Have You Seen Me?(26)

“Ah, right. They didn’t take you to the police station, did they?”

“No, the second interview—and I think there was a third, too—was in a room at some kind of municipal center.” It’s still all there in my mind’s eye. The yellow walls. The small chair I sat in. The huge pit in my stomach. “I guess it was where they took kids so it would be easier for them to talk. But it was unnerving. I didn’t understand why they kept asking me the same questions over and over again.”

“They had an agenda.”

I feel a prick of anxiety. “What do you mean?”

“Are you sure you want to get into this?”

“Of course.”

Roger sighs. “One guy—I don’t even remember his name—told Dad and Lilly they thought you were being evasive.”

“Evasive? What?”

“I’m sure he was a total jerk.”

“If I seemed evasive, it was because I was shell-shocked,” I say, disturbed by his revelation. I can feel my pulse quickening. “And I was worried that they’d be upset about the shortcut part, too. That maybe I’d gone someplace I wasn’t allowed to.”

Roger turns his attention to a small bowl of homemade potato chips he must have ordered with his wine. “You want one?” he asks. “They’re totally decadent but worth it.”

“No thanks,” I say. His sudden shift in focus confuses me. “Is there something you’re not saying?”

He sighs, clearly conflicted. “Yes, there’s a bit more, though I hate to lay it on you like this. They told Dad they thought you were holding something back.”

My heart’s jackhammering at this point, propelled by a weird mix of indignation and alarm.

“But what could I have been holding back?” I ask. “It’s not like I saw someone put her—” A thought explodes in my head like a firecracker. “Wait, are you saying they thought I had something to do with her death?”

“God no, I can’t imagine that. Okay, maybe for five seconds they did. But you were nine. And there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support it.”

Roger reaches across the table and clasps my hand again. “Ally, listen to me. You can’t let this get under your skin. Cops are trained to be suspicious of everyone. And it became obvious pretty quickly that the mother and that sketchy boyfriend of hers—Frank Wargo—must have done it.”

“Why weren’t they ever arrested?” I ask. I had looked up the story in the local paper several years later and seen both their pictures. Wargo and the gaunt, straggly-haired mother, Audrey Long.

“From what Dad told me, they had these convoluted alibis that turned out to be hard to puncture. As I recall, the girl had been missing for a couple of days, but the mother hadn’t reported it until the same day you found her. She said that she thought the girl was with the boyfriend, who sometimes took care of her when the mother worked, but it turned out Wargo wasn’t even in town. Or something like that.”

“Do you think they’re both still in the area?”

“I heard once that she is, but I don’t think anyone’s seen hide nor hair of him. He might still have family there, though. He was a few years behind me in school and I vaguely remember him.”

“Were there any other suspects?”

“Not that I was aware of. Let me see what I can find out on that, too. The Millerstown chief of police occasionally joins a weekly guys’ breakfast I go to at the diner. I’ll give him a ring and ask for a bit of background. See if there were any developments.”

“It would be good to know.”

I reach for my coffee cup and notice my hand is trembling slightly.

“Ally, look, please don’t think about this another second,” Roger says. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s okay. I think it helped to talk about it. And I’m glad you told me about the cops being suspicious. Maybe on some level I always sensed that, and it added to my stress.”

“Okay, but give me your word you won’t dwell on it. None of that matters now.”

“I swear.”

Roger insists on walking me back to my building, promises to call me soon, and asks me to pick a weekend to come out to his place with Hugh. We hug tightly before parting. I try to draw comfort from the embrace, but I’m too fraught now to feel anything. Something seems to gnaw at me. What happened to that city girl from an hour ago, the one who was sure she had the world by the tail?

Once I’m in the apartment I find Hugh where I left him, hard at work at the dining table. He seems relieved to see me back safely, but he’s also preoccupied, and after I promise to fill him in later, he buries his nose in his papers again.

I kick off my shoes and head to the den. I consider watching a movie to distract myself, but after I’ve settled onto the love seat, I don’t bother turning on the TV or even a lamp. I simply sit in the waning light, thinking.

For the first time in a long time, I allow myself to travel fully back to the April afternoon when I found Jaycee. The woods were so hushed, I remember, and the ground slightly spongy from a recent storm. There were piles of dead and decaying leaves left on the ground from the previous fall, and I trampled through them happily, not caring about my shoes.

Jaycee was hidden under one of those piles. I felt rather than saw her at first, nearly tripping over something. Curious, I glanced downward. My gaze fell on a sliver of white that didn’t seem to belong. I kicked a section of leaves out of the way, and the wind did the rest, suddenly revealing her pale white face, eyes open. I lurched back in shock.