Emmy heard a ticking sound. She turned around to see where it was coming from. “I told you to call. You didn’t have to go there.”
“You know they change shifts at six. I thought I’d catch the night nurses. They usually have more time to talk.”
The ticking grew louder. Emmy looked up at the building, wondering if the gutters were clogged again. The sound was steady, like water dripping—
Tick-tick-tick.
“Mom?”
She pressed her hand to her chest. Was she hearing her own heartbeat?
“You need to get over here. I think I found something.”
Was she hearing static from the phone?
“Mom?” Cole’s voice was raised. “Can you hear me?”
Emmy sucked in a deep breath. The sound disappeared. “I’m on my way.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jude had almost started laughing when she’d walked out of the sheriff’s station. She’d made such a show of leaving, but she’d forgotten her Jeep was at the house. Going back inside had not been an option. Jude hadn’t been exactly artful in choosing her moment to tell Emmy that she was leaving. In retrospect, she’d forced herself to do it so that she wouldn’t back out. Seeing Emmy again after such a dramatic departure would’ve weakened Jude’s resolve. It would’ve been too hard to look at her face. The confusion in her eyes. The pain. When Jude was making the clean break, her heart had felt like a white-hot iron was burning through the muscle. She couldn’t let herself slip back into the easy companionship that had lulled her into thinking everything was going to be fine. Leaving now was the best way to stop the damage.
Emmy didn’t need Jude to help her find Shane Russell. She would interrogate him on her own. Figure out the last pieces of the shooting on her own. Take Russell to trial. Send him to prison. Jude did not want Emmy looking back at each of these moments and, instead of feeling triumph, feel the sting of Jude’s lies.
The best thing for both of them was for Jude to go back to San Francisco. Find a way to regroup. Wait for Emmy’s call. Then, when Emmy was ready, Jude would return to North Falls and finally tell her daughter the truth.
She drew in a lungful of cold air as she approached the North Falls Church of the Redeemer. The parking lot was full of expensive cars. Jude hadn’t suddenly developed a taste forreligion. Myrna had often threatened to beat Jude with a shoe to get her out of bed on Sundays. Not that her mother had been overly religious. Colemans and Cliftons had filled the pews for nearly one hundred years. Myrna respected the tradition. As did most of the family. Jude knew there would be a cousin or an aunt or an in-law at the evening service who could give her a lift.
Jude looked at her watch. Services were supposed to let out at seven, but Father Nate had always gone long. She leaned against the wall. Looked up at the stars. Her hand went into her pocket. She pulled out her mother’s index card.
Filipendulous: hanging by a thread; dangling.
Jude didn’t think of Emmy. She thought about sneaking out the side door with Henry. Running up the street after Tommy. Riding in Myrna’s car to the store. Sitting in her father’s office listening to his old records while he talked to Chip Cuddy about a case. All the things she’d given up. All the pleasures she had enjoyed. The Jude who had left this town would’ve been appalled by her nostalgia. The Jude who’d returned could only feel sadness for all the things she’d given up.
The chapel doors creaked open.
Father Nate shot Jude a panicked look, as if her presence compelled him to catalogue all the locations of the fire extinsguishers inside the building. Fortunately, he was distracted by congregants lining up to bid him goodnight. Jude shouldn’t have been surprised that Taybee was the first in line. She would’ve been anxious to move on to the next thing.
Jude pushed away from the wall. Maybe she could do one last thing for Emmy.
“Taybee?”
“Oh, look, we’re twins.” Taybee opened her Bible, slid out a bookmark. She tapped it three times on the page. “I’ve got one, too.”
Jude saw another index card with Myrna’s handwriting—
Raconteur—a skilled storyteller.
“She was such a funny thing. Always told me I talked too much, but I’m taking this as a compliment.” Taybee smiled at the card before sticking it back in her Bible. She adjusted it untilshe had it in the exact spot that would keep the anxiety at bay. “Millie gotopprobrium, which is a response to shameful conduct. That hits the nail on the head, don’t you think?”
“Myrna gave other people cards?”
“Somepeople, but Lord knows she never provided rhyme nor reason. She’d come visit and you’d find it left on the back of your toilet like an omerta.” Taybee motioned for Jude to step off the sidewalk so that a group could pass. “Cousin Ace found one in his kitchen drawer.Expiate—atone, especially in cases of sin.”
Jude wasn’t sure what to make of this. She asked a question that she knew would keep Taybee talking. “How is Ace related?”
“He’s not your blood,” Taybee said, because when you were a Clifton, establishing that connection was the first order of business. “Technically, he’s Terrel’s cousin. Terrel’s my husband, you’ll remember. His given name is Findlay.”
