“Because he’s an abuser. They feel small if they’re not punishing someone else. Russell was giving Mandy things that made her happy. His ego wouldn’t have been able to stand that happiness.” Jude’s heart sank even lower. “Mandy grew up watching her mother endure unspeakable violence. I imagine that taught her from an early age to accept violence as an expression of love.”
They both went silent for the rest of the ride down to the lobby. For Jude’s part, she was thinking of her own daughter, how lonely Emmy must have felt trapped inside her abusive relationship with Jonah. Jude couldn’t imagine that Myrna had been anything other than disapproving, which would’ve pushed Emmy to retreat farther into silence.
The elevator doors opened.
“Boss.” Cole jogged around the corner. His phone was in his hands. “You need to see this.”
Jude slipped on her glasses. She looked over Emmy’s shoulder at the phone. The paused image showed an older man in a wheelchair. Mitch Billingham looked profoundly ill, as if sitting upright took enormous effort. Jude recognized Allison Vickery sitting across from him. She was pulling tissue from a box. Her expression was one of complete devastation.
Cole said, “This was the day before Mitch died.”
Emmy tapped the video. Allison shook her head. She spoke, but they were too far away for the camera to pick up her voice. Mitch pointed to her, but not aggressively. More like a father telling his child that something had to be done. Allison dropped her head into her hands. Mitch reached down into his chair, pulled something out from under the cushion. The plastic case shook in his frail hand. It was flat and square, the color a burnt orange. His mouth moved. Allison looked up. She shook her head again, but he insisted that she take it.
“Do you know what it is?” Cole asked, because he’d never seen a jewel case before.
Emmy explained, “It’s what CDs used to come in before they switched to cardboard.”
“CD-ROMs,” Jude said. They had seen a stack of them only hours before.
Emmy remembered them, too. “We need to go back to the library.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Emmy paced the library floor with her phone pressed to her ear and her hand gripping the watch in her pocket. She was listening to the distant sound of tinny pop music and silverware hitting plates at a popular family restaurant in Verona. Valerie Wilkinson hadn’t answered her phone when Emmy called. Neither had Talia. They weren’t at their house. Cole had tracked them through a photo of a hot fudge sundae that Talia had posted on her socials. Emmy had sent a deputy to hand the woman his phone.
He must’ve found her. She heard a short conversation before Valerie came on.
“Sheriff? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry to bother you. I need to ask Talia a question.”
“Well, can it wait?” Valerie sounded exasperated. “I took Talia out for a treat to help take her mind off things.”
“Ma’am, I sent a deputy to find you in a restaurant. This can’t wait.”
Valerie sighed. She still hadn’t processed the urgency.
Emmy kept pacing. She could see Cole standing by the circulation desk. His expression was hard. He was pissed off at her for keeping him underfoot when there was a manhunt going on. “Ma’am?” Talia sounded scared. She knew why Emmy was calling.
“Sweetie, I’m not mad,” Emmy said, but she was actually furious. Not at Talia, because kids did stupid things. She was mad at herself for not putting the pieces together sooner. “I need you to tell me the truth now. The older man that Mandy was seeing. Is Shane Russell her father?”
Talia sucked in some air. “Yes.”
Emmy felt like somebody had punched her in the throat.
“I mean—” Talia exhaled. “I don’t know for sure, ma’am. That’s what Mandy told me, but I promise I didn’t tell you because there’s no way I believed her.”
Emmy believed Mandy, if only because it made a hell of a lot of sense. “Why not?”
“’Cause Mandy always had this fantasy of, like, somebody rescuing her. Like, for forever. And then one day she’s saying her dad is gonna rescue her and we were like, it’s the same fantasy she had when we were little so it can’t be true.”
Emmy heard Echoes of Skylar saying that Mandy had dreamed her father was a duke who would send his private jet to whisk her away. Then Mandy’s real father had shown up after serving sixteen years of hard time in prison and used his fists to beat his way back into her life.
“Talia, when you and I spoke in my office earlier, I asked you if Mandy ever planned to go away with Russell. You told me that he’d never asked her to leave. That Mandy had resigned herself to nobody saving her.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying now. That it was a fantasy,” Talia repeated. “Then Skylar said it didn’t matter if the old guy was her father or just a creepy pedo. That Mandy didn’t want to be saved, otherwise she would’ve told people what was happening or tried to run away.”
Emmy pressed her fingers into her eyelids. These girls were killing her. “Do you believe that?”
