“That isn’t anyone’s fault but yours. You are the one who kept the entire relationship quiet. But that’s not what matters. What matters is you didn’t say anything. When she went missing and then showed up by those tracks, you didn’t say anything about being with her the last night anyone saw her. You didn’t tell anyone you knew Jake drove her back and forth.”
“Are you saying I somehow should have known he was behind it? I should have just guessed that since he drove her and knew we were together, obviously he was the one who cut her up and sent her running for that train track? You were sleeping with the guy, and you didn’t know.”
“I wasn’t sleeping with him,” I say. “But if I was dating someone secretly and they ended up dead, I’d want to make sure the person I last saw them with didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“I guess it all ended up alright in the end,” he mutters.
Except for Cristela and all the people who died after her, I want to say, but I hold it back. Arguing with the chief isn’t going to do any good. It won’t change what happened or bring back any of the lives that were lost. All we can do now is be satisfied Jake was caught, and his lawyer isn’t going to be able to talk his way out of it.
“How is Cole?” I ask.
LaRoche nods. “He’s getting there. This was all a lot for him. He’s just trying to figure it out. I don’t think he knows how he’s supposed to feel about it.”
“I can’t imagine he’ll ever really know how he’s supposed to feel about it,” I say.
“Finding out Jake is his son hit him hard.”
“I think in a way he always knew. Or at least suspected it. That had to be why Jake was treated so badly by his family. I find it hard to believe the man he thought was his father wouldn’t have confronted Cole about it.”
“It would explain a lot of things I heard from my father about those two,” he says.
“Can I ask you a question now?”
“Go ahead.”
“How could no one know? Feathered Nest is so small. How could no one know where Jake lived or that Wendy was his grandmother?” I ask.
“I told you once, Emma. People keep to themselves. They don’t pry into people’s lives. Everyone knew John Logan and the way he could be. People tended to steer clear of him. His father was even worse than him, and Jake seemed to be keeping things together.”
“So, no one ever thought to check,” I say. “They just let him get beaten down until there was nothing left but the dreams that helped him survive.”
LaRoche doesn’t say anything in response. I give a slight nod. “Have a good day, Chief.”
I turn to walk away.
“Emma.”
I turn back around and lift my eyebrows at him. He stares at me for another few seconds. “You did well. I wouldn’t have had the balls to go into that place alone.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter Nine
Him
It had been a long time since he was that close to her. It was different from walking through her space or being near enough to where she had been to feel her in the air, to smell her. Then he could sense her. He could feel her distant presence. He could even use images he’d stolen from pictures and etched into his mind as a way to carry them as his own to imagine her there with him.
But now he could see her. She was so close. No more than a dozen yards away. Close enough to see the darker streaks in her blond hair and the glint of a bracelet around her wrist.
Emma. He wanted to say it, to call it out, and see if she responded. But he held it back. Not yet. Not now. As much as he wanted to see how she would react when she saw him, he knew this wasn’t the time. His chance would come. Soon he would have his moment, but he had to be patient. If he acted too fast, it could ruin everything. But he’d been waiting so long. So many years.
Questions hung around him. He’d get the answers soon.
For now, he had to settle for hiding behind sunglasses and the edge of a statue that shaded him just enough to conceal his face. Even if she looked his way, he could dip back behind the stone before she got a good enough look at his face to recognize him.
He waited for her outside for hours. He found out the next time she would be there and positioned himself outside that morning, not wanting to risk missing her. The glimpse he got of her as she arrived and hurried up the steps into the building wasn’t enough. He settled against the statue to wait. The sun sparkled on the mica and stung on his skin, but he waited. She was worth the sweat gliding down the back of his neck. Worth the heat searing his forearms and burning the tips of his ears. He passed the day on bottled water and picking the grains of coarse salt from a soft pretzel.
He liked unraveling the pretzel, seeing how many of the twists and curves he could separate from each other without it cracking.
The evening crept across the sky and brought relief from the sunlight. He would have stayed even without it. She was worth it. Now he was getting his reward. Emma. She was right there. So close.
Even if he hadn’t seen her walk into the building that morning and saw the royal blue suit she was wearing, and even if he couldn’t see her face when she walked out, he would know her. She wasn’t happy to be talking to the man outside the courthouse. She let him step closer to her and carried on a conversation, but he knew by the way she held herself, she didn’t want to be interacting with him. She wasn’t afraid or on edge. Just disconnected. She held herself just like her mother had.
Her body was stronger and more athletic than her mother’s, but still had the graceful, delicate lines gifted to her by the Russian ballerina’s lineage. She was skilled at controlling her face and giving nothing away with her eyes. She could convince anyone of anything she wanted them to believe. But the way she carried her shoulders and the slope of her hip told everything.
He could go rescue her, go take her away from the man in the uniform. But she wasn’t ready for that. He didn’t know what she would do if she saw him. If he was to just walk up to them and tell the man in the uniform, the police chief, to leave her alone. What reaction could he even expect? There were still too many questions left unanswered for him to know what the moment after she first saw him would bring. Then the next moment. And the next. Still an unknown.
They were just too far away for him to be able to hear what they were saying. He was tracing their facial expressions and watching the way she held her body with each thing she said to him. It didn’t look like he was propositioning her or trying to force his attentions on her. And it didn’t seem like she was rejecting him or adamantly trying to push him away. But there was a definite intensity in the way they looked at each other and delivered the unheard words. It didn’t take a tremendous amount of imagination to come up with an idea about what they were discussing. He knew Emma didn’t leave her assignment in his town with a free head and levity in her heart.
She walked away after a final exchange, and he watched the police chief watching her. When she was too far away for him to call out to her without catching the attention of everyone else around, the chief turned and headed back inside the building.
He waited. She was going to the office. It was still early in the day, and she would try to get in as much work as she could before leaving for the vacation she had been lusting after since the day she walked out of the hospital. He was already ready for that. He wouldn’t follow her immediately. There was more he needed to do first. But she wouldn’t get too far away from him. He knew where to find her.