MichaelTech: Out with it.
Sarah: I got the scholarship! Four years!
MichaelTech: Are you serious? Wow!
Sarah: My parents are so proud of me. We’re going to Cascade to tour the campus next week.
MichaelTech: Awesome. I knew you could do it.
Sarah: Thanks. That’s my news. What’s yours? Olivia OK? The kids?
MichaelTech: Everything’s good. Everyone wants you to come down here. Or we can come up.
Sarah: Still haven’t told my folks yet. But I will.
MichaelTech: Understood.
Michael seemed elated by the exchange, but Olivia felt less so. She wondered why it was taking so long for Sarah to tell her folks that her long-lost brother had been found.
“I wish she would tell them,” she said.
Michael closed the chat window. “She will. This is a hard one for her. She doesn’t want to hurt them.”
They had had the discussion once before, so there was no need to state the obvious.
Chapter Sixty
Jason Howard entered Emily’s office with a file folder and that kind of cat-that-killed-the-canary look that Emily knew all too well. She knew immediately he had something to go on.
“Didn’t Samantha Phillips say that she and Amanda stopped talking?”
Emily nodded. “Yes, not by her choice, I gathered.”
“She lied, Sheriff.” He pulled out the phone records addressed to Mitchell Crawford, 21 Larkspur, Cherrystone.
“What have you got?”
“Ten calls.”
“Ten?”
“Yeah, between Halloween and the date of her disappearance.”
“Good work, Jason. Anything else?”
“A bunch of calls to and from different dealerships, his lawyer’s office, and calls to Mandy’s folks in Spokane. Not much else.”
Emily looked the list over. Jason had highlighted the calls to Samantha.
“When someone lies,” she said, “we just need to find out why, now don’t we?”
“That we do.”
A call to the Phillips’ grand residence was answered by a housekeeper named Anna, who sweetly informed Emily that Samantha, “the lady of the house,” was volunteering at her children’s school for the day.
Emily grabbed her coat and keys for the drive to Crestview Elementary School. She knew the school well, of course. Jenna had attended there, just as she had. She parked by a maple tree that she could remember being a sapling when it was planted to commemorate an Earth Day celebration. In winter, it was an enormous skeleton, with four bird’s nests still clinging in the frozen air.
She parked and made her way into the office.
“Hi, Sheriff Kenyon,” said the woman behind the counter. Her glossy dark hair was held tight to her head, and her eyes were magnified behind the thick lenses of her glasses. Her name tag read MS. JONAS, but Emily didn’t know her.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Everything all right? Mr. Gray is out at a conference in Boise. I’m Heather Jonas, his assistant principal.”
“Nice to meet you,” Emily said, extending her hand. “No problems here. I just need to speak to one of your parent volunteers. Can you tell me how to find Samantha Phillips?”
Heather set down her clipboard. “I’ll ring her right now. She’s in computer lab helping Ms. Brennan’s class.” She retreated to the telephone/intercom console one desk over and made the call.
“She’s on her way. Would you like to talk somewhere privately? You could use Mr. Gray’s office. He has a nice visitor’s table. Maybe I can find some refreshments in the staff room. I have a key to the fridge.”
“That would be wonderful,” Emily said, thinking that the very idea of “refreshments” seemed out of place when she wanted to dig in and see what Mandy Crawford’s best friend was holding back.
Five minutes later, Samantha’s mask of charm failed her as she took a seat in the principal’s office at Crestview Elementary to face Emily Kenyon. She looked irritated and in a hurry. She carried her purse and coat as if she planned on leaving the building after she was done talking with Emily. The housekeeper had told her that Samantha volunteered for the “entire day” at the school.
“I’ve told you everything I know already,” she said.
Emily ignored the chilly reception. “Good morning, Samantha.”
Samantha caught herself, and tried to find her good manners. “I’m sorry. Good morning, Sheriff Kenyon.”
“I am sorry to bother you, but you might be our only hope in Mandy’s case.”
Samantha fidgeted with the big Chanel clasp of her purse.
Emily smiled inwardly.
“What help do you need? You’ve got her husband locked up already.”
“Yes, I know. He still has to be tried and convicted.”
“Look, I’ve told you all that I can. All that I know.”
Emily fastened her eyes on Samantha’s. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Do I need a lawyer or something?”
The answer was a bizarre non sequitur and it jarred Emily. “Why on earth would you need a lawyer?”
Samantha continued to open and close the clasp. Over and over. “I feel like everyone’s pushing me, pressuring me.”
“Everyone? What do you mean?”
“I just want to be left out of it. OK?’
“You know something, don’t you?”
Samantha shook her head. “No. I don’t.”
“Samantha, why is it that I don’t believe you? Is it about Mandy’s affair?”
“You are harassing me. I don’t know
“You do. You saw something when you visited her that day, didn’t you?”
“You don’t understand, Sheriff. I
“Why can’t you? She was your friend. Don’t you want to make sure that her husband gets what’s coming to him?”
