It would be a hell of a lot easier to start digging deeper into Emmer’s life if they could show a direct connection between him and Dani.
Turner leaned a forearm across the wall over the top of the medicine cabinet and rested his head against it, breathing heavily. For the first time in the last half hour, she realized he hadn’t thrummed his fingers against anything or tugged at his beard.
“No,” he said.
“Would she have told you?”
“Why the hell wouldn’t she tell me?” he said, sounding exhausted, as though it were a gargantuan effort to even speak. “At the very least, she would have told Annette. She wouldn’t put Cassidy at risk like that, even if she didn’t want to speak to me.”
“What about Cassidy? Did she know about Emmer?”
He pushed himself away from the cabinet and plucked a small bottle of peroxide from one of the shelves. Instead of returning downstairs, he lowered himself onto the edge of the tub. “No. We never told Cass about Emmer. She was so young. We didn’t want to scare the piss out of her. What were we gonna say? Dad pissed off some stalker perv at work, and now he might show up at your house or school and try to hurt you? Hell, I don’t even know if I’d say that to her now. We gave her some generic lesson about strangers and staying aware of your surroundings, to report anything weird immediately. That sort of thing. For all the good it did.”
Turner’s chest started heaving again. Josie almost made some joke about her breathing exercises which he routinely called “that weird breathing shit” but he was barely hanging on. Instead, she stepped into the narrow bathroom and took the peroxide from his hands.
Wiggling the bottle in front of Turner’s face, she said, “Come on.”
He trailed after her but stopped at Cassidy’s bedroom door. Their eyes locked for a long, tense moment. Quietly, Josie said, “Should I stay or go?”
He swallowed. “Stay.”
Turner pushed inside while Josie waited in the doorway. As usual, his big, rangy frame took up most of the space. The room wasn’t that large. A twin bed, dresser, and bookshelf were crowded into one corner, almost like afterthoughts. The rest of the room was filled with art supplies. Tiered rolling carts packed with cups bursting with different types of pens and markers. A desk that took up almost an entire wall was covered with sketchbooks and loose drawings in various stages of creation. Many of the drawings were of people. Josie recognized Turner, Dani, and Annette. There were plenty of other faces she didn’t. Teachers and friends, most likely. There were a few sketches of Spot and his octopus as well. Despite the impressive artwork spread across the table, it was the corkboard above it that caused a hard, guttural sound to push through Turner’s parted lips.
An array of photos of Turner and Cassidy filled its space, leaving little of the corkboard’s surface visible. Some were from when she was much younger. Turner in a puffy winter coat, jeans, and heavy boots, dragging a two- or three-year-old Cassidy up a snowy hill. A six- or seven-year-old Cassidy perched on a purple bike with training wheels. Her grin was heartbreakingly adorable. Both her front teeth were missing. Turner stood next to her, a helmet tucked under his arm, grinning at the camera. He was so much younger, his hair free of gray. There was a lightness in his smile, his posture. Pure joy. Another photo showed him and a nine- or ten-year-old Cassidy at an ear-piercing booth. The kind found in malls. She sat in a chair, frowning, her little brows drawn tightly together. The resemblance to her dad was strongest in that photo. Turner kneltbefore her, holding both her hands. His mouth was open like he’d been photographed mid-sentence.
“We got her this really fancy printer last year for her birthday. It was expensive as hell.” He pointed to it at the end of the desk. “She wanted to print photos. Of her friends, she said.”
There were more recent photos of the two of them, most of which were selfies. There were two pictures of just Turner. In one he was sprawled on the couch in his apartment, asleep, mouth hanging open. Like when she’d knocked on his door last night, he was in a T-shirt and basketball shorts. One hand rested on his chest, the other bent over his head. Spot had wedged himself between the couch back and Turner’s hip, depositing the ratty blue octopus on his owner’s stomach. The other picture was a close-up of Turner’s face. In his hands were the two owl figurines whose photo he’d texted Cassidy earlier in the week, asking if she’d talk to “these guys.” He had one pressed to each of his cheeks.
Another noise worked its way up his throat. He smoothed his tie down before yanking on his beard three times, four times.
“What’s the story with the owls?” Josie asked.
Blinking, he cleared his throat. “Cass had a thing for owls since she was two and Annette gave her some stuffed owl. Told her all owls were wise. Knew what to do, how to act, what to say. That stuffed owl died in what Dani called ‘The Great Norovirus Disaster.’ Kid had it coming out both ends like a damn fire hose. Wouldn’t let go of the stupid owl. Weren’t enough cleansers in the world to remove the bacteria from that thing.”
“That’s gross.”
Turner shot her a quick glance from the corner of his eye. “Be grateful you got to skip the whole toddler thing. It’s nonstop gross. The cute makes up for it and all but…” He shuddered. “It’s not for the faint of heart.”
“You replaced the stuffed owl with those?” Josie asked.
“Nah. They weren’t replacements. Those are the Boo-Hoo owls. That’s Boo on the left and Hoo on the right. It was just this stupid thing I made up when she was in pre-K. Every day she’d come home anxious about something, fixated on it. Some dumbass kid being mean to her. How she climbed up the slide the wrong way and was worried she’d be in big trouble when she went back to school the next day. Nervous about doing the right dance in the Christmas show. I didn’t think four-year-olds had the capacity to worry so much.” He gave a pained laugh. “Or for so long. Sometimes she couldn’t sleep for worrying. Like the day she pushed this little boy who tried to take her show-and-tell toy. She was up all night having an anxiety attack ’cause she thought she was on Santa Claus’s naughty list.”
“So you bought more owls?” Josie coaxed.
He reached out, running a finger over the photo. “Not just owls. The Boo-Hoo owls. After school we’d have a meeting with them, and she’d tell them all the things that made her upset or scared or angry that day. She could cry if she wanted. The owls would keep all her worries so she didn’t have to and once she told them everything, she didn’t have to hold onto those things anymore. The owls would know what to do with that stuff because they were wise. Dani thought they were so stupid, but the kid slept through the nights after that.”
Josie felt the sting of tears behind her eyes and almost cursed out loud. She wasn’t a crier. She hated crying. Passionately. She definitely never cried in front of other people. Well, besides her sister, Noah, and Gretchen.
“Fuck, Turner,” she whispered, staring at his profile.
“I don’t do emotional shit,” he said, eyes fixed on the corkboard.
“Me neither.”
He exhaled hard. “Good. Now, Quinn, I’m gonna need you to say something really bitchy. Think you can do that?”
“What do you mean by ‘really bitchy?’”
