All the Missing Girls(24)

“Is this a bad time? Are you okay?” I asked.

Laura pulled me into the kitchen, eyes wide. “Oh my God, Nic,” she said. She was like this—she believed that having the label of sister-in-law meant we were officially confidantes, neither of us having to earn it. Never mind that she’d ignored me all through high school and then after, until she’d started dating Daniel four years ago. It was like she’d suddenly decided we would become close, and was now determined to make it so.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

A timer over the stove started beeping, but Laura didn’t seem to notice. “The police were just here,” she whispered. She was nearly pressed up against me, and the timer was getting more insistent, and I felt a dull headache forming behind my eyes. Daniel finally crossed the room and hit the timer, frowning at the way Laura and I were standing.

“What did they want?” I asked, facing Daniel.

“Oh, you mean other than to push me into early labor?” She rubbed her stomach again, letting out a slow breath. “Have they been to see you?”

“Laura, what did they say?”

“Oh, they didn’t say anything. They asked. They demanded. They treated me like . . . like . . .”

“Laura,” Daniel warned.

Everett stood in the doorway, his laptop folded at his hip. -“Everything okay?”

“You finished?” I asked, pulling away from Laura.

“It was just pressing send on a few emails.” His eyes moved systematically from me to Laura to Daniel.

Laura shifted her weight. “You’re a lawyer,” she said. “So tell me, is it legal to question someone for no reason?”

“Laura—” I didn’t want to drag Everett into this. I didn’t want this dragged into my life with him.

“Back up a second,” Everett said. “Are we still talking about your dad?”

Laura leaned back against the counter. “The police just came by here, asking me about Annaleise Carter. For no reason! Can they do that?”

His face tightened, then relaxed. “They didn’t arrest anyone, so they don’t have to advise you of rights. And you don’t have to talk to them. But they can still try.”

She shook her head at him. “Of course you have to talk to them.”

“No, legally—”

She laughed. “Legally.” She pushed off the counter, and she moved her hands to her lower back. “If you don’t talk, they’ll think you had something to do with it. Even I know that.”

“What did you say?” I asked Laura.

“There was nothing to say. It was Bricks, you know, Jimmy Bricks. Remember him? But also another guy, not in uniform. I didn’t know him. He’s the one who did most of the talking. He asked if we knew her, and of course we knew her, but not well. Bricks could’ve told him that. Then he asked when we last had interaction with her, and I wasn’t sure. Maybe church a few weeks ago? Maybe she asked about the baby? I don’t know. I barely knew the girl. Then he asked if Daniel knew her.”

“They’re just fishing,” Everett said.

“What about you?” I asked Daniel. “What did you say?”

“I wasn’t here,” he said, his jaw clenched, when I realized what exactly the police were after. Why Laura thought they might come to me next. Daniel. His name was getting dragged out of the box.

“You know what I thought when they showed up? I thought something had happened to Dan,” Laura said, her hands back on her stomach. She took a deep breath. “They shouldn’t be allowed to do that.” Her hands tightened into fists. “This is our life.”

Daniel rubbed her back. “All right. It’s done,” he said.

“It’s not done,” Laura said, her eyes glistening as she looked up at Daniel. “They’re just getting started.”

Neither of us had any words of comfort after that. We’d lived through it once before, after all.

Even though Annaleise had been our alibi, had corroborated my story that Daniel and I were fighting and he hit me, that didn’t clear him. In fact, that made it worse. By the time the story rolled through town, people wondered what else he did to me behind closed doors. Were those bruises on my back? What happened in that house without a mother, with a half-vacant father?

Were he and Corinne ever involved? they had asked. They’d asked him. They’d asked all of us.

Never, said Daniel.

Never, said Bailey.

Never, said I.



* * *



DINNER WAS BARBECUE CHICKEN and vegetables that Laura had grown herself. She’d also made the sweet tea, which Everett had obviously never tasted before. His eyes gave him away when he took a gulp, but he recovered well enough, and I squeezed his leg under the table.

“Sugar and liquor,” I said. “We take them very seriously.”

He smiled, and I thought maybe we would get through this all right. But it took only until the second gap of silence—knives sliding against the dishes, bread crunching in my mouth—for Laura to start up again.

“They should be looking at the workers from ten years ago, see if there’s any working the fair. I told them that. Two makes a pattern, right?” The ends of her long blond hair were centimeters from brushing her dinner, and I motioned my fork toward her plate. “Oh,” she said. “Thanks.” She brushed it back behind her shoulders.