He turned the car engine off. “Let’s just wait here for a few minutes.”
She craned her neck. “Did the white car pull in, too?”
“The lot’s too full to tell. But he stayed with us at least through the first quick turn.” He tapped the steering wheel.
“I heard you talking to Eva about Sheryl and Norm’s alibi. What’s she going to look into if she doesn’t just ask Debbie if they were at her house in Grand Junction?”
“DMV records will give the make and model of their cars. There might be cameras close to their house that show when they left and came back. She can get footage close to Debbie’s house, too. Eva knows how to work things from all kinds of angles. We’ll be able to break or confirm their alibi, and that’s the first step.”
“At least if Elsie is with them, I know she’s safe.” Small consolation.
River continued to check his mirrors. His voice softened. “Yes, that’s one good thing.”
The thought that hovered around the corners of her mind came front and center. Even if Norm and Sheryl thought they could do a better job raising Elsie, they wouldn’t try to kill her. It seemed like she would have known if the man who had attacked her was Norm. The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Sloane’s parents, even if he had put pressure on them, would go that far.
She rested her head against the back of the seat and let out a heavy sigh. “All we talk about is things connected to finding Elsie.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to think about anything else. You know.”
“Agreed.” They’d been together almost nonstop since Elsie’s disappearance, and she knew very little about River. “What made you decide to become a police officer?”
“It wasn’t my first dream. I wanted to help people. Thought I would become a doctor and do cancer research.” He shrugged and ran his hand through his blond hair. “I washed out of med school and I had to rethink my whole life.”
“From doctor to police officer. That’s a leap.”
“I was with the volunteer search and rescue back then. I realized I felt way more like I was helping people doing that than memorizing anatomy. I liked working with the dogs. I liked being outside. When I got accepted at the police academy, I knew I wanted to be a K-9 officer.”
“I guess sometimes you have to rethink your life,” she said.
“For sure. What made you want to be a preschool teacher?”
“I always loved children. I didn’t have any siblings growing up and I’ve always dreamed of having lots of children of my own. Teaching little kids was just a natural outlet.”
His voice filled with compassion. “Sorry you didn’t get that big family you hoped for.”
It was River’s kindness that she was drawn to.
“Guess I had to rethink my life when I realized staying with Sloane was too dangerous for both of us.” Her throat grew tight and her voice cracked. “I’m just glad God gave me Elsie.”
Leaning toward her, he rested his gaze on her for a long moment. “You’ve been through a lot. This is more than anyone should have to endure.” He reached over and pulled a strand of her red hair behind her ear.
His expression and the warmth in his blue eyes were magnetic. She leaned toward him. Her heart fluttered as her cheeks flushed. She turned sideways and stared out the windshield. What was she doing? A second longer looking into those blue eyes and they would have kissed. Clearing her throat, she tugged on the front of her shirt. “How long do you suppose we’ll have to sit here?”
He checked his mirrors again. “Guess it’s okay to leave.”
His phone rang. “Eva.” He pressed the connect button. “You should hear this if it has to do with what she found about Sheryl and Norm’s alibi.” He placed the phone on the console. “Hey, Eva. Lydia’s here with me. You got something for us?”
Lydia liked that River saw them as working together to find her daughter. Being sidelined and confined to a house was the most helpless feeling in the world.
Eva’s crisp voice came through the line. “Just a little info, but I wanted to give it to you anyway. I haven’t had much time to devote to this. I’m still doing a deep dive on trying to infiltrate these dark web adoption places. It’s a bit of a challenge.”
“But you found something related to Elsie’s case?”
“Yes. I have a law enforcement friend in Grand Junction, so I was able to speed things up on that end. He was able to grab the CC footage close to the exit the grandparents would have used to get to the daughter’s house directly the day they said they went there. No car matching either one of the two they own went by that camera on Sunday. It could be that they took a different exit. For whatever reason, they wanted to take the scenic route.”
Lydia massaged the back of her neck where her muscles had tensed. Not the smoking gun that broke their alibi, but it didn’t look good.
“Thanks for checking that out,” said River.
