Pax nodded. “I thought if we were friends, maybe he wouldn’t have to try so hard to keep his creature from coming out. We had certain areas in the woods we always went to, and only we knew where they were. Certain trees and little gullies and stuff. So I went looking for him in those places.”
Something had been bothering Josie since the day she’d been shot at in the woods. “Pax, why were you looking for Rory?”
He looked away from her. His shoulder shrugged three times, and his fingers tapped against the table.
“Pax?”
“He promised me,” he said quietly.
Josie leaned in closer. “Promised you what?”
“That he wouldn’t let the creature hurt them. He promised me, and he broke that promise. He killed Miss Lorelei and Holly.”
“What were you going to do when you found him?” Josie asked.
Now he met her eyes. With an expression of perfect innocence, he said, “I was going to ask him why.”
“That’s all?”
“Hasn’t anyone ever broken a promise to you?” he said. “A really important one?”
She almost said that the difference between her and him was that she would want to kill someone who broke a promise the magnitude of the one Rory had broken, but she was here to find out what happened to Emily. “You found him.”
“Yeah. I was pretty high up on the mountain, almost further than we ever went, and I saw him. He had Emily with him.”
Josie said, “Emily was with him. Did he say where he found her?”
“He said he went and got her. I don’t know from where.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“There wasn’t time for that. I told him to come with me, both of them. I’d get one of my dad’s vans and hide them ’cause I knew he was in big trouble, and I wanted Emily to be safe. Then we heard something in the woods.”
“What did you hear?”
“Like footsteps. Like someone coming toward us. Rory shoved Emily toward me and told me to take her and go get the van. He said he’d meet us in the back of the store later. He made me take her.”
“Where did you take her?” Josie asked.
“I was taking her back to the store. To hide her. I made her hide out back. A couple of hours later, I went out and Rory was there. He had walked all the way down the mountain to the market. My dad was still working in the office. Doing the books. I took one of the vans and we left.”
“Pax,” Josie said. “Did Rory have a gun with him?”
“No.”
“Where did you take them?”
“First we just drove around. He was really upset. The creature was really bothering him. I had to find a place to stop the van so we could talk. I drove back to that old textile mill. The one that’s abandoned?”
“I know it,” Josie said.
“I waited for him to stop freaking out but he wouldn’t. I tried to talk to him, and he said something bad happened. He said he saw a police officer and some old lady and something bad happened, and he couldn’t stop it and he was sorry.”
Josie’s heart thudded in her chest, but she remained calm. “What else did he say?”
“That it was his fault, all his fault, that the police lady and the old lady got hurt. He kept crying and freaking out.”
But the gun hadn’t been found anywhere in the woods, Josie thought. “But he didn’t have a gun with him? Are you sure, Pax?”
“I wouldn’t let him bring a gun with us. Definitely not with Emily there. She was already upset. She kept asking what police lady, and he said he didn’t know her name and it was dark. Emily asked if she had a scar and he said a big one, on the side of her face, and we knew it was you.”
He looked at her then, as if looking for some kind of absolution, but Josie didn’t have it to give. She swallowed. “Did he say what he did?”
“No. Just that it was very bad and that you were both probably at the hospital. Emily got really upset. She said he had to make you a doll to say he was sorry. I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, but he said if he made one could I take it to you since I knew who you were. I said if I took it to you, you would make me turn him in. So he said I could take it to the hospital and leave it on your car. I had been in your car before, so I knew which one it was. I thought what Rory was saying was bullshit, but it was important to Emily that he do it. I said I would do whatever he wanted if he would tell me why he broke his promise to me. He didn’t want Emily to hear, so he asked her to look around in the woods for stuff to make this doll they kept talking about. So she said she would. I told her to stay where I could see her, though.”
“What did Rory say when Emily couldn’t hear him?” Josie asked.
“He said he didn’t break his promise.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said he hurt Holly and Miss Lorelei, but he didn’t kill them. There was someone else.”
Thirty-Three
Josie glanced at the CCTV camera. Gretchen was on the other side of it, listening and watching. She would take down anything Pax said so the team could track down both Rory and the other person he claimed killed his mother and sister. Josie was going back to the hospital to be with Lisette after this.
“What other person?” Josie asked.
Pax spread his hands. “I don’t know. He just said he didn’t kill them. The creature came out and it was bad. The creature said all these terrible things he was going to do to all of them and Miss Lorelei and Holly got scared. They told Emily to hide. That only made
