“Listen,” Officer Stokes said, settling both hands on his hips. “I’m guessing a lot of this will come out online tomorrow—we have a…” He paused, considering. “An overactive local journalist poking around, dredging up the past.”
Journalist. Juniper’s attention sparked at the word. Who? Maybe this journalist was the person she was looking for. All at once she wanted to flip the tables and interrogate Officer Stokes, but he was still talking.
“I wanted to give you a chance to hear it directly from me. We’re taking another look at the Murphy case.”
All the air went out of the room. “That was almost fifteen years ago,” Juniper managed.
“I know this reopens a lot of old wounds in the community,” he said, ignoring her, “but some new evidence has recently come to light.”
She could hardly begin to imagine what that might be. Her necklace?
“And do you think what happened to Jonathan is somehow connected?”
“That’s what I plan to figure out.” Everett regarded her for a moment longer, his gaze direct and probing. But she didn’t look away, didn’t crack, and he finally sighed, then slipped the clear bag with her necklace back into his breast pocket. He reached across Cora’s desk and laid a business card faceup on the surface. “If you think of anything, my contact information is all here. I really am sorry. We’re all praying that he pulls through.”
* * *
The halls of Jericho Elementary smelled exactly as they had when Juniper was a kid. Elmer’s glue, hot lunch （chicken nuggets and tater tots, if she could trust her nose）， and the slightly curdled, candy-sweet scent of small children. Juniper walked on the balls of her feet, trying to stop her snowy boots from squeaking on the varnished hardwood floor, and fought the urge to vomit.
Reb had texted Juniper minutes after Officer Stokes left, telling her to pick up Willa from school right away; Law would let them know she was coming. Their exchange had been quick and harried—Reb was clearly on the verge of a breakdown—and Juniper didn’t ask many questions. Jonathan was in critical condition, and Law and Reb would arrive in Des Moines within minutes. That’s all she really needed to know.
So Juniper had grabbed her purse, briefed Cora in the barest of terms, and driven over to Jericho Elementary with her coat flapping open and her gloves forgotten in a cubby at the library. She didn’t even feel the cold.
Now she swung open the glass door to the office block as if she did this sort of thing every day, like a real mom would.
“They’re waiting for you,” the secretary told Juniper, and she wondered for a minute if the older woman could read tragedy in the slump of her shoulders. Of course, Jericho was a small town and outsiders rarely darkened the halls of the elementary school, but it still felt wrong somehow to not even flash an ID. It felt stranger still to walk around the curving desk and approach the principal’s door as an adult （as a mother）， but on the short drive over, Juniper had tried to prepare herself for anything. For tears and rejection, for Willa to refuse to go with her. She had rehearsed a short speech, but all her careful words disappeared the moment she lifted her hand to knock. Almost immediately the door swung open.
“Well hello there, June.” Henry Crawford had been principal at Jericho Elementary when Juniper was a student, and he looked much like Juniper remembered him. Tall and lean with a navy suit too big for his frame, a tie that had been sloppily knotted, and a patch of fuzz on his chin that he must have missed when shaving. Somehow, it was endearing. Mr. Crawford was relentlessly kind and a lifelong bachelor—any shortcomings in the appearance department had been excused in perpetuity.
“Hi, Mr. Crawford.”
“Please, call me Henry. It’s good to see you, though I’m sorry it’s under such unfortunate circumstances. Come on in.” He stepped back and held the door for Juniper, ushering her into an office she had only glimpsed as a child. A few inspirational posters in cheap black frames, a tidy desk, and a circle of four small barrel chairs that looked brand-new. Seated in the farthest one was Willa.
Her knees were pulled up to her chest, the heels of her army boots hooked on the edge of the pretty, brushed upholstery and no doubt leaving a stain of muck and ice salt and cheap rubber. Mr. Crawford genuinely didn’t seem to mind. Willa had wrapped her arms around her legs and was resting her cheek on her knees, face turned away from the door. The sweep of her long, dark hair hid her face, and for a moment Juniper was sure she was asleep. Her chest swelled with the desire to rush across the room and touch her daughter, even if it was just to lay her hand on Willa’s back to feel the rise and fall of it as she breathed. She had grown up so much since the last time Juniper had seen her. Longer hair, longer limbs. More young woman, less little girl. Juniper felt the tug of her as surely as if they were tied together. Could Willa feel it too?