Page 6

Gerald handed Emmy back the mic. They didn’t need a big discussion because you didn’t talk about a bad feeling, you checked it out, and if you were wrong, you were relieved, but if you were right, the feeling put you where you needed to be.

Emmy clipped the mic back onto her shoulder and followed Gerald up the hill.

People moved out of his way, but not only because he was the sheriff.

Her father was a big man, six feet two inches, and carrying more weight than he should around his middle.

His breathing was labored by the time they passed the empty bleachers and climbed the concrete stairs.

Emmy had to look down so that she didn’t step on the back of his shoes.

He wasn’t on duty, but he still had the bearing of a cop, even in a pair of old Keds with black ankle socks, gray nylon coach’s shorts, and a faded black T-shirt from a 2005 Reba McEntire concert.

Gerald didn’t stop to catch his breath until they’d reached the top of the stairs.

Emmy scanned the parking lot, her head swiveling in tandem with her father’s.

Cars were angled like toothpicks thrown onto the asphalt.

She could see brake lights glowing, people hanging out of car windows, hands being thrown up in the air.

The tension was so tight that she felt it in her back teeth.

Gerald looked down at her. “DFR?”

Emmy nodded. “Yep.”

Don’t Feel Right.

Gerald left the sidewalk. Emmy followed him down the first row, which was like an obstacle course packed with stopped cars and irritated drivers.

She silently checked in with her body, tried to keep her heartbeat steady and her mind clear.

Policing was about weighing the odds, and the odds of something horrific like a mass shooting were very low.

They were more likely to come up on another fender bender or a squabble over who got to merge first.

“Sheriff?” Sylvia Wrigley, the editor of the local paper, was standing with her car door open. “What’s going on?”

Gerald held up his finger, telling her to give him a minute, as he threaded his way between vehicles. They spotted the problem soon enough.

Emmy felt the tension leave her body like water swirling down a drain.

Last month, the fence around the soccer pitch had been taken down so that the field could be sodded with fresh grass.

Several rows of yellow caution tape had been strung up to keep people off the new sod until the roots took hold, but apparently, the driver of a red Miata had decided to ignore the warning.

Or tried to, at least. The low-slung sports car had wound up stuck mid-teeter-totter on the steep concrete curb.

The front end jutted into the air like the bow of the Titanic .

“Jackass,” Emmy mumbled. She recognized Lance Culpepper’s car. He worked as a clerk at the courthouse. He should’ve known better.

Emmy looked up at her father, but Gerald wasn’t interested in the Miata.

He was staring out into the field. Emmy squinted, trying to force her eyes to adjust. Lance hadn’t been the first genius looking for a shortcut to the main road.

A white Chevy Equinox was stopped in the middle of the pitch, sidelong to the parking lot, all four doors closed, windows up, lights off.

The tension swirled back up. Her cop brain spun through with worst-case scenarios—

Mass shooter, domestic violence, road rage, murder-suicide.

Emmy unsnapped the safety strap over her Glock.

She slipped the heavy flashlight off her belt and rested it on her shoulder.

The reach of the parking lot lights stopped shy of the penalty line.

Her police-issue Maglite had four D-cell batteries that put out 800 lumens, enough to show them the path to midfield.

The glass in the SUV was tinted dark. From this distance, there was no way to tell who was inside.

Gerald silently pointed out a large pool of oil courtesy of the Miata before he stepped onto the curb. Lance Culpepper gave Emmy a wide shrug when she looked into the car. She could tell by the way Dervla, his wife, was sitting with her arms crossed that she’d told him this was a bad idea.

Emmy asked them, “You see anybody else on the pitch?”

Lance shook his head.

Dervla volunteered, “He was too busy wrecking the car.”

Emmy told them both, “Stay here.”

She tilted down the flashlight as she walked onto the field.

The broken caution tape had been pressed into the ground by a tire with heavy treads.

There was an area of rough before her feet sank into the thick, new grass.

The panels of turf were still growing together.

The field looked like a patched-together quilt.

The grass blades were about three inches tall.

She saw a few stray pieces of garbage: gum wrappers, a plastic fork.

Except for the giant, white SUV, the pitch was mostly unspoiled.

She walked several paces behind and to the right of her father, reminding herself yet again to breathe. The driver could be sitting behind the wheel thinking through his poor decision-making. Or gripping a gun in his hand as he waited for the two cops to approach.

Emmy remembered to calm herself. She took in a deep breath, holding it in her lungs for a second, then slowly letting it go.

As she drew closer, she could hear the engine running.

The license plate was from Clifton County.

A North Falls Elementary sticker was on the bumper.

She strained her ears. Voices. A man and a woman on the other side of the vehicle. Harsh whispers. Tension. Anger.

Gerald called, “Show yourself.”

Emmy forgot about breathing. Her hand tightened on the grip of her Glock as she waited.

The couple walked around the rear of the vehicle.

Emmy exhaled. She pointed her flashlight toward the two adults standing at the rear of the Chevy.

Their hands were empty, faces tense. Hugo and Angela Sanders had clearly been engaged in a heated discussion before Gerald had interrupted them.

Emmy could see Tyler, their six-year-old, was asleep in his car seat inside the back.

They’d left the engine running for the air conditioning.

A long scratch had gouged paint off the side of the vehicle.

Part of the front bumper was hanging off.

The left fender was cracked. Emmy’s first thought was that this was a strange place to have a hit-and-run.

Then she let the flashlight travel along the ground.

“I didn’t see it,” Hugo told Gerald. “It’s not my fault.”

Emmy’s heart shivered to a stop. A bicycle was trapped under the back right tire of the SUV. She dropped to her knees, frantically searching for a body under the vehicle.

In front. Behind it. Beside it.

She didn’t find a body, but she recognized the bike.

Cartoonish pink and yellow daisies were painted on the light turquoise frame.

Glow-in-the-dark beads had been snapped onto the spokes.

There was a pastel yellow basket on the front.

More daisies were stitched onto the white leather saddle seat.

Emmy had seen the bike countless times before, abandoned in Hannah’s front yard, blocking her driveway, scuffing the paint off her porch railing.

It belonged to Madison Dalrymple. The same Madison Emmy had tried to talk to under the oak tree.

The same Madison she had blown off almost an hour ago.

“Hugo.” Emmy’s knees felt shaky as she stood back up. Her DFR had turned into a flashing red siren. “Do you know Madison Dalrymple?”

“No.” Hugo shrugged. “Maybe. What does that have to—”

“Is that her bike?” Angela asked. “Where are her parents? We’ve only had this car for a week. You better believe Paul can afford to fix this more than we can.”

“Seriously?” Lance Culpepper had decided to ignore Emmy’s order to stay put. “How is this Paul’s fault? You’re the one who drove onto the middle of the soccer field.”

“So did you.” Hugo scowled at the Miata. “Barely.”

“I was following you,” Lance said. “Did you not see the yellow caution tape?”

“It was already broken,” Hugo said. “Are you saying I should see things that you couldn’t even see?”

“Jesus, Lance,” Angela snapped. “Why don’t you go back to your little toy car?”

“Why don’t you stop taking the Lord’s name in vain?”

“Don’t tell my wife what to do.”

“Enough!” Emmy yelled loud enough to silence them. “Lance, get back in your car and stay there. Hugo, you want a ticket for leaving a marked pathway? Angela, check on Tyler.”

Emmy made sure they dispersed before she looked at her father again.

Gerald had tuned them out completely. He was staring down at the bike.

There was a hard expression on his face.

When Emmy was a child, she’d mistaken her father’s stony silence for disapproval.

Now she understood it meant that he was working a problem in his mind.

She told him, “That bike is Madison’s freedom. She’s fifteen. She can’t drive. She wouldn’t leave it in the middle of a field.”

He turned back toward the parking lot, his gaze on the ground.

Emmy followed his line of sight. He was tracking the path the SUV had taken out onto the field. With the turf so new, the tires might as well have driven through clay. She could read the tire impressions like a road map.

“Dad?” she asked.

Gerald started walking toward the parking lot. Emmy followed, keeping well clear of the impressions. They’d only gone a few yards when her father asked, “What else are we missing?”

Emmy turned back toward the SUV. In the distance, she could see a wrecker was pulling up to the accident. The line of cars was backed up on Long Street. Had Madison tried to cut across the field to go home, then dropped her bike for some reason?

She told her father, “The Chevy hit the front wheel of the bike first, so it was facing west.”

“Too big. Think smaller.”