Page 66 of The Secrets We Hide
“I can’t believe I’m asking this.” Sherry sounded resigned to the answer. “Do you think Allison knew that Bill was abusing her, too?”
Emmy wasn’t sure it was Bill. She wasn’t ready to tell Sherry about the Woody connection, or about the unknown man Talia had mentioned. “Mandy asked for Bill upstairs. If he shot both of them, I don’t think she’d want him in the same room.”
Jude said, “If she can’t recall the shooting, she could be falling back into trauma bonding. Victims often develop a toxic, emotional attachment to their abusers. Particularly with children, where they’re so reliant on adult care. The cycle of intense fearand intermittent kindness creates a chemical and emotional dependence.”
Emmy tried not to bristle at the lecture. People kept pushing her toward Bill, but no one talked about actual evidence that would justify an arrest.
She asked Sherry, “What else did you find?”
“I took fingernail scrapings under Mandy’s index and middle finger of her right hand. Looks like some blood and skin cells, which could mean she managed to scratch him. I’m gonna process her clothes for the usual—DNA, blood, saliva, sperm, gunshot residue. I’ll drive them back tonight and try to rush them through.”
Emmy knew there was more. “And?”
Sherry reached down to the evidence bags, found the one with Mandy’s shoe. The Nike looked brand new but for a scuff mark on the heel. Sherry held it up for Emmy to see.
The heel wasn’t scuffed. The foam had a deep gouge that was roughly the width of a quarter and twice as thick. There was no telling how deep the gouge went. A thin bead of white silicone had concealed the tampering, but the impact from the fall had dislodged the repair.
Sherry said, “I asked radiology to X-ray it for me while you were upstairs.”
Jude still had the phone in her hand. Sherry reached over and swiped to another image: an X-Ray of the shoe. A small, flat rectangle was embedded inside the heel. Approximately one inch square. Black and white. Dots and dashes. Squares and cylinders.
Jude asked, “Is that a circuit board?”
“All I know is it doesn’t belong in there. I want to take it to the lab so they can open it up under controlled conditions.”
Emmy asked Jude, “You’ve seen this before?”
“Once, but it was sewn into the lining of a backpack. Turned out to be a parental abduction. There’s a type of GPS tracker you can put on a dog or cat collar. The plastic case is thick, but the insides are roughly this size. My guess is we’re looking at the circuit board from one of those.”
Jude handed Sherry back the phone. “This took access and planning. Allison could’ve tracked Mandy through her phone oran AirTag. Whoever concealed this thing didn’t want Mandy to know about it.”
Sherry said, “Or Allison.”
Emmy tasted bile in her mouth. The unknown man had moved to the top of her list.
She asked, “What if Mandy was already in the attic when the killer shot her? She went up there to hide, and he found her with the tracker he put in her shoe.”
“It’s possible,” Sherry said. “But why not take the money? There’s no way he wouldn’t have seen it.”
Jude was giving her a puzzled look. “What are you thinking?”
“The killer didn’t go to the house to murder Allison. He was there for Mandy.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jude stared out her mother’s kitchen window. The gravel driveway lolled out to the empty street. The sun was peering over the treetops. She was alone in the house. The only sounds were the occasional creak of wood adjusting to the morning temperatures and the gurgle of the coffee maker as it brewed a fresh pot.
Her hand dipped into her robe pocket. She felt the thick index card she kept like a talisman. Jude had taken to carrying it around with her, moving it to her purse when she left the house, sometimes slipping it into the back pocket of her jeans. The corners were dog-eared where her fingers had worried them. Myrna’s handwriting was in red pen. Jude had found the note inside a drawer in the living room:
Filipendulous: hanging by a thread; dangling.
Had Myrna recorded the word because it captured the fleeting hold she’d had on her own mind? Sometimes, Jude let herself think that the note had been left for her. The Myrna she’d known had loved creating word games and puzzles for her children to solve. She must have suspected that when she finally passed, Jude would return to North Falls. It was an untenable position for anyone to be in: understanding that your time was limited, deciding not to spend it enmeshed in the web of lies that connected you to a child who was not your daughter and spurning the daughter you denied as your child.
Knowing her mother, Jude could see why Myrna had kept the status quo. A reunion would’ve been messy. Too much explaining to do. Too many tears. Too much heartache.
Too much blame.
Over the years, Jude had often wondered if Myrna had kept up with Jude the same way Jude had kept up with the rest of them. Following Gerald’s stats in his annual law enforcement report to the FBI. Searching for Myrna in the choir photos on the North Falls Church of the Redeemer’s website. Stalking Celia and Tommy on Facebook. Combing theNorth Falls Registerfor news of Emmy’s prowess on the high school soccer team, her full scholarship to Mercer College, her marriage to a seemingly feckless musician, the birth of her son—Jude’s beautiful, funny, clever, precious grandson.
