Page 74 of The Secrets We Hide
Jude’s laugh sounded like a cat sneezing. “Of course he was. That’s why he never talked. He was terrified of saying the wrong thing.”
Emmy laughed, too, because Jude couldn’t have been more wrong. “Maybe your version of Gerald Clifton was that way. Not mine.”
“People don’t get blackout drunk every night because they’re emotionally well-balanced,” Jude said. “You never saw Dad anxious or worried? Or watched him avoid difficult questions with silence? Or walk away when he was afraid his emotions would get the best of him? Or completely shut down instead of saying he needed help?”
Emmy kept shaking her head, but she thought about all the times she’d found Gerald quietly staring into space with a pained look in his eyes. She’d never asked him what was wrong because she’d figured he would tell her if he wanted her to know.
Still, she insisted, “Dad talked. If something was bothering him. Or me.”
“How often did that happen?”
Emmy didn’t answer, but the fact was it had happened so infrequently that they’d had a phrase for it—talk it out. Gerald would say the phrase or Emmy would say it and the two people who never talked to anybody would talk to each other, usually when they were alone together in this very same cruiser.
Jude said, “Anxious people try to control things. Dad controlled the flow of information. It made him feel like he had a handle on his cases. But it came at a deep psychological toll. And now, it’s making your job harder, because if he’d let you have more control, the men on your force would know that you could do the job without him.”
“I was running the whole department for at least a year before Dad died.”
“Did they know that? Or did they think you wentrunningback to Dad every time you had a question?”
Emmy forced her jaw to loosen so the muscle didn’t cramp. This entire conversation felt incredibly disloyal to her father, especially coming from Jude. Their father hadn’t been perfect, but he’d been one of the most respected law enforcement officers in the region. That had to count for something.
“So what you’re saying is I need to either learn how to delegate or become an alcoholic.”
Jude groaned. “Yes, Emmy Lou. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
The GBI’s crime scene unit van was no longer parked in front of Allison’s house when Emmy turned onto her street. Allison’s blue Toyota SUV was still in the driveway. The garage doors were closed. The girl’s bike was still in the front yard. Except for the missing suitcase and the closed trunk, the scene was identical to the day before.
Jude said, “I’ll follow your lead.”
Emmy let the pendulum fly, because of course Jude would follow her lead.
She felt a sharp twinge in her back when she got out of the cruiser. Emmy had taken a handful of Advil in the kitchen, but her body still ached from lack of sleep and her tailbone was bruised from hitting the ground. She saw Darla Bell weeding the flowerbed in front of her porch. The woman was in awide-brimmed hat and sitting on a wheeled gardener’s seat that she spun around so that she could look across the road.
“Emmy Lou?” Her voice was more of a coach’s bellow across a soccer pitch. She used her gloved hand to shade her eyes from the sun. “Everything okay over there?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Emmy called back. “Thank you.”
Coach Bell glared at Jude before spinning back to the flowers.
Emmy asked, “What’s that about?”
“Something happened between her and Celia in high school, so we all hate each other.”
It was one of the few things Jude had ever said about growing up in North Falls that felt relatable. Emmy hadn’t let Dervla McClatchy skate on a speeding ticket last year because she’d embarrassed Hannah in seventh grade.
They both walked toward Allison’s front porch. Neither of them went up the stairs. Jude stood with her hands on her hips and looked up at the house. Emmy crossed her arms. Despite the urgency, she felt reluctant to go inside. What had seemed like a good idea back in her mother’s kitchen suddenly felt like a waste of time. They’d both walked through the crime scene once already. She wasn’t sure what a second go-round would accomplish.
She said, “Sherry’s on her way up to GBI headquarters with Mandy’s Nike. She’s got the director of forensic sciences coming in to dig the GPS tracker out of the heel. Hopefully, there’s a serial number or something they can use to chase down the purchase.”
Jude nodded toward the house. “What’s the status inside?”
“The team needs another couple of days to finish Allison’s bedroom. We’re good without suits everywhere else. They found the fourth bullet casing under Allison’s bed. They still haven’t found the fifth shell casing from the bullet that grazed you, or the bullet that exited Mandy’s skull.”
Jude reached up to touch the Band-Aid on the side of her head. If she was bothered by the fact that she could’ve died, she didn’t show it. “What about out here? Do you see anything?”
Emmy scanned the yard, then looked at the house. It seemed larger than before, more imposing. The broken glass from theside window was already at the GBI lab so they could piece it back together. A sheet of plywood covered the hole. Police tape sealed the front door, but the splintered jamb hadn’t been repaired.
She glanced at Darla Bell’s house. “Coach Bell told me she was getting her mail when she saw Woody and Mandy on the front porch.”
