Page 11 of The Secrets We Hide
Emmy went into the closet. Found the light switch. The first thing she saw was a bloody handprint wrapped around the edge of one of the shoe cubbies. The print was a few inches above her head. She let her eyes trace the path upward. An access panelin the ceiling showed where two hands had furiously grabbed at the plywood and pushed it aside.
She asked, “How did Mandy get up there with a bullet in her head?”
“Fight or flight?” Jude guessed. “Reduced pain perception. Increased physical performance. Elevated heart rate and blood flow. Sharpened senses. With head wounds, sometimes the part of the brain that turns it off is too damaged to disengage. Adrenaline’s a hell of a thing.”
Emmy was more interested in the shoe cubbies, which stacked almost to the ceiling. There was a his and hers side, but Allison had clearly taken both for herself, cramming high heels and loafers and tennis shoes into the dozens of slots. The paint had yellowed over time. Years of wear had exposed the wood underneath, but not in the way you’d expect. At the corners and alternating. Right corner. Left corner. Right corner. Left corner. All the way to the top because someone had figured out the cubbies worked as a ladder to the attic panel in the ceiling.
The wear marks indicated someone had climbed up there repeatedly. The house was huge. There were lots of places to get away, but the attic was a place you would go to hide. A child could easily slip up there. A grown man would have more of a struggle.
Jude chimed in with the obvious again. “Who was Mandy hiding from?”
Emmy grabbed her shotgun on her way out of the bedroom. She started down the curving front stairs. Jude trailed behind her. Emmy wiped her face with the back of her arm. Sweat and blood had turned the grit on her skin into a paste. The shotgun showed pink fingerprints against the black barrel. Brett was still leaning against the cruiser. Cole was talking to him. Every available vehicle in the sheriff’s department was parked in the street. Even the school resource officers had joined the hunt.
Brett pushed away from the car. Hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his duty vest. “Emmy, I—”
“Sheriff,” Jude corrected.
“Cole, drive your aunt to Taybee’s farm.” Emmy turned to Brett. “Anything on Bill Garrison?”
“I’ve got McGuire and Vanderbilt out looking. He’ll show upeventually. People with that kind of money don’t disappear. They hire a lawyer and fight it out.” He looked at Jude, then back at Emmy. “Sheriff.”
A white van with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s crime scene unit logo turned onto the street. An unmarked black Ford Police Interceptor trailed closely behind. Emmy recognized the government ride. Special Agent in Charge Sherry Robertson, the GBI field officer for the area, was behind the wheel.
Emmy told Brett, “Help them set up. I don’t want anybody in or out of that house who isn’t me or the GBI. You included. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,Sheriff.”
Emmy returned the shotgun to the trunk of her cruiser and grabbed the extra shirt she kept for emergencies. She felt exposed without her duty vest and utility belt, but they were both hanging on a hook at home. So was Gerald’s gear. So was Cole’s. Myrna had complained about the scuff marks they left on her kitchen wall until she had forgotten that she cared about things.
Emmy took a deep breath as she crossed the street toward another imposing colonial revival. Stone statues of ducks and rabbits stood sentry around the front porch. Some were dressed in Braves’ uniforms, others were wearing Atlanta Falcons and WNBA colors. An older woman around Jude’s age was perched inside the window watching the street. Darla Bell had coached Emmy’s soccer team in middle school, but she’d retired a few years ago. Emmy could hear a football game playing on the television from twenty yards away. The sound was muted as she approached.
“Emmy Lou?” Coach Bell struggled to open the window. Emmy helped her lift it from the outside, which said a lot about the casual relationship people had with home security in North Falls. “What on earth happened over there? You look a mess.”
“I’m sure I do, Coach Bell. Did you see anything today?”
“I was taking a nap when that young jackass drove by with his radio screeching. The Saddler boy. Moved back in with his mother last year after his father died. I was trying to go back to sleep when I heard a gun go off, then—” She snapped her fingers. “Locks. Lights. Out of sight.”
Emmy recognized the phrase from the active shooter drillsthey did at the schools. Lock the doors. Turn off the lights. Get out of sight.
What a terrible world they lived in.
“My phone’s been ringing off the hook with people wanting to know why every police car in the county is on my doorstep.” As if to put a fine point on it, her phone started to ring. “What should I tell them?”
The only teacher Emmy had ever really lied to was Myrna, but she tried, “Allison left her gun out and Mandy accidentally fired it. She’s gonna be okay, but they took her to the hospital.”
Coach Bell narrowed her eyes. She had heard better fibs from thirteen-year-olds. “The gun accidentally fired five times?”
Emmy guessed that verified the number of gunshots. “You notice anything else about the house? Not just today, but—”
“The constant screamin’ and the hollerin’, you mean?” Coach Bell tutted her tongue. “All hours of the night. Allison yelling at Mandy. Mandy yelling at Allison. You know how it is. She’s a sweet girl, just not to her mama.”
“What about Bill?”
“Lord knows he gets his licks in, too.”
Their eyes met for a second. They both knew that there was a stronger meaning behind her words. Coach Bell spoke first.
“I haven’t seen Bill around for a few weeks. Which has been a blessed relief.”
