Page 57 of The Secrets We Hide
He drew out his response. “What are you proposing?”
“Exactly what you wanted me to propose the second you heard I got on that plane at Warner Robins.” Jude had been slow, but she was not stupid. “I’ll quarterback the investigation into what happened at Allison’s house today. Anything I find out about a conspiracy involving bad cops will go directly to you.”
“What if the conspiracy leads back to your sister?” He paused again for effect. “By all accounts, Gerald Clifton only confided in one person on the force.”
“My oath to the Constitution didn’t retire when I did. Ask Freddy Henley about the lengths I’ll go to in order to close an investigation.”
Silence filled the room. Jude knew he had already made his decision. Men like Samuel didn’t rise up the ranks based on character and fairness. They crawled their way to the top over bodies they’d sacrificed along the way. The second that he’d learned about Allison’s murder, he’d started strategizing a plan for someone else to absorb blowback.
“All right.” Samuel finally nodded. “I want daily updates.”
“I’m not your dog on a leash. I’ll call you by the end of next week.” She stood up, slung her purse strap over her shoulder. “I should get to the airport.”
She walked out of his office, her boots hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Bile came into her mouth. She felt her jaw clench when she saw the NAT waiting for her at the end of the hallway. Jude forced herself back into small talk as she was escorted to the elevators, led to the lobby, shown the front doors.
Outside, frigid air swirled Jude’s hair into her face. Sweat broke out on her skin. She walked past her rental car, headed to the edge of the almost empty parking lot. She looked at the river in the distance. The sharp breeze coming off the Potomac stung her eyes. Her hands were shaking as badly as Emmy’s. Jude had thirty-nine years and three and a half months of sobrietyunder her belt, but if someone had offered her a drink right now, she would’ve had to think about it.
She shook her head, silently cursing herself for being so easily shaken. This was no time to slip away into oblivion. She forced herself to look at solid things that would fix her back in place. The patch of grass edging the parking lot. The spindly trees with leaves already falling. The cracks in the concrete beneath her feet. She kept orienting herself until her heartbeat returned to normal. Her breathing took on a steady in and out. She turned back toward the parking lot. Kept her pace steady. Her eyes on the path in front of her. Samuel was worried that Jude would be blinded by sibling loyalty, but she was confident that none of this would lead back to her sister.
Jude didn’t even have a sister.
Emmy Lou Clifton was her daughter.
CHAPTER TEN
Emmy had to force her hands to stop strangling the steering wheel as Jude finished relaying the details of her impromptu visit to Virginia. It was almost too much. Emmy had barely had time to catch her breath after Reggie’s revelation about Gerald, and now she was listening to her sister pile on even more evidence against their father as they drove to the hospital where hopefully Mandy Vickery could tell them who had killed her mother.
She absently watched a truck dart across three lanes to catch an exit as Jude continued her story. The time was coming up on two in the morning. The stretch of interstate between North Falls and the trauma center in Albany was mostly empty but for the occasional eighteen-wheeler and late-model sedan toting farm workers up from Florida for the early pecan harvest.
Jude finally went silent. Emmy struggled for a way to respond. Setting aside the fact that Emmy hadn’t asked her sister to poke around in Allison’s life, and that Jude had no business inserting herself into the investigation, what really bothered her was Jude’s passive expression when Emmy had told her that Gerald was a bad cop.
Now, she said, “You already knew about Dad when I told you Reggie said he was dirty.”
“I knew there was an allegation. I didn’t think it was true. If it makes any difference, I still don’t.”
“Did your FBI pal tell you the Rawleys are wrapped up in this? That Woody was Dad’s informant?”
“Samuel didn’t mention them, and we don’t know what they’rewrapped up in. I’m not taking Reggie Wilder’s word on anything. Neither should you.”
Emmy cut her eyes at Jude. It was hard to believe that she was actually on the side of protecting their father’s name. She’d barely flinched at his funeral. “You sound pretty damn sure of yourself.”
“If Gerald Clifton was dirty, you would’ve figured it out a long time ago. You’re one of the best investigators I’ve ever seen.”
The unexpected compliment put a weird flutter in Emmy’s stomach. She chalked it up to hunger because the alternative would mean too much. “Dad fooled me about you. He told me straight to my face for years that you were dead. I never questioned it. I never questioned anything he told me.”
Jude shook off the detail as inconsequential. “That was a personal matter. I’m talking about his professional life.”
“Why are you taking up for him?”
“I’ve already answered that question. I’m not sure I see the value in repeating myself.”
The car went silent. Jude rarely snapped at her, which meant that Emmy had hit a nerve.
“You’re worried it will lead back to me, right?” Emmy felt the wrongness start to edge back in, but this time, it flowed from a different source. “Dad’s dead. The FBI can’t bring charges against him. They asked you to look into me.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
Emmy took that as a confirmation. “Why not? Everybody knows how close I was to Dad. It’s where I’d look if I was asked to investigate dirty cops.”
