This person knows what happened to Julia. They either have her or know where she is, and after thirteen years they’re dangling her right there in front of me.
“I was right, Sam,” I say.
He nods. “It definitely seems like this has something to do with Julia.”
“It has everything to do with her, Sam. That’s not what I meant. I was right back then. As soon as she didn’t show up that day, I knew something was wrong. No one would listen to me. They wouldn’t even give me ten seconds to tell them what I knew. They believed they knew exactly what was going on, and that there could be no other explanation. They didn’t give me a chance. They didn’t give Julia a chance. If they had…” I take a breath. “If they had, she might not still be missing.”
“Emma, you can’t blame yourself for this,” he says.
“I don’t,” I say firmly. “I blame them.”
For the rest of the day, I try to concentrate on anything but the Advent calendar sitting on the coffee table in my living room. When Sam heads back to work at the station, I go with him. I don’t work with the Sherwood Police Department as much now as I did in my earlier days back in town, but I am still deputized.
And I still have the option of working with him on cases and going with him on calls. It’s been a while since I worked with him on anything, and this is a chance for me to keep my mind off the code sitting behind that door in the calendar, waiting for tomorrow. I have no idea what it’s going to say. Or what I’m going to do when I read it.
All I can do is wait.
That night, we pick up our favorite pizza and sit on the floor in front of the Christmas tree to eat it. We keep the living room lights off, so it’s only the glow of the tree around us. It’s a tradition of ours I look forward to every Christmas season, even though I don’t remember why we started doing it.
But this year, I can’t just relax and enjoy it. My mind keeps wandering. At one point Sam catches me staring at the Advent calendar intently. I don’t even realize I’m doing it until I hear his voice.
“It might not be real, Emma,” he says.
My eyes move over to him. “What do you mean?”
He lets out a breath and wipes his fingers with a napkin, tossing the balled-up paper into his pizza box. He seems to consider his words carefully for a few seconds. “I wasn’t going to say this. I don’t want you to think I’m one of those people dismissing you, or that I don’t care about what you’re feeling.”
My eyes narrow slightly, and I tilt my head to the side to look at him. “That’s never an introduction to something good.”
“It’s just that I’ve been thinking about this, and I know your first instinct is to jump in all the way. That’s what you do. You don’t hold back when it comes to your work or cases that matter to you. And that’s what makes you as amazing as you are. I admire you for that. But I don’t want you to disappear into this without thinking it all the way through.”
“What am I supposed to think all the way through, Sam?” I ask.
“This might not be real. It could be a hoax. Someone could have found out about Julia and is just using it to string you along. To get under your skin,” he says.
I get up and pick up my pizza box.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I ask, pausing to look at Sam. “Don’t you think after as many years as I’ve been in the Bureau, and as much as I’ve been through, I understand this could just be some whack job mining colleges for stories like this, or even coming directly after me? It’s not like it would be the first time something like that has happened.”
“Exactly. You’ve seen things like this happen. I don’t want you to get yourself worked up over it until you really know what’s going on.”
“Yes, Sam. I’ve seen things like this before. I’ve seen bomb threats and hoax hostage situations. People call in murders where there are no victims, and claim arson attacks when they’re the one who lights the fire. But you know what we do when a case is brought to the Bureau? We send in agents. We do negotiations. We deploy the bomb squad. And you know why? Because people are worth saving, Sam. It’s worth the risk of looking dumb or falling for someone’s game to not turn our backs when it is actually real. And that’s exactly what I’m willing to do now. Yes. This might just be someone playing around, thinking they’re hilarious. Maybe they want to see how far they will be able to take it until I catch on, or they get in trouble. But it might not be. And I’m willing to take that risk.”
I head for the kitchen, my enjoyment of the tree and our picnic gone. Sam comes in after me and puts his box down on the table. I’m already wrapping my leftovers in plastic to stash in the refrigerator.
“Look, babe, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to make you mad. I just worry about you.”
“I don’t need you to worry about me,” I say.
“That’s just the thing. You don’t need me to. But that doesn’t stop me from doing it. When you say you don’t need me to worry about you, that’s just saying you don’t want me to care enough about you to think about situations from another angle. You don’t want me
