Page 19 of The Secrets We Hide
He opened the back door of his cruiser. Handed over a duffel bag and her HAIX tactical boots, then slung her equipment belt over his shoulder like he’d just taken down a grizzly bear.
Emmy ignored the smug grin on his face as she started walking toward the GBI’s crime scene van. The back door was hanging open. The space was tight, but there was enough room to move around. She threw the duffel bag inside. Climbed in. Left the door cracked so that Cole could hear her.
“Anything from Sherry yet?”
“No, ma’am. They’ve been processing the house since you left, though.”
Emmy took off her shirt. Opened the duffel. There was no way her son had thought to put a hairbrush, deodorant, and wet wipes in the bag along with clean underwear and socks, which meant Jude had done the packing, which churned up the familiar wave of irritation with an undertow of gratitude.
Cole said, “I checked out Mandy’s socials. Looks like she’s into shopping, K-pop, and faeries. Complains about her mom a lot. I saw a few group videos with some guys she hangs outwith, but it’s hard to tell if anything was serious. Looks like her core group is two girls. Talia Wilkinson and Skylar Guthrie.”
Emmy’s shoulder pinched when she reached back to unzip her dress. She was going to have a nasty bruise where Reggie had shoulder-checked her. “Did Mandy ever mention her birth father?”
“Not that I could see.”
Chunks of Sheetrock fell out of her clothes when she undressed. Emmy grabbed the packet of wipes. “Did you happen to get contact details on her friends?”
“Yes, ma’am. Already tracked down their addresses and phone numbers. Just waiting for your instructions.”
He was being annoyingly thorough today. “What do we know?”
Cole cleared his throat. He recognized the prompt. Gerald had taught it to Emmy. Emmy had taught it to Cole.
He said, “At approximately one o’clock, four shots were fired at sixteen-oh-one Iris Drive in the Clifton Gardens neighborhood. Two victims were found at the scene: Allison Vickery, deceased, and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Mandy, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head. The gunman fired on one of the responding officers before fleeing the scene.”
“Your aunt is not an officer. She’s a retired FBI agent.”
“A responder, then.” Cole continued, “The subsequent search of the woods came up empty. License plate scanners didn’t throw out any unusual cars. Door-knocking is ongoing, but so far, no neighbors report seeing anything suspicious in the area either today or in previous days. We provided an email address to upload all footage from doorbell cameras. I’ve made a list so we can follow up on people who haven’t sent anything by tomorrow morning. There are reports of a red Hyundai KONA speeding down the road prior to the first gunshot. The driver has been identified as Drake Saddler, twenty-eight years old. Two speeding tickets. No prior arrests. Works in electrical over at the factory. Lives with his mom.”
Emmy slipped on her pants. She knew Ginny from book club. “Did anybody talk to Drake?”
“Not yet, but we’ve got a BOLO on the Hyundai and I calledUncle Wally at the factory to get a list of guys who work on Drake’s shift. A few of them picked up when I called. Sounds like none of them knew Drake that well. So, I went down to Ms. Saddler’s to ask if she knew how to find him. I think she was in bed when I rang the doorbell. Didn’t look so good when she opened the door.”
Ginny had probably been sleeping off a Friday night binge session. “Keep going.”
“She told me Drake spent the night out and she hasn’t seen him all day.”
Emmy was about to task him with finding out who Drake had spent the night with, but Cole beat her to it.
“His girlfriend’s name is Hailey West. Twenty-three. Lives in Ocmulgee and works part-time at the Good Dollar so she can go to college at night. I called her up. Drake left her place a little before noon, but he didn’t say where he was going.”
“Priority one is to locate Drake. He’s our only known witness.”
“I’ll find him before the sun goes down.”
Emmy ignored the gunslinger bravado. She brushed her hair, used the tie Jude had packed to twist it into a loose knot at the back. She slipped on her duty vest. The weight of the ballistic panels felt reassuring. It was like she’d put her skin back on.
She gave Cole the second prompt. “What do wethinkwe know?”
“The victim was leaving her husband. There’s a long history of domestic violence. The most dangerous time for an abused woman is when she’s trying to leave her abuser.”
Emmy sat down on an overturned bucket to lace up her boots. A jolt of pain took her breath away. She had forgotten about her bruised tailbone. “Broaden the scope. Who else?”
“I mean …” He paused. “Reggie, right?”
“Ignore Reggie. Who else?”
Cole paused again to think. “Allison tried to sue the police department for wrongful termination. She dropped the case last year, I think? But it pissed off a lot of people.”
