“But you never saw him?” Josie prodded.
“One, two, three, four, five, six. I never saw him ’cause I had to hide.”
“That’s very good,” Josie told her, squeezing her hands. “Emily, did you ask Rory about the man the next time you saw him?”
“I didn’t ask him, but he told me he didn’t kill Mama and Holly. He said the man did and that he was going to make the man pay. That’s why he couldn’t go to the police. I told him that if he just called you, you would believe him, and you could just go get the man and put him in jail. But he said no one would ever believe him ’cause he’s just a messed-up kid with ‘rage issues.’”
“He was trying to find this man?”
Emily let go of one of Josie’s hands long enough to swipe at her tears. “Yes. I think he was going to kill him like he killed Pax’s dad.”
“You have no idea who this man was?”
Emily shook her head and took a shuddering breath.
“Okay. You did great, Emily.”
“I still feel it,” she said, rocking.
“I’m still here,” Josie told her.
They settled into a comfortable silence. Josie was in no hurry to leave. She felt a sense of peace when she was with Emily, and she knew once she left, all that waited for her was crushing grief. She was not anxious to get back to it. Once Emily let go of her hands and relaxed back into the pillow behind her, Josie climbed out of the bed. She was about to leave but had one more question. “Emily, why did you leave the house at Harper’s Peak?”
“After I was there for a couple of hours, they left me alone to talk in the kitchen and Liar Pants told me if I didn’t look inside every room in the house, then I might never see Mama or Holly in heaven. So I went to every room in the house and looked. I knew that lady and her husband wouldn’t like it, but they didn’t even notice. The lady was on the phone in the kitchen. She kept walking back and forth saying, ‘Tom, Tom calm down’ and ‘it wasn’t my choice.’ Stuff like that. She never even came out to check on me! Anyway, in one of the rooms upstairs I saw a picture of her and Rory together.”
Josie looked toward the opening in the curtain to make sure Mettner was still paying attention.
“What lady?”
“The lady,” Emily said. “I forget her name. She got mad when I cut the buttons off her couch. I mean, I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I thought I was going to choke on them.”
“You saw a picture of Celeste and Rory together?” Josie clarified. “What kind of picture?”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. They were just standing together, smiling.”
“How old did Rory look in the picture? Was he a little boy?”
“No. He looked like he does now. When I saw the picture, I got scared because I knew Mama wanted Rory to be a secret. I got nervous. I was going to tell the guy—her husband—’cause he was nicer than her, but he had to go do something for work. That’s when I cut the buttons off the couches. She really freaked out on me after that, so when she went back on her phone call in the kitchen, I left.”
“Where were you going?”
“I just wanted to find somewhere safe. Then I saw Rory standing in the woods. I walked to him. We went into the forest, and we saw Pax and that’s when everything went wrong.”
Thirty-Nine
“Well, shit,” said Mettner as he, Josie, and Noah stood outside of the Emergency Department. “Pax was telling the truth. There’s someone else.”
“And Celeste Harper is a liar,” Noah added. He kept looking over at Josie, and she knew he was trying to assess her. She wanted to tell him she was okay—at least, in that moment—but she didn’t want to say it in front of Mettner.
“I’ll get up there and see what she knows,” Mettner said.
“She’s not going to tell you anything,” Josie said.
“But what is she hiding?” Noah asked. “Why would she be in a photo with Rory? Even if she knew about Rory, even if she had a relationship with Rory and Lorelei, why lie about it?”
Mettner said, “Maybe she didn’t want her husband to know?”
“But he knew about Lorelei,” Noah said.
“But not about her kids,” Josie said. “Or so he said. You should bring them both in. Separate them. See what you can get out of them. Bring Tom Booth in as well. Celeste was obviously having some kind of heated discussion with him when Emily walked out.”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “There’s a strange dynamic there between Celeste and Tom—and Adam. I’m not sure if it has any bearing on the case, but I’d definitely question Tom as well. He knew about Lorelei.”
“Is this going to lead me to the killer though?” Mettner said.
“We don’t know,” Josie admitted. “But someone needs to talk to Celeste at the very least. She lied about not having a relationship with Lorelei. She lied about not knowing Lorelei’s kids. She lied about when Emily walked off into the woods. What’s she hiding? Listen, you’ve still got DNA evidence from the Mitchell crime scene which will take weeks to process. That could break things open but until then, you have to keep pulling at whatever loose threads you’ve got. Did Chitwood put the searchers back on the Harper’s Peak mountain?”
Mettner nodded. “Police only, since Rory is considered possibly armed and dangerous.”
Josie looked at Noah then back at Mettner. “Will you keep us updated?”
Mettner said, “Of course.”
Josie leaned into Noah and he
