A Flicker in the Dark(31)

Thank you, Dean. I’m here at Baton Rouge Magnet High School where Lacey Deckler is currently wrapping up her freshman year. Lacey’s mother, Jeanine Deckler, told authorities that she picked her daughter up from this school on Friday afternoon after track practice before bringing her to an appointment just a few blocks away.



My breath catches in my throat; I glance over at Melissa to see if she registered the comment, but she isn’t listening. She’s on the phone, tapping away on her laptop as she reschedules the day’s appointments. I feel bad for canceling an entire day on her like this, but I can’t imagine seeing clients right now. It wouldn’t be fair, charging them for my time when they wouldn’t be getting it. Not really. Because my mind would be elsewhere. It would be on Aubrey and Lacey and Lena.

I glance back to the TV.

After her appointment, Lacey was supposed to walk to a friend’s house, where she was to be spending the weekend—but she never arrived.



The camera cuts now to a woman identified as Lacey’s mother; she’s crying into the lens, explaining how she just thought Lacey had turned off her phone, as she sometimes does: “She’s not like the other kids, glued to their Instagram; Lacey needs to disconnect sometimes. She’s sensitive.” She’s recounting how the discovery of Aubrey’s body had been the catalyst she needed to officially report her daughter as missing, and in classic female fashion, she feels the need to be defensive, to prove to the world that she’s a good mother, an attentive mother. That this isn’t her fault. I’m listening to her sobs—“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that something had happened to her, otherwise of course I would have reported it earlier…”—when the realization hits me: Lacey left her appointment on Friday afternoon, her appointment with me, and never made it to her next destination. She stepped out my front door and vanished, which means that this office, my office, is the last place she would have been seen alive—and I’m the last person who would have seen her.

“Doctor Davis?”

I turn around. The voice doesn’t belong to Melissa, who’s standing behind her desk, staring at me, clutching her headset around her neck. It’s deeper; a male voice. My eyes dart to my doorframe and I register the pair of police officers standing just outside my office. I swallow.

“Yes?”

They step inside in unison and the one on the left, the smaller of the two, raises his arm to reveal a badge.

“My name is Detective Michael Thomas, and this is my colleague, Officer Colin Doyle,” he says, jerking his head to the large man standing to his right. “We’d like to have a few words with you about the disappearance of Lacey Deckler.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN




The police station was warm—uncomfortably warm. I remember the miniature fans positioned all around the sheriff’s office, the stale, recycled air blowing in every conceivable direction, the Post-it Notes stuck to his desk flapping in the warm breeze. Wisps of my baby hair dancing in the crossfire, tickling my cheek. I watched the beads of moisture drip down Sheriff Dooley’s neck, soaking into his collar and leaving a dark, wet stain. The first day of fall had come and gone, but still, the heat was oppressive.

“Chloe, honey,” my mother said, squeezing my fingers in her sweaty palm. “Why don’t you show the sheriff what you showed me this morning.”

I looked down at the box in my lap, avoiding eye contact. I didn’t want to show him. I didn’t want him to know what I knew. I didn’t want him to see the things that I had seen, the things in this box, because once he did, it would all be over. Everything would change.

“Chloe.”

I looked up at the sheriff, leaning toward me from across his desk. His voice was deep, stern but somehow sweet at the same time, probably from the unmistakable Southern drawl that made every word sound thick and slow like dripping molasses. He was eying the box in my lap; the old, wooden jewelry box my mother used to keep her diamond earrings and Grandma’s old brooches in before my father had bought her a new one last Christmas. It had a ballerina inside that twirled when the lid opened, dancing to a rhythm of delicate chimes.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re doing the right thing. Just start from the beginning. Where did you find the box?”

“I was bored this morning,” I said, holding it close to my stomach, my fingernail chipping away at a splinter in the wood. “It’s still so hot, I didn’t wanna go outside, so I decided to play with some makeup, mess around with my hair, that kind of thing.”

My cheeks reddened, and both my mother and the sheriff pretended not to notice. I had always been something of a tomboy, always preferring to roughhouse with Cooper in the yard over brushing my hair, but ever since that day with Lena, I had started to notice things about myself that I had never noticed before. Things like the way my collarbones popped when I pinned my bangs back or how my lips seemed juicier when I slathered them in vanilla gloss. I released the box then and wiped my mouth against my forearm, suddenly self-conscious that I was still wearing some.

“I understand, Chloe. Go on.”

“I went into Mom and Dad’s room, started digging around in the closet. I didn’t mean to snoop—” I continued, looking at my mom then. “Honest, I didn’t. I thought I’d grab a scarf or something to tie in my hair, but then I saw your jewelry box with all of Grandma’s nice pins.”