“There’s someone here to see you,” she says. She looks at me, eyebrows raised.
“Chloe Davis.”
“A Chloe Davis,” she repeats. “Says she has an appointment.”
She hangs the phone up quickly and gestures to the door on my right, guarded by a metal detector and security personnel who looks agitated and tired.
“He said you can go in. Place all metal and electronics in the bin. Second door on the right.”
Inside the station, Detective Thomas’s office door is cracked open. I peek my head through, knocking gently on the wood.
“Come in,” he says, looking at me from above a desk cluttered with various papers, manila folders, and an open box of Saltine crackers, half a sleeve sticking out and a trail of crumbs littered across the wood. He follows my gaze and ducks his head, shoving the sleeve back into the box and closing the flap. “Sorry for the mess.”
“It’s fine,” I say, walking inside and pushing the door shut behind me. I linger for a second before he points to the chair opposite him. I take a seat, my mind flashing back to earlier this week when the roles were reversed. When I was seated behind my desk, in my office, gesturing for him to sit where I commanded. I exhale.
“So,” he says, folding his hands on the table. “What is it that you remembered?”
“First, I have a question,” I say. “Aubrey Gravino. Was she found wearing any jewelry?”
“I don’t really see how that’s relevant.”
“It is. I mean, depending on what the answer is, it could be.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you remember first, and then we can look into that.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No, before I share this, I need to know for certain. I promise, it matters.”
He looks at me for another few seconds, weighing his options. He sighs loudly, trying to convey his annoyance, before shuffling through the folders on his desk. Then he grabs one, opens it, and flips through a few pages.
“No, she wasn’t found with any jewelry,” he says. “One earring was found near the body in the cemetery—sterling silver with a pearl and three diamonds.”
He looks up at me, his eyebrows raised, as if to question: Are you happy now?
“So, no necklace?”
His eyes linger on mine for another few seconds before looking back down.
“No. No necklace. Just the earring.”
I exhale, pushing my hands into my hair. He’s looking at me carefully again, waiting for me to say something, to do something. I lean back into my chair and spit it out.
“That earring was a part of a set,” I say. “There’s a matching necklace she would have been wearing at the time of her abduction. She wears them together in all of her pictures. On the MISSING poster, her yearbook photos, tagged pictures on Facebook. If she was wearing the earrings, she was also wearing the necklace.”
He lowers the folder to his desk.
“How do you know this?”
“I checked,” I say. “Before I came to you with this, I wanted to be sure.”
“Okay. And why do you think this matters?”
“Because Lacey was wearing a piece of jewelry, too. Remember?”
“That’s right,” he says. “You mentioned a bracelet.”
“A beaded bracelet with a metal cross. I saw it on her wrist in my office. She wore it to cover her scar. But when I looked at her body this morning … it wasn’t there.”
The room is uncomfortably quiet. Detective Thomas continues to stare, and I can’t tell if he’s actually considering what I’m telling him, or if he’s concerned about my well-being. I talk faster.
“I think the killer is taking his victim’s jewelry, as mementos,” I say. “And I think he’s doing that because my father used to do that. Richard Davis, you know. From Breaux Bridge.”
I watch his reaction as the pieces fall into place. It’s always the same, every time someone realizes who I am: a visible loosening of the face before the jaw gets tight, like they have to physically restrain themselves from lunging at me from across the table. Our last names, our similar features. I’ve always been told that I have my father’s nose, oversized and slightly crooked, by far my least favorite thing on my face—not because of vanity, but because of the constant reminder of our shared DNA every time I look in the mirror.
“You’re Chloe Davis,” he says. “Dick Davis’s daughter.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”