Cutting Teeth(82)

“Griff.” She lowers her voice and makes sure none of the investigators are within earshot. “Remember what I said? I—I saw you … at the school that day. I’m not—” She closes her eyes and balances herself. “—I’m not going to say anything. But you have to tell me so that I can be on your side.”

He looks at her with such despondent misery, as though the only wish he has in the world is for her not to ask this again. What did you do? What aren’t you telling me? her brain screams.

“I told you,” he says. “I wasn’t there.”

To have someone she loves so much unable to trust her with the truth, a truth she saw with her own eyes, is to be untethered from all the things about her family, her life, she has known to be true. She can see them drifting apart after this, floating away from one another, but it won’t be her that untied the rope. That will be on Griff’s shoulders.

She hands Jack to Griff, which evokes a round of wailing. Then she goes to knock on the neighbor’s door. She asks to use their cell phone and dials Bill Brazle back, one of the numbers she thought to collect on her Post-it, and, surprise, surprise, she’s connected with one of his buddies. She has mixed feelings, but at least she’s in possession of a name and a number.

“Okay,” she says when she returns. “We’ve got somebody lined up. Just in case. Jack, don’t pull the flowers. Those are Mommy’s special flowers. Why’d you let him down?” she asks.

“Who cares about the flowers, Darby?” Griff snaps.

“I do. Or I will after this is over. I will be super sad that all the flowers that I planted are destroyed. You know what, I didn’t put sunscreen on the kids.”

Darby looks longingly back at her house, where all of her things—like sunscreen and bug spray—are shoved into drawers.

“Now where do you think they are?” Griff asks.

“I can’t tell.” She cranes her neck. “They must be toward the back, the laundry room or— Oh god, he’s coming. He’s coming. Look normal.”

Princep’s boots swish through the grass to where the family waits. Can they go back in? Was that it?

“Where is this pair of shoes?” Princep holds up a class photo and points. In it, Lola stands in the second row, body angled parallel with the other students, next to Zeke and Noelle.

Cautiously, Darby takes the picture from him and holds it up to her face. The shoes are a pair of hot-pink sparkly Crocs, hard to miss.

“I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “Did you check the laundry room? There’s a cubby in the laundry room where we throw everyone’s shoes,” she says. But she hasn’t seen those shoes in a while. For how long? A few days? A few weeks?

Princep pulls a radio on his shoulder over to his mouth. “Did we check the laundry room?” He waits for the answer. “We checked the laundry room. Is there anywhere else these shoes may be?”

“Lola’s room? Under her bed? Beneath the couch?” Darby ticks off places.

“All checked,” he says.

“Well, I don’t know, then.” Not that this is the time to worry about keeping up appearances, but Darby isn’t someone who likes to have people over unannounced. She requires a forty-five-minute window to get her home from total train wreck to livable conditions and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Things are constantly going missing in her household. She builds it into the price of purchase. Those shoes? They’ll probably show up, but there’s a 75 percent chance it will be after Lola’s already grown out of them. Can Officer Princep wait until then? If so, great. Sooner or later, one of her disorganized linen closets is bound to spit them up.

“Mrs. Morton, are you the primary caregiver for Lola?” he asks, and she has the distinct feeling she’s been called into the school principal’s office.

“Yes. I mean, what does that mean? I’m the mother, you do the math. Sorry, that came out sassy.”

“And did you pick Lola up from school on picture day, the day she was wearing these shoes?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to be up front with you all. We’re going to make an arrest tonight.” Princep tucks the photograph into his breast pocket. Darby reaches for Griff. Oh my god. Oh my god. She can’t breathe. “And I want to explain to you what’s happening so that you understand. The investigators were able to take footprints of the students, Lola being one of them. The soles, however, did not match the footprints found at the crime scene. They do match the brand Crocs, specifically the ones the investigators were able to source from the photograph taken during class pictures. The same day Miss Ollie died.”

“What’s your point?” Griff’s nose twitches.

“Prints from these shoes were found at the crime scene in Erin Ollie’s blood. And now they’re missing.”

Jack nuzzles into Darby’s neck, his fingers toying with her earlobe. Her ears ring. She forces herself not to side-eye Griff. Choices made now may be permanent.

“Darby Morton, you’re under arrest for intent to interfere with evidence.” Officer Princep delivers the news calmly. “I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station with us for processing and questioning.”

“What? What? Why me?”

“You can’t be serious.” Griff is still soft-spoken and she wants to scream at him to buck up, do something. “You’re not taking my wife,” he says. But he takes Jack from her anyway. “This is just a ploy to get more information. You’re using her. What does this have to do with Darby?”