“We did,” Ford said. “Nothing came up even close in the databanks.”
“That would have made it too easy.”
“Nothing about this case has ever been easy,” her father said. “Then the rumors and speculation didn’t help.”
“That brings me back. I want to help him. I told him I would. Mom and Dad, would you be willing to talk to Rory? Ford, you too? He’s a nice guy. I mean it. Considering what he went through, he just wants answers. Wouldn’t you do the same if it were me?”
“You don’t need to sell us,” her mother said. “Your father and I will do it if for no other reason than to get Cooper’s name out of people’s mouths.”
“It’s my job to talk to him,” Ford said.
“I don’t want you to do it because it’s your job. I want you to do it for the fifteen-year-old who came here on vacation with her family and never got to return home. For her older brother who blames himself for not going on the walk with his sister, or realizing she hadn’t returned home.”
“We aren’t a jury,” Clay said.
“I know. I’m speaking from the heart. I have one, you know?”
“Sounds to me like you’re already deep into this,” Ford said. “How much conversation did you have with him?”
“We had pizza and cider on Friday night.” She turned her head. “He likes your cranberry ginger cider.”
“You shared your last bottle with him?” Clay asked. “Now I know this is serious.”
“I was celebrating my win on Friday,” she said. It felt like the reason to bring it then, but it turned into something more.
The end of one case, but the start of another.
“You’re always involved in other people’s problems,” her father said. “I know it will fall on deaf ears to tell you to be cautious.”
“Yes, it will,” she said, nudging her father’s arm.
“Then we’ll just tell you to be careful,” her mother said. “Not everyone is happy to be questioned about that time.”
“Which is another thing,” she said. “That never made sense to me.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Ford said. “You just need to be aware.”
9
TAKING THE FIRST STEP
“Hi, Gale’s friend, right?” Barb asked when he walked into the courthouse for the records of his sister’s trial.
“That’s me,” he said. Might as well play along since Gale did him a favor to get these records. Or get them faster.
He’d been bracing himself for this all night. He thought for sure Rene would come to him in his dreams and had been disappointed when it didn’t happen.
She kept telling him he was close, or at least letting him feel as if he was.
If this was just one more dead end, he didn’t know what else he could do.
But the minute the two boxes were put on the counter, he felt it.
Excitement mixed with grief.
He’d see all the information that he’d told himself he didn’t need to know and would have to separate it from being personal to now being a job.
That was exactly how he had to go into this, or he was going to break.
