The lock is smooth, and the door swings open, revealing the polished wood floor of the entryway beyond. My father arranged for the house to be rented out by the management company fully furnished, so when I glance into the rooms on either side of me, they look like someone has just walked out of them and will be back at any second. I close the door behind me and step into the quiet.
I’m home.
Chapter Fourteen
He’s holding fried chicken.
I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m actually seeing what my eyes tell me I am.
Sam is standing on my front porch, holding fried chicken.
He lowers the hand holding the bulging white bag I’m sure also has a box of biscuits and containers of mashed potatoes and coleslaw and lifts the other. It’s holding a jug of sweet tea.
“I didn’t have time to make any, and I figured you didn’t have a jar of your Granny’s sun tea sitting on the back porch,” he explains.
“I certainly hope I don’t,” I say. “That would be some severely over-brewed tea.”
The memory of my grandmother filling a big mason jar with water and tea bags and sitting it out in the sun makes my heart warm. But it also brings me sharply and aggressively back to Feathered Nest and my hand sliding over a quilt. I told Jake I didn’t get to spend much time with my grandparents when I was younger. That my memories of them were scattered and brief. It feels like that sometimes. Like everyone else has continuous memories of seeing their grandparents every Sunday for dinner or spending days with them a few times a month. I don’t have that. There are swaths of time, sometimes years-long, when I didn’t see them at all. That makes me feel like I didn’t get to spend time with them or that I don’t have as many memories of them as I should.
But right now, I realize that isn’t really true. Sure, there are times in my life when I didn’t get to spend time with them. There are things I wish I got to share with them and moments I feel they should have been a part of. But there are also stretches of time I got to immerse myself in them. The memory of the quilt folded over the back of the couch is from a long winter we settled in and didn’t leave. That quilt surrounded me when I was a baby. It gave me comfort when I was a little girl and caught chickenpox. It was still there when we finally came back.
“Emma? Are you alright?”
I come back into reality and see Sam staring at me with a concerned expression on his face.
“Yeah. I was just… nothing. Come on in.” I step out of the way and let him walk past me. “Fried chicken. I see what you did there. Cute.”
He shrugs. “I’ve been thinking about it since you mentioned it to me the other day.”
“Well, I didn’t actually mention it to you. I thought I was talking to someone else,” I say.
I gesture for him to go into the living room. It feels strange to have him here in the house, but it was the only logical place for us to meet. Anywhere else had the risk of someone hearing us discuss the sensitive details of the case. He puts the bag of food down on the coffee table, and I go into the kitchen to get plates and glasses.
“Your boyfriend?” he asks.
“What?” I ask, coming back into the room.
“Your boyfriend,” he repeats. “Did you think you were mentioning the fried chicken to him?”
My throat feels slightly dry as I pop the top on the jug of sweet tea and pour some into the glasses.
“No,” I shake my head. “My friend Bellamy.”
“From college?” he asks. ”The two of you are still close?”
“I actually knew her before college. Not for long, but I met her when I was younger. We kind of kept in touch, and then realized we were both going to the same college.”
“I didn’t realize that,” Sam says. “I thought you met there. You never told me you knew her before. I guess reuniting with you at college is something she and I have in common.”
Handing him one of the glasses, I nod. “I guess you do.”
A few tense seconds pass, and he climbs to his feet, giving me a second to breathe.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, heading back out of the house. He returns moments later, holding a cardboard box with a leather satchel sitting on top. He sits it down on the floor beside the table. “Case notes.”
“The leather is very classy,” I note.
He shoots me a look and yanks papers out of the satchel, setting them on the box and putting the bag on the floor.
“It was a graduation gift from my father,” he says.
His phone buzzes at the same time mine starts ringing. I cringe at the name on the screen and walk away from the table to answer it.
“Hi, Creagan,” I sigh.
“What do I need to do to get through to you?”
That is not a happy voice.
Sam walks up to me and shows me his phone. The picture Jennings took is even more unflattering than I thought it was going to be, but it’s the headline that really stands out.
“Alright. Let me explain what’s going on,” I say.
“I went to work this morning feeling pretty optimistic. After all the shit you’ve been through, I was seriously starting to worry about you. But you were finally going to take some time off, try to relieve some stress. I spent all day thinking you were off baking yourself on the beach.”
“That was the plan…”
“And then I scroll through the news and what do I see? You’re not on a beach. You’re in Virginia. Eating breakfast.”
The conversation doesn’t get much better. By the time I stop my rambling tour of the house and get back to the living room, Sam is pouring his second glass of tea and reaching for another biscuit.
“Well,” I say, kneeling down on the floor beside the table. “That was my boss. He read the same article.”
“How did he take it?” Sam asks.
“We’ll go with not delighted. But willing to let me help.”
“I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble.”
“I was going to piss him off again eventually. If we can find these kids, it’s worth it. Let’s get started,” I say.
I dish out a plate of food, and the first taste of the diner’s chicken is like being sixteen again. Sitting on the grass by the lake at the edge of town, eating a picnic of cold fried chicken and coleslaw while Fourth of July fireworks burst overhead. I get a few more bites in, but soon the food is forgotten as Sam and I delve deep into the details of the case.
“There are a few similarities between the children and their disappearances,” he points out. “They are within a year of each other in age. They are all local children, not visitors. And they all disappeared while doing something outside of their regular routine.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Alice Brooks was at summer camp for the first time. Caleb Donahue was at a slumber party with a friend he’d never slept over with before. He was supposed to walk home, but where he was supposed to go or who he was supposed to be with after that gets fuzzy. Eva Francis was supposed to be going to a water park with her church group but wasn’t at the house when the van got there to pick her up.”
“Where were her grandparents?” I ask.
“They left for work less than twenty minutes before the van arrived. According to them, she is not left alone normally, but because she was going to be gone all day and then was attending the lock-in at the church planned for after the trip, they decided to both work that day. They thought she would be safe at home for such a short period of time.”