“No, but we’ll find it in DNA. I’m sure it’s there.”
Emmy walked into the closet. The access panel was gone. She only saw the dark of the attic. “What about the fifth bullet? Did you trace that back?”
“We still haven’t found the fifth casing, but we know the bullet was fired at a severe downward trajectory and lodged itself in Mandy’s bedroom wall.”
Emmy went to the doorway, looked into Mandy’s bedroom. “How severe an angle?”
“He probably fired blind around the door, held the gun up over his head, pointed the muzzle down. Your sister’s lucky he didn’t kill her.”
“What’s your theory on the missing fifth bullet casing?”
“We’re assuming it ejected into his clothing. Hoodie, shirt collar, cuff of his pants. Those casings can end up in weird places. We’ll search the woods when we’re back tomorrow.”
“The bullets,” Emmy said. “They’re all the same?”
“Yeah, the medical examiner dug out the slug in Allison’s chest. It matches the others. Speer Gold Dot 124 grain.”
“Okay.” Emmy turned around to look at Jude. “Thank you.” She slipped the phone into her pocket. She wanted to speak, but she found herself unable to articulate her thoughts.
Jude asked, “What’s bothering you?”
“Everything.”
The bloody handprints on the windowsill. The broken glass. The glove dropped on the roof. Emmy’s gut had told her that the scene had been staged because the scene had been staged.
Jude said, “Talk it out.”
Emmy looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. Then she looked across the hall. “Cult of the case.”
“Tell me.”
“You start with a theory, and you mold the investigation around it. Everybody amplifies that theory instead of questioning the inconsistencies. Other suspects get dismissed. The theory becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“It’s just us, Emmy. Say what you’re really thinking.”
Emmy shook her head, because there was no way what she was thinking could be true.
Mandy had told Talia Wilkinson that she didn’t know what she would do if Allison took Bill back. Skylar Guthrie had said that with Bill gone, Mandy could finally sleep through the night. Both girls had painted Mandy as desperate, traumatized, feeling helpless and scared.
Emmy said, “There has to be another explanation.”
“Tell me what it is.”
Emmy reached into her pocket. Pulled out her last nitrile glove. She seldom wore them in pairs. Like most cops, she always kept at least one on her body. In her vest. In her pants. Allison had kept hers in her purse. Emmy’s were blue because she liked the color. Allison’s had always been black because they were cheaper.
Jude said, “Emmy?”
She dropped the glove.
Emmy went into the closet, climbed the shoe cubby like a ladder, pulled herself into the attic. The hole where Mandy fell through the ceiling felt larger from the darkness above. Light from Allison’s bedroom bounced up into the rafters. Still, Emmy used the flashlight on her phone so that she wouldn’t fall between the joists the same way Mandy had.
She couldn’t stand up straight because of the low pitch of the roof. She hunched over, straddling the joists, carefully navigating her way toward the hole that Mandy’s body had made. Fiberglass floated into Emmy’s nose and mouth. She coughed, bracing herself against the rafters so she didn’t lose her balance.
She looked down at the bedroom below. Jude was looking up, her expression grim. She was standing near the bed under which Allison’s Glock had skidded. Close to the spot where Mandy’s left shoe had skittered across the floor when the girl had come crashing through the ceiling.
Emmy pointed the flashlight along the rafters directly above the hole. The insulation was thick with deep folds, the same as you would find on a hoodie or a shirt collar or the cuff on a pair of pants. She trailed the light back and forth along onesection, then moved to the next, then the next. Back and forth, until she saw a glint of light bounce off a piece of metal.
She felt light-headed, like her heart had stopped beating.
