Page 77 of The Secrets We Hide
Jude looked up at the low ceiling. “This garage wasn’t built for an SUV. It’s too tight in here to open a hatch and load the trunk. She’d have to pull the car into the driveway to load it.”
“What if Allison was coming down the back stairs and she saw the killer entering through the back door? She ran to get her gun out of her purse. He beat her to it.”
“Then she ran toward the front door?”
“Maybe.”
Emmy was ready to go inside. She climbed the three stairs to the door. Turned the knob. Locked. She looked at the digital keypad. The two, zero and one were all faded. She punched in a guess, telling Jude, “Two-thousand-ten. The year Mandy was born.”
The latch clicked. Emmy entered the house.
The kitchen looked the same but for the absence of Allison’s body. The den was the same. The back door had been shut. Allison’s purse was still hanging on the back of one of the bar stools. Emmy walked around the island. Stood behind the stool. The purse was unzipped, the top gaping open. Green leather. Cross-body strap. She looked toward the den. The back stairs were roughly fifteen feet away.
“I’m Allison,” she said. “I just came down those stairs. There’s an intruder coming through the back door. He’s wearing black gloves. Maybe I recognize him, maybe I don’t. I know he’s here to hurt me or my child. What do I do?”
“If you’re thinking clearly, you run back up the stairs. You’re both unarmed. Physically, you’re at a disadvantage against a man. And crossing in front of him to get your gun out of your purse risks losing control of the gun.”
“Maybe he was armed, but not with a gun. This is a residential neighborhood. A gun is loud. A knife is a quiet choice if you’re planning to kill somebody.”
Emmy looked at the back door, silently rewriting the narrative of the attack.
“Maybe he came through the door with a knife. Allison ran toward her purse to get her Glock. He could’ve beaten her to it. Maybe they struggled for the gun, and he dropped the knife. She ran to the front of the house to go up the main stairs and protect Mandy.”
Emmy followed Allison’s path, walking up the hallway toward the front door. She stood in the foyer. Looked up the curved stairs. Glanced into the living room, the dining room. Took in the few items on the entry table. Looked down at the floor. The yellow crime scene markers had been removed, but the blood told her where Allison had been standing. She looked back at Jude, who was close to the spot where the Crown Royal bag had been dropped. There was roughly six feet between them.
She said, “Allison took all manner of abuse off Bill, but I saw her take down guys twice her size with just her hands. She knew how to fight back. At this distance, she’d definitely go for the gun.”
“Makes sense,” Jude said. “What about your DFR?”
Emmy shook her head. Her DFR was still telling her that she was missing something. “I asked Sherry to leave this area intact. Something’s off.”
Jude nodded for her to continue.
“It’s weird in here, right?” Emmy slowly turned, scanning the foyer again. “This is the only space with any hint of a personality. Except for Mandy’s room, the other rooms are bare. No art on the walls. No bookcases. No family photos.”
“Did Mandy bring any friends home?”
“Twice a week, but only because Talia Wilkinson’s mother works from home on Mondays and Fridays.”
“Keep looking. You knew Allison. What do you see?”
Emmy studied the framed print over the entry table.Christina’s Worldwas so famous that it was almost a cliché. The subject was a neighbor of Wyeth’s who’d suffered from a degenerative muscle disorder. She’d crawled everywhere because she’d refused to use a wheelchair. Wyeth had captured her making her way across a field.
Emmy said, “Allison knew the history of this painting. Before she dropped out of book club, we read a fictionalized version of Christina Olsen’s life. I don’t remember much, but Allison really loved the book. She read it twice. She never read anything twice.”
“Trapped by a debilitating disease. Immortalized by a man who gave meaning to her struggle.”
“Something like that.”
Emmy lifted the print off the wall. Flipped it around. She looked at Jude. Numbers had been written on the back in green magic marker.
“Two-thousand-two,” Jude read. “If Allison chose the print, she could’ve written the numbers on the back. Could be the year, or a code or combination?”
“Could be she bought it at a yard sale.”
Emmy pulled the brown craft paper away from the edges. Nothing was inside, just the back of the foam board the print was laminated onto. She hung the frame back on the wall. She looked down at the solid oak entry table. Three books stacked in a pile. Two crystal candlesticks on either side. A diffuser withblack reeds beside a glass bowl with an olive-green leather keychain that had an embossedAon both sides.
Emmy picked up the books. She thumbed through the pages. There was nothing that didn’t belong but for the RFID stickers the library placed on the inside covers for self-checkout. Emmy picked at the corner of one of the stickers. Peeled it back. Saw the weird circuitry on the inside. She did the same to the other books. Nothing. She passed them to Jude in case there was something she’d missed.
