Grave sadness darkened the hollows around Karyn’s eyes and she shook her head. “I wish so that I did. I’ve prayed that I would be able to help.”
“I need you to tell me—”
“Where Jim was that evening?” Karyn asked.
I gave her a questioning glance. “How did you know I’d ask that?”
“Everyone in the family knows you questioned Jim and Rebecca today. They all know about the time he spent in jail,” she explained. “Jim was with me that evening, with two of our children. We drove to St. George to pick up fertilizer. I have the receipt in my purse. I can get it and show you.”
“Okay. Why didn’t he and Rebecca tell me that?”
“I think Mother frightened them so about talking to you, they weren’t sure what they could or couldn’t say.” With that, Karyn stood. “I’ll go inside and get the receipt. I looked earlier and it has the time on it. Jim signed it.”
“I’ll wait here,” I said.
Karyn began to walk away, but turned back to me. “You know, when we go into the city, I see cameras all over. I bet they have them at the Walmart. You should be able to see us on camera.”
I smiled. “You have thought this through.”
“I’m used to having to explain Jim to others. People often don’t understand him. My husband is brilliant in many ways, but he doesn’t interact well with people. Rebecca and I realize that he can come across as awkward.” She gave me an unassuming smile. “I’ll be right back with my purse.”
At that, she turned and headed back to the trailer. Karyn hadn’t made it to the steps when Lily burst out the screen door. She held something: a long, thick, neon-orange flashlight.
“Clara, Delilah had her flashlight with her at the outhouse,” Lily said, rushing toward me. “Mine is just like it. This one. When Delilah disappeared, the flashlight vanished, too.”
She put the flashlight in my hands. It looked familiar. Why?
“This is so strange. I have the feeling I recently saw one just like this,” I whispered. “Maybe there are a lot of them around?”
“No, we just had the two, Delilah’s and mine. Naomi bought them in Salt Lake, at a hardware store. They’re special. The beam is strong and you can adjust it so that it’s wide. It’s good to use to take the little ones out at night.”
Karyn looked at me. “I guess whoever took Delilah must have taken the flashlight.”
I thought back to earlier that day. I remembered seeing a flashlight just like the one I held in my hands on a kitchen counter. At the time, it reminded me of traffic cones. I grabbed my cell phone. “Max, I know who has Delilah,” I said. “Meet me at the sheriff’s office. We need a search warrant.”
Thirty-Five
Lily sat in the seat next to me as we drove through Alber on the way to the sheriff’s office in Pine City. Behind us, Sariah and Naomi followed in the family van. As Delilah’s mother, Sariah needed to authorize the official missing person report. I wanted Naomi available to sign a statement, since she purchased the matching orange flashlights. As the Pathfinder bounced down the road, Lily held her flashlight on her lap, clutching it tight, as if it were a talisman with the power to bring her sister home.
“Can you explain what Mother meant?” I asked Lily. “When she kept insisting that someone was taking care of all this, handling it? Who was she talking about?”
“I don’t know,” Lily said. “Mother told us not to worry, that someone we could trust would find Delilah.”
“But she never said who?”
“Not to me. I don’t think she told anyone,” Lily said. I drove for a few more minutes, and my sister turned to me. “I think I do remember you, Clara. I remember you from when I was little. That I’d go to school and you were there. Teaching.”
“Lily, thank you for that.” In Dallas, no one truly knew me. Since I’d arrived in Alber, almost everyone had turned away from me as if I didn’t exist. Lily’s recognition touched me to my core. For the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t an outsider, but someone remembered: I was their teacher, their sister.
“Did you think of us while you were gone?” she asked.
After so many years separate, it felt odd to look into eyes so like mine. The moment filled me with pleasure, but at the same time it broke my heart. Since arriving back in Alber, I’d been forced to face the truth; when I fled, I lost so much more than I would have ever admitted, even to myself. “I’ve tried hard not to think of the past, because it hurts to remember. But, yes, I’ve thought of all of you. I wondered if you were happy and well. I wondered if anyone remembered me.” Alber disappeared behind us as I turned onto the highway. “What this trip has taught me is that you can leave home, but you can’t ever truly leave it behind. No matter where you end up, where you started haunts you. And the people you love? You carry them with you, whether you realize it or not.”
It was going on six thirty and the Smith County Courthouse had closed an hour earlier. I called Max, and he unlocked the door to let us in.
“I asked Judge Crockett to wait in his courtroom to sign the warrant,” he said as we rushed through the lobby. “Everything’s in place.”
We marched into the sheriff’s office, and I said, “Sariah, I’ll need the photo.”
She handed me a recent one of Delilah, a rosy-cheeked smiling kid with big blue eyes and freckles, older but not
