My phone vibrates beside me, and I turn toward the illuminated screen, Daniel’s name and picture staring back at me. I look down at the pill in my palm, then back to the phone. I exhale, reaching for the phone and swiping to answer.
“Hey,” I say, still holding the Xanax, inspecting it between my fingers.
“Hey,” he says, hesitant. “So, are you done?”
“Yeah, I’m done.”
“How was it?”
“It was awful, Daniel. She looks…”
My mind wanders back to Lacey’s body on the table, her skin the color of frostbite, her eyes made of wax. I think about the little cuts across her skin like wild cherry Tic Tacs. The giant cut across her wrist.
“She looks awful,” I finish. I can’t think of any other word to describe it.
“I’m sorry you had to do that,” he says.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Did you find anything helpful?”
I think back to the missing bracelet and start to open my mouth before realizing that, without context, this revelation means nothing. To explain the significance of the missing bracelet, I would have to explain my trip to Cypress Cemetery and finding Aubrey’s earring minutes before her body was discovered. I would have to explain my meeting with Aaron Jansen and his theory about a copycat. I would have to revisit all the dark places my mind has been wandering to this past week, revisit them in front of Daniel. With Daniel.
I close my eyes, rub my fingers against my eyelids until I’m seeing stars.
“No,” I say finally. “Nothing. Like I said to the detective, I was only with her for an hour.”
Daniel exhales; I can visualize him running his hands through his hair as he sits up in bed, his bare back leaning against the headboard. I can see him resting the phone against his shoulder, rubbing his eyes with his fingers.
“Come home,” he says at last. “Come home and get back into bed. Let’s relax today, okay?”
“Okay.” I nod. “Okay, that sounds good.”
I fidget in my seat, pushing the pill and its bottle back into the glove compartment. I get ready to shift into Drive when Aaron’s voice echoes around me again. I hesitate, wonder if I should go back inside, tell Detective Thomas everything. Tell him Aaron’s theory. If I keep this to myself, how many other girls could go missing?
But I can’t do that. Not yet. I’m not ready to be thrust back into the middle of something like this; to explain his theory, I would need to explain who I am, my family. My past. I don’t want to open that door again, because once I do, it would never be closed.
“I have to run a quick errand first,” I say instead. “It shouldn’t take longer than an hour.”
“Chloe—”
“It’ll be fine. I’m fine. I’ll be home before lunch.”
I hang up before Daniel can convince me to change my mind; then I dial another number, my fingers tapping impatiently against my steering wheel until that familiar voice picks up on the other end of line.
“This is Aaron.”
“Hi, Aaron. It’s Chloe.”
“Doctor Davis,” he says, his voice light. “This is certainly a more pleasant greeting than the last time you called.”
I glance out the window and crack a small smile for the first time since Detective Thomas’s number appeared on my phone this morning.
“Listen, are you still in town? I want to talk.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After my conversation with Sheriff Dooley, he had given us two options: Stay in the station until they obtained a warrant to arrest my father, or go home, tell no one, and wait.
“How long will it take to obtain the warrant?” my mother had asked.
“Can’t say for certain. Could be hours, could be days. But with this evidence, my guess is we’ll have him before the night is up.”
My mother looked at me as if waiting for an answer. As if I were the one who should be making the decision. Me, age twelve. The smart thing to do, the safe thing to do, would be to stay in the station. She knew it, I knew it, Sheriff Dooley knew it.
“We’ll go home,” she said instead. “My son is at home. I can’t leave Cooper alone with him.”
Sheriff Dooley shifted in his chair.
“We can always go get the boy, bring him here.”
“No.” My mother shook her head. “No, that would look suspicious. If Richard starts to suspect something before you obtain the warrant…”
“We’ll have officers patrolling the neighborhood, undercover. We won’t let him run.”