the office during the week, right? You never work from home.”

Elijah looked surprised, like maybe she knew what she was doing. “Right, so it would’ve been a Saturday or Sunday.”

Emmy nodded to keep him going. “Can you try again to remember what he looked like?”

“I told you, he looked Mexican. Dark hair. Dark skin.”

Emmy could hear the pejorative in his tone, like he was using the word as a slur rather than a place of birth. “Do you mean actually from Mexico or—”

“I didn’t ask him where he was from.”

“Did he have an accent?”

“I think so.” He thought about it for another second. “Yes, but easy to understand.”

“Was he wearing a watch or sunglasses or a hat?”

He shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “I can’t remember.”

“No tattoos?”

More head-shaking and shrugging. He was getting frustrated again. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s all right. Let’s just take it slowly.” Emmy pressed her hand on her leg, tried to stop it from jiggling up and down. She was getting a cramp in the arch of her foot. “How was he dressed?”

“Like a landscaper. I didn’t look at what he was wearing. What does that even mean? Clothes. He was wearing clothes.”

“Boots?”

“Probably?”

Emmy waited another beat, then asked, “Was your wife home?”

“No, Carol put on a few pounds over the holidays. She was at her spinning class.” Another revelation.

He snapped his fingers, pointed at Emmy.

“That means it was Saturday. Her class is at ten, then she gets her nails done, then she has lunch with her Bible Study group, then she goes to the grocery store. She’s usually home by two or three at the latest.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, of course I am. I wouldn’t be home alone with Paisley otherwise. We spend every Sunday together as a family. Morning mass, then the fellowship supper.”

“Okay.” Emmy gripped her thigh in a vain attempt to stop the shaking. The muscles were tight. She couldn’t get her brain to send a signal to stop it. “So, you tell the man in the truck yes, that you want the pine straw, then he starts spreading it around, and then what?”

“I went back inside. I checked on Paisley. I thought she was still in bed, but she wasn’t in her room. She was talking on her phone on the back deck.”

“Talking to whom?”

“Not talking—kids don’t talk. She was texting or doing Snap. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I just told her to turn down her music.”

“Did she?”

Elijah shook his head again, but said, “I guess? I took a shower. When I came out, the music wasn’t on. She was talking to him. That Anthony guy.”

“Where was he standing?”

“In the backyard by the monkey grass area that rings the tree. He had some pine straw in his hands, but he was looking up at her, and I remember thinking that I didn’t like that. Didn’t like the way he was looking at her.”

Emmy crossed her legs at the knee, but she could still feel the tremble in her legs. “Was Paisley standing or sitting on the deck?”

“Leaning on the railing.” Elijah started shaking his head again.

“I didn’t like that, either. She was still wearing her pajamas.

The shorts were too tight across her bottom.

You could practically see everything. Carol was going to talk to her about it.

Paisley was too old to wear them anymore. I wanted her to dress more modestly.”

“How did Carol feel about that?”

“What does it matter how Carol felt?” he demanded. “You know what I was worried about. Paisley was sending the wrong signals. Look where it got her.”

Emmy tried to ease him out of that corner. “Does Paisley tend to stay in her pajamas all day over the weekends?”

“No, the rule is she has to be in real clothes by lunch.” He had another moment of insight. “That gives you an idea of the time, right? Carol left at quarter till ten, so it was after that, but before twelve thirty, which is when we have lunch.”

“Right,” Emmy said. “What about the landscaper? What was he wearing?”

“I told you I don’t—” He froze, his mouth hanging open. “A light-colored shirt. Tan, maybe. With a patch here.”

Emmy watched him touch his right hand to his left chest. “What color was the patch?”

Elijah squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember. “It had green stitching on it, like a tree or bush. And his pants were light brown, too. That’s why I thought he was legit, because he looked like he worked on a landscaping crew.”

“Okay, good.” Emmy had uncrossed her legs. She could hear the heel of her boot tapping against the floor. She leaned forward in the chair. Tried to force the jackhammering to stop. “Now go back to when you saw Paisley and the man outside. Did you hear anything they said?”

“No, but Paisley was laughing. I didn’t like how it sounded. Fake, high-pitched. And then when I opened the door and walked out, they both stopped talking.”

“Did you say anything?”

“No, I didn’t have to. They knew what they were doing.

” He wiped his hand with his mouth, clearly worked up.

“Anthony finished spreading the pine straw. Paisley went inside the house. I told her she didn’t need to be flirting with men like that.

I was going to talk to Carol about it later, but then her worthless brother had some kind of emergency and I … ”

Emmy watched him wipe his mouth again. She asked, “What was Paisley’s response when you admonished her?”

“She threw a tantrum. Said I had embarrassed her. That I didn’t understand.

But I understood exactly what was going on.

You tease a grown man, you get the consequences.

” His hands had clenched into fists on the table.

“And I was right, wasn’t I? She flirted with this guy and now God only knows what he’s doing to her. ”

Emmy waited for Elijah to calm down, but he didn’t.

“Why are you even here?” he demanded. “Your father was murdered yesterday morning. Why aren’t you with your family?”

Emmy felt her throat clench. “My father would want me here, Mr. Walker. One of the last things he told me was to call the FBI. He wanted me to find Paisley.”

“Really?” he asked. “Like you did such a great job finding those dead girls in the pond?”

Emmy pressed her lips together.