Before She Was Found(45)

I nod. “Of course. We want to help in any way we can.”

“Violet, you said yesterday that someone named Joseph Wither was the one who hurt Cora. How do you know this?”

Violet shrugs. “I don’t know. I just do.”

Officer Grady looks like he wants to push further on this and I don’t blame him. I want to know the answer, too. I think about the drawing of the young man in Violet’s sketchbook. Instead he pauses to take another sip of coffee and then leans forward in his seat, his elbows on the table. “Why don’t you tell me about the overnight at Cora’s house?” he asks conversationally. “What time did you get there?”

“Around six, I think?” She turns in her chair to look at Max, who has hoisted himself up onto the kitchen counter to sit. “That’s when you guys dropped me off, right?”

“Yeah, around six sounds about right,” Max says, a bit taken aback at being drawn into the questioning.

“How did you spend the evening?” Officer Grady asks. “What kinds of things did you and the other girls do?”

“The usual,” Violet says in a quiet voice. Violet had only been on a total of two sleepovers when we lived in New Mexico. Since moving here, she spends nearly every other Friday night at the Landry house. It’s become like a second home to her, I think guiltily.

Cora has never spent the night at our house, though I tell Violet she is more than welcome to invite her over. It never happened, though. There is always an excuse as to why Cora never spends the night: Cora has a stomachache, the family is heading out of town early the next morning, they have family plans.

I thought I was sending Violet to a nice home, with nice parents.

“We ate pizza and watched a movie. Then we went to bed,” Violet says.

“What time did you go to bed?” Officer Grady asks.

“Eleven thirty, I think.”

I’m getting frustrated. Why does it matter what they ate and what movie they watched? I want to know what happened at the train yard. I want to know what animal went after the girls. I’m just getting ready to say this when Violet begins to speak again. “Then we got up again at midnight to go to the old train depot.”

Officer Grady slides his eyes to me and gives a slight shake of his head. I take this is as my cue to keep my mouth shut. “Why were you going to the train depot?” he asks.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Violet says, tracing one finger through the small mound of salt that she spilled on the table.

“That’s okay, Violet,” Officer Grady says. “We’ve got time.”

“Well, we were going to look for Joseph Wither. We thought that maybe we could find him. We thought we could see what he looks like and maybe stop him.”

“Stop him from what?” he asks.

“From killing another girl or taking one,” Violet says so matter-of-factly that you’d think she was talking about doing her homework or drying the dishes.

“Oh, my God,” I say. “Violet, what were you thinking? Why would you do that?”

“We were curious. We thought it would be fun.” A ripple of regret passes over her face.

“You saw him?” Officer Grady asks. “You saw Joseph Wither attack Cora?”

“It was really dark,” Violet says. “It was hard to see anything. But I heard her scream.”

“And then what did you do?” he asks.

“I hid in the grass. I was afraid.” Violet blushes. “She screamed and screamed and I know I should have gone and helped her but I couldn’t move.”

“You kept yourself safe, Violet. That was a smart thing to do,” Officer Grady tells her. “You heard Cora scream and you hid in the grass. Where was the other girl, Jordyn Petit?”

“I don’t know,” Violet says. “She got mad at us and said she was leaving but I don’t think they did.”

Officer Grady looks up from his notebook. “They? Was there someone else with you at the train yard?”

“I meant Jordyn,” Violet says. “I don’t think she left.”

“Why do you think that?” Officer Grady stares so hard at Violet that she actually squirms. She’s lying about it only being the three of them at the depot.

When it’s clear that Violet isn’t going to answer his question, Officer Grady goes on. “So, you heard Cora scream and you hid in the grass. Then what?”

“All of a sudden she stopped. It got real quiet so I came out and found Cora. She was all bloody. I thought she was dead.”

“What about the blood on your hands and clothes?” Officer Grady asks. “How did it get on you?”

Uncertainty skitters across her face and I jump in. “She was helping her friend. Weren’t you, Violet?” Officer Grady shoots me a warning look.

“Violet?” he repeats.

“I don’t remember,” she says.

“When the lady with the dog found Cora, no one else was around. Where did you go?”

“I ran and hid,” she says. “I was scared.”

“When you came out of the grass, you were carrying something. Do you remember what it was?” Violet shakes her head.

My mind thinks back to the moment when Violet wandered out from the overgrown grass. I remember how her clothes were bloodied. I remember something slipping from her bloody fingers but didn’t think it was important. I had completely forgotten about it.