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Instead, I ask, “Where were you at 6 a.m. this morning?”
He huffs. “Sleeping in a tent with my son.”
“Any witnesses who can corroborate that?”
He laughs. “Yeah, every parent and child in Troop 395.”
He points to his son, who is approaching us with a skeptical look on his face. The boy is wearing a blue Cub Scout uniform. Parker explains that, because Leo was still recovering from his snakebite, they considered skipping the long-planned Cub Scout camping trip. But Leo didn’t want to miss it.
“We’ll need the contact information of the other parents,” Carlos says, saving me because I’ve lost the ability to speak, wilting in the glare of my old friend. “And we need to know your whereabouts for a handful of other dates over the past year.”
Parker ignores him and goes to Josie, wrapping her in a tight hug. The two of them embrace the children, who look ready to burst into tears from all the commotion they don’t understand. Both parents tell the kids everything will be all right.
“We’d also like to ask you some questions,” Carlos tells Parker.
“Go to hell,” Parker snaps. “I’ll give you the name of the scoutmaster, and I’ll stand by while you tear our home apart.” He gestures to the warrant still in my hand, hanging limply at my side. “Because that’s what that stupid piece of paper says you can do. But I know how this works. I don’t have to say a goddamn thing until I talk to a lawyer.”
“If you’re innocent,” Carlos says, “then you have nothing to hide.”
“That line might work on the average perp you pull in off the street,” Parker says. “I said it myself a hundred times. But this ain’t my first rodeo, boys.”
He looks back and forth between Carlos and me.
“If you guys are examples of what Texas Rangers are like these days,” he says, “then the organization is more lost now than it ever was in my day.”
“We just want to find out the truth,” I tell Parker.
He smirks.
“You want the truth, Rory?” he says. “Here it is: I’m guilty of only one thing—thinking you were my friend.”
CHAPTER 34
BY NIGHTFALL, I’M beginning to get a hell of a bad feeling about the prospects for our search.
The Longbaughs, Josie crying and the kids upset, have left the scene to stay at Josie’s mom’s house, where a patrol officer is keeping an eye on their door. Free from the family’s watchful eye, our team’s been scouring every inch of the property.
The barn, where I had high hopes we’d find something, holds only Parker’s woodworking tools. And the paperwork in Parker’s office documents his business and at first glance all seems in legal order. The bins in the basement haven’t been helpful, either. They’re mostly full of the kids’ old toys or dioramas that Parker built and disassembled for the model train set.
We had to go through a whole rigmarole before opening theEXPLOSIVESbox. While the bomb squad made sure it was safe, guilt washed over me like a wave, knowing I’d lied.
When Lieutenant Abrams discovered what I already knew—that there were only comics inside—and flipped through the issues ofX-MenandAquamanandWonder Woman,he looked up at me, his expression unreadable.
“Keep looking,” he told the team.
When law enforcement personnel search a home, they really tear it apart. The cupboards have been emptied, desk drawers ransacked, furniture moved, mattresses overturned. Nothing is safe. Even the kids’ rooms, where toys are scattered everywhere, some stepped on, some broken.
Walking around, seeing the wreckage of the Longbaughs’ house, I feel sickened by guilt. I step out onto the porch, where I find Carlos alone.
We give each other a nod that seems to communicate everything we’re thinking—this search isn’t going like we thought it would.
“You think somebody tipped him off?” Carlos asks. “Abrams called in a big team here—could be somebody gave Parker a call.”
I sigh. “There’s always the other possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“Parker’s innocent.”
