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“Don’t wait for the flight manifests to come back.

Go at Adam with what we think we know. You’re the best interrogator we’ve got, and Adam’s the only suspect who might be stupid enough to talk.

I need you to help get him there. He has to know more information about his father.

A place they used to go when he was a kid, an old family property with a hunting cabin.

If you can turn Adam on Walton, I bet you can turn Alma, too. ”

Jude didn’t fight her. “I’ll leave now.”

Emmy ended the call. Held tight to the steering wheel.

Rain started slapping against the windshield.

The wipers could barely keep up. She took a sharp turn into Virgil’s driveway, then reversed into the spot beside the horse trailer.

Emmy ran across the yard toward the basement.

Her boots slid on the concrete steps. She was reaching over the doorjamb for the key when her phone started to buzz.

She had to shout over the shush of rain. “What is it, Brett?”

“Chief,” he said, “something weird’s going on with Alma Huntsinger. I went upstairs to check on her. She’s not making sense. Can’t keep her eyes open. Swear to God it’s like she’s drugged.”

Jude’s warning was still in Emmy’s head. This was a predator’s most dangerous time. She asked, “Where’s Walton?”

“Downstairs in the den. He’s got the TV up so loud it’s shaking the windows.”

“Call an ambulance. Backup should be there any minute.” Emmy slid the key into the lock. She kicked the bottom of the door to unwedge it from the frame. “Brett, don’t let your guard down with Walton. He plays up being old, but he’s still dangerous.”

“Yes, chief.”

Emmy had to kick the door closed to keep out the rain.

She tucked her phone back into her vest. Flipped on the fluorescent lights.

She went to the closet in the back, ran her fingers down the labels on the file boxes wedged into the cramped space.

Emmy recognized some of the names from Virgil’s cheating spouse investigations.

She didn’t see her handwriting on any of them, but there was one at the very bottom with Virgil’s old-fashioned script.

CALL LOGS

She didn’t have time to be careful. She got on her knees and yanked at the box, trying to dislodge it like a Jenga piece.

Instead of sliding out, the cardboard split at the corners.

The other boxes collapsed on top of her, pounding into her shoulders and the top of her head.

Emmy fell back, her arms flying up to protect her face.

Dust swirled into her nose and down her throat.

She was seized by a sneezing fit. There was a gash in her forehead.

Emmy touched her fingers to the wound and pulled back blood.

“Shit,” she mumbled, rolling onto her side, sitting back up on her knees.

Papers were everywhere, typed, handwritten, photographs, receipts.

Thankfully, the contents of the call log box were still intact.

She slid it over. The top page had Walton Huntsinger’s name and address.

The AT&T logo with its familiar blue globe was in the corner.

Emmy thumbed through the stack, noting the dates and numbers.

Alma’s cell phone account. Walton’s cell.

The landline. Everything from twelve years ago was all there.

Emmy started to lift out the stack of papers, but her arms didn’t quite get the message. Her hands hovered in the air. She felt her brain struggling to make a connection. It was like a swarm of bees was suddenly inside her skull.

She opened her mouth. Took a deep breath.

Police agencies ran on paperwork. Every document that was handled by the Clifton County Sheriff’s Department was Bates stamped with a searchable code and date.

The information was recorded in a log, and the log told you who was responsible for verifying the information.

This policy had been in place going back to the last century.

Even if a document wasn’t part of trial discovery, even if it wasn’t scanned into the server, you stamped the page at the bottom and you filed it in the appropriate place so that it could be easily retrieved if needed.

None of the papers in the box had a Bates number.

They didn’t have Virgil’s notations, either. That was the other rule. If you tracked down a phone number, you wrote down the information you’d found out. That way, if you went on a vacation or if you keeled over at your desk, the next deputy could pick up your work.

Emmy pulled out a random page. Held it up to the light.

She noticed dots of Wite-Out over some of the digits in the phone numbers.

New numbers had been written on top with a fine-tipped pen.

Emmy hadn’t seen the opaque correction fluid since she was in middle school.

Myrna had used it to fix typos when she was creating tests on her old Smith Corona typewriter.

If you had neat enough handwriting, you could substitute the correct letter or number, then you could make a photocopy, and no one could tell the difference.

The Wite-Out was cracked and yellowed. Emmy used her thumbnail to scratch it away.

She held it up to the light again. The original phone number was as familiar to her as the landline to her family home.

She had called it countless times as a young mother whose son loved riding horses, as a deputy in need of advice from a trusted mentor, as a friend who wanted to share a glass of wine or dinner.

It belonged to Virgil Ingram.

Emmy looked at the old photocopier that was pushed against the wall. The ancient dot-matrix printer. The early 2000s Dell desktop. Everything a person would need to tamper with evidence before Bates stamping the faked documents and scanning them into the police server.

Blood dripped into Emmy’s eye. The gash in her forehead was still bleeding.

She was in a daze when she stood up. Her mind was numb to the implications of what she’d found.

She could only silently recite the facts.

The phone number that appeared multiple times in Walton Huntsinger’s call logs belonged to Virgil.

Wite-Out had been used to alter the number so that it could not be traced back to Virgil.

None of the real evidence had been processed through the system.

There were no stamps. No notations. The evidence had been sitting inside a box that only Virgil had access to.

Emmy was on autopilot when she pushed aside the boxes to clear a path to the first aid kit on the wall.

She pried open the rusted door. The blood from her fingers left a streak on the white metal.

No Band-Aids or bandages were inside, just sixteen hooks of the kind you’d hang keys on.

Only, there were no keys inside the box.

Each hook held a small, clear bag with pieces of jewelry inside.

A thin silver bracelet with the initial K.

A gold necklace with a cross. A Klutz friendship bracelet.

A small Gryffindor badge. A pair of star-shaped earrings like you’d buy for a child who’d just gotten her ears pierced.

Trophies.

She reached for the old flip phone that rested in the bottom of the cabinet.

Black with a mirrored front. Nearly an inch thick.

The hinge was an elongated rectangle with a camera lens inside.

Emmy flipped open the phone. Read the model number: Nokia N93i.

She turned it over to look at the back. Saw the initials scratched into the plastic: C.B.

She pried open the tiny door on the side.

There was a blue miniSD card in the slot.

Emmy was breathless when she looked up at the ceiling.

She didn’t see the stained tiles. She saw Virgil walking down Felix and Ruth Baker’s driveway two hours after Madison had been abducted.

He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Holding a handkerchief to the deep scratches on his arm.

Warning them about the sticker bushes on the side of the house.

Covering the three deep gouges that a fifteen-year-old girl’s fingernails had dug into his skin.

She saw Virgil sixteen hours later. Emmy had collapsed on the floor of the shed in Walton Huntsinger’s backyard.

Gerald was holding her steady. Virgil was reaching down to offer his handkerchief.

The cotton was wet. So was Virgil’s hair.

He’d picked at his shirt collar. His uniform was stuck to him like cling film because his skin was still wet from dragging Cheyenne and Madison’s chained bodies to the middle of Millie’s pond.

She saw the photocopier. The computer. The altered call logs that hid Virgil’s constant communications with Walton Huntsinger on and around the Fourth of July.

The Nokia flip phone. The girl’s jewelry.

The trophies he’d taken off his other victims. The blatant way he’d hidden everything in plain sight inside the basement of his own home.

Twelve years ago, Virgil had been in charge of tracking down all of the electronic devices.

They had taken him at his word when he’d told them the burners couldn’t be traced.

The license plate scanners had come up with nothing.

The cell tower data was useless. The man working the Hertz counter had remembered seeing Walton when he checked in the car.

The mileage added up. Cheyenne’s donated laptop had been clean.

Her burner phone had been sent to Quantico.

The second burner that was found in her pocket was too waterlogged.

There was no evidence that tied the girls to anyone but Adam Huntsinger.