Page 72 of Glimmer in the Darkness

On the second floor, a door slammed. Vince’s footsteps pounded on the stairs as he descended. A moment later, he banged on a door. “Open up, Cassidy.”

Please, let her be gone. Because the angrier Vince got, the more James was convinced she wouldn’t get fair treatment.

Vince ran out the front door.

James followed and saw his friend at the tree line on his phone. At least he holstered the gun. As James approached, he picked up the words “suspect escaped on foot.” Then Vince turned and glared at James. “I’ll learn what I can. Be ready.”

He ended the call. “Where did she go?”

James wouldn’t deny she’d been there. He wasn’t prepared to lie to the police, or to his friend. Fortunately, he could honestly say, “I don’t know.”

Vince’s overlarge ears turned red, and James fought the urge to step back. “To the house. Now.”

If he’d hoped for special treatment because of their friendship, he’d have been disappointed. Vince gripped his upper arm like he thought James would bolt, but James yanked away. “I don’t need your help.”

“You’re gonna need that and a whole lot more if you don’t start talking.”

Inside, James started for his kitchen, but Vince grabbed him again. “To the bathroom. I want it open.”

James glared down at the hand on his arm. “If you’ll just let me get a tool.”

Vince let him go, and James went to the kitchen. Vince watched as if he might snatch a cleaver and attack.

As if they hadn’t been friends for a decade.

He tamped down the anger, snatched a harmless knife, and lifted it for Vince to see. “Stand back or I’ll butter you to death.”

Vince said nothing, just followed James to the bathroom door, where he used the utensil to turn the simple lock, then stepped back. “Help yourself, friend.”

Vince shouldered past him into the small room. Water on the vanity, the hand towel askew.

The window wide open.

Vince turned and glowered. “Start talking.”

James swiveled and headed for the living room, where he settled in the La-Z-Boy Dad had bought nearly two decades before. Dad had watched countless games from this chair, pounding on the arm when he got angry, cheering when things went well. He’d fallen asleep there almost every night after dinner. The chair still reminded James of his father, and he settled into it and tried to be comforted by the familiarity.

He could almost see his mother on the sofa, catty-corner to him. She used to sit on the end, a cross-stitch project on her lap, only half paying attention to whatever Dad had chosen on TV. Sports, movies, sit-coms—Mom never seemed to care as she followed pretty patterns one stitch at a time.

What would his parents think of him now? They’d blamed Cassidy for Hallie’s death. They’d been wrong—as had Vince and the rest of the town of Coventry. But they’d been certain in their wrongness. They’d see James’s alliance with Cassidy as a betrayal.

That was the problem, though. Everybody had jumped to the same conclusion. And, over the years, they’d become more and more convinced of their rightness, doggedly hanging onto an idea that simply wasn’t true.

To argue a different opinion, even one based on fact, made you the enemy. Even to listen to a different opinion, to consider it, was a betrayal. Even though James’s sister had been the first victim of this kidnapper, by considering that Cassidy might not be guilty, he wasn’t only betraying the idea, he was betraying all who held that idea close.

Vince propped on the arm of the sofa. Based on the look on his face, he saw James as a betrayer too.

James prayed for wisdom. For justice for Hallie and Addison. For rescue for Ella. He prayed for freedom for Cassidy. Jumbled, incomplete prayers he trusted God understood.

“Talk.”

“She didn’t do it, Vince. She doesn’t have Ella. She didn’t take Addison. She didn’t kill Hallie.”

Vince sucked in a breath through his teeth as if barely holding himself together. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Best guess.”