“What happens now?” I ask on the way. “Will you arrest Daniel Clarke for Kylie’s murder?”
“We’ll speak to him,” he says. “I don’t know that Ms. Dahl’stestimony is enough to convict him, but it should be enough to reopen the investigation.”
“What would you need to convict him?”
“Forensic evidence or a confession.”
“Do you think he’d ever confess?” I don’t know anything about Daniel Clarke. I don’t know what really happened between him and Reese. I don’t know how close Reese came to being another one of his victims. But I’ll never forget what Mae said. How Reese was crying. How she was scared. How he was hurting her. He deserves to pay for whatever he did to her.
He says, “No.”
“The other day you said you knew him.”
He turns to me and says, “I said he was a couple years younger than me in school. I knewofhim.”
“What was he like?”
“Not the kind of guy you’d ever want your niece to date.”
We reach the cottage. I follow Detective Evans up the deck stairs and to the front door, steeling myself for what awaits us on the other side. He presses the key into the lock. He turns the handle, swinging the door open, but this time, as we go in, I try to see it the way Sam Matthews did. I imagine walking in and finding the girl who I believed was my missing child. I imagine Cass here, with people who stole her, who kept her from me for five long years. I would have been out of my mind and I would have done anything to have her back.
“What did Sam Matthews tell you about that night?” I ask as we stand there in the great room, my mind flashing back to Emily and me, all those months ago, planning this trip, wanting to go together so that our families could bond and for the shared memories. It was Emily’s idea, but I was completely on board. Reese, in particular, was getting older, and Emily worried that any moments of togetherness were fleeting; she would go to college soon, and if we didn’t take this trip now, the opportunitymight be lost. Emily imagined Reese going somewhere far away and never coming back. She planned everything, down to our meals and how we would spend our free time, because she wanted everything to be just right.
“Why do you want to know?”
“So I can picture it.”
“No,” he says firmly with a curt headshake. “Don’t do this to yourself, Mrs. Gray.”
Tears well in my eyes. “Don’t you think that what I imagine in my mind is so much worse?” I ask, biting down on my lower lip.
He’s quiet, thinking deliberately through his words.
“No. I don’t,” he says, and I feel the tears fall from my eyes, though I don’t bother to wipe them away. Detective Evans is quiet. His face changes; he watches me, holding my eyes, the look in his empathetic. “I’ll just say this,” he says after a minute, his voice soft and warm. “The medical examiner said that while Mr. Crane might have been taken by surprise, Mrs. Crane had defensive wounds all over her hands and arms. She fought. She fought like hell for her family.”
I nod, my throat tight and my heart heavy. “That sounds like something Emily would do.”
We get to work, packing Emily’s, Nolan’s and the kids’ things so we can leave, and then, when we’re done, I follow Detective Evans out of the cottage for the very last time.
Before we go, I turn back for one last look.
Standing in the open door, I close my eyes. I see Nolan and Emily in the kitchen, Emily with her Old Fashioned, laughing like she was our first night here. I smile, hearing her voice and remembering.
I don’t know how long I stand there until I feel Detective Evans’s hand on my elbow, and I turn to him. “Are you ready?” he asks, and I nod, fighting tears as we leave and make our way toward the car to go home.
Detective Evans
“Do you mind if I text you sometime, to see how you’re doing?” she asks. We’re at the hospital, standing just outside the main entrance doors, the four of them with their bags. Beside us, my car still runs, rain coming down hard though, under the covered entryway, we don’t get wet. “You can say no,” she says, rambling now, her smile nervous. “I don’t want to cross a line or make you feel like you need to stay in touch with me. I’m sure you have boundaries when it comes to your work.”
I say, “Of course you can text me. I’d like that.”
Mrs. Gray grows quiet, her light brown hair moving in the wind, though she holds it back from her face. “I guess this is it then,” she says when she speaks, setting her bag down on the sidewalk and coming in for a hug that surprises us both.
She lets out a sigh as she pulls back. “Sorry,” she says with a sad little smile, struggling to find the right words. “I just can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us, Detective. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know how we would have gotten through the last few days.”
“Call me Josh, please. And I should be thanking you, Mrs. Gray. You’re the one who figured it out. You found Reese.”
She nods, knowing she did. I, myself, was on the wrong track. I don’t know how long it would have taken me to figure outthat the Matthewses did it, though I’d like to believe I would have eventually gotten there.
