Chapter Thirty-Four
Eden
SincethestringsLibbypulled to get permission for me to stay didn’t extend to sharing the tiny hospital bed, I spent the night on the pullout hidden in one of the room’s hideous green vinyl chairs. Weirdly, I slept like a rock, knowing Milo was safe and sound barely an arm span away.
Before he was released to go home, however, Chief Roberts and Detective Hanson came to talk to us again—together this time.
“Milo, I’d like you to take a look at a couple photos for me,” the chief said as he pulled up a chair.
“Okay,” he said, pulling himself upright.
Hanson laid out a few photos on the edge of the bed, each showing a woman in her fifties or sixties. Milo shook his head once they were all in front of him.
“No. None of these are her.”
The chief tapped the top photo. “This is Martha Baranski. She’s the woman who applied to move into Eden’s store. Definitely not the woman who attacked you?”
“No. I’m sure of it,” Milo replied, shaking his head.
“Okay. Then we’ve got good news and bad news. Traffic cams caught some video of the woman leaving the store after she set the fire, Milo, and we got prints off the statue she hit you with.”
“Those both sound like good news,” Milo said hopefully.
“The bad news is we still haven’t identified her. Prints aren’t in our system. However, on the chance that the girl who showed up to warn Eden was this woman’s daughter, we hoped maybe you would be willing to take a look at the most recent high school yearbook. If we can pin down the kid, we can track down the mom.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Oh. Sure.”
Hanson passed me a heavy book with a gold embossed pirate on the cover. When I smirked at Milo, he grinned and said, “Spruce Hill Scallywags for life.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head. “Nope. Did you know there were pirates along the Erie Canal? That’s where the mascot came from.”
“I did not. Learn something new every day,” I muttered, flipping open the hard cover.
My parents had refused to pay for my own yearbooks back in high school—hell, they’d only allowed me to attendpublic school after I got myself kicked out of the tiny Christian school they’d forced me to attend until I decided I was done following orders—but I’d managed to save up enough from my after-school job to get one my senior year. Looking through the pages of strangers threw me right back to my teenage years, an outsider watching everyone else laughing in the quad, joining clubs, signing the blank pages at the back with inside jokes and sentimental musings about unending friendship.
Milo seemed to sense my disquiet, because he squeezed my hip and rested his chin on my shoulder as we bent over the book. The sections of official school photos were sorted by grade, and I flipped the pages slowly, scanning each and every face for any sign of the girl who’d saved Milo’s life.
“These kids look way too cool,” Milo complained. “Where’s the bad hair and goofy smiles? I don’t think a single school picture day in our family resulted in anything half as nice as these.”
I huffed a laugh, thinking about every blank order form I’d reluctantly handed back to the photographer throughout my years in school, about every teacher who wondered if I’d forgotten to give it to my parents before picture day. Thankfully, most of them knew me well enough by then to understand the situation at home.
“She was terrified last night,” I whispered, images of my childhood and this girl overlapping in my head. “If her mom findsout she warned me…”
Roberts shook his head. “If we find her, we’ll tread lightly, Eden, don’t worry about that. She’s wanted for attempted murder. We won’t give her the chance to take anything out on the kid, all right?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Word is they’ll be discharging you soon, Milo. I’m leaving Officer Ford outside your door, and when you head home, he’s on duty outside your place. You need to go anywhere, he tails you.”
Milo grimaced, but acquiesced. “Understood.”
“I don’t see her,” I said, frowning as I reached the final page of the yearbook.
Roberts nodded slowly. “I was afraid of that. She could be homeschooled, or it’s possible she’s still in middle school, but they don’t do yearbooks like the high school does. If we can find any class photos, we’ll get in touch. Thanks for looking, Eden. We got descriptions of her, but is there anything else you remember?”
I thought about it and started to shake my head, then something niggled at the back of my brain as Milo’s words about the woman came back to me. “The kid looked a little familiar, but I don’t know why. I occasionally get curious teenagers in the shop, but I’m positive I hadn’t seen this girl there before.”
