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He walks away before I can remove my hand from my purse and proceeds to the ice-cream shop window to order. “I got it.”
As if the sun is a spotlight, hovering only over me, I can’t stop myself from peering in every direction, wondering who’s around. A news truck with a reporter is at the outer edge of the wharf, where the village street of shops meets the inlet. While I know they’re down here often to report on various activities in the area, I can’t help but wonder if anything they are about to report on has something to do with the Smith family.
I can’t even tell myself I’m just paranoid. I’m beyond that.
I hurry to the corner of the ice-cream shop to stay out of sight from the news crew. “You know,” Liam says, handing me my cone of strawberry ice cream. “You could just go down to the reporter, introduce yourself and tell the truth about what really happened last night. You could flip the coin.”
My mouth falls open just considering the idea. “No, there’s no way. I shouldn’t—I can’t. I don’t know what the right thing is anymore, but I don’t want to make any public statements.”
Although I was the one who thought watching two children would be agoodidea.
Liam’s idea to approach the news crew makes me want to jump off the pier, but the more I think about it, the more I feel there might be some value to the idea. Someone guilty of a crime wouldn’t approach a news crew and be so upfront and direct. They would be in hiding.
My ice cream is beginning to melt as I stare at the crowd watching the reporter prepare for the camera.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause more stress,” Liam says. He hands me a napkin to wrap around my cone.
“No—it’s not—did you receive an Amber Alert?”
Liam lowers his ice-cream cone and tips his head to the side, his forehead wrinkling with a look of contemplation. “The thought didn’t even cross my mind. No, I didn’t receive an alert.”
“I would have thought that would be the first thing the police had done last night.”
“Something is off about this situation. Not for nothing, but the police let you go after questioning you. If there was clear evidence that you had done something with the child while the Smiths were gone, I’m not sure they would have released you from custody.”
There was evidence. In my car of all places. The police said the evidence wasn’t conclusive enough to use in the case and my fingerprints weren’t on the baby bottle.
“That’s true, but their investigation isn’t complete, and I’m worried about what else they might question about me being there last night. The police could still show up at my door with an arrest warrant. I just feel like this is far from over.”
“I don’t think that’ll happen,” he says, “honestly.”
“I’ve never met up with a man for an ice-cream date and discussed the probability of my impending criminal record,” I say, while taking a painfully cold bite of the melting scoop of ice cream. “I can only imagine what you must be thinking of me. I still can’t understand why you’re here. I think most would have run by now. I probably would have.”
Liam spots something behind me and gestures for me to turn around. A free bench awaits us against the wooden grates lining the wharf. “Do you want to sit over there?” he asks, pointing toward the bench.
“Sure,” I say, and we walk over side by side, before rigidly taking a seat. All I can wonder is what he’s truly thinking about me.
“You know…something I’ve learned as a teacher is how to read a person by their eyes. It’s funny because I never would have picked up on this hint before working with so many fourteen- and fifteen-year-old kids. I call it the doe-eyed effect.” He leans back into the bench and stretches his legs out as I try to find a more comfortable position on the flat, unforgiving wooden bench.
“Doe-eyed? Meaning innocent and naive?”
Liam smirks and pulls one foot in, scraping his heel against the sand-covered wooden pier. “No, the ones with the big, endearing stares are the ones I find guilty. There’s panic andfrenzy in the eyes of the innocent because they didn’t pre-plan the moment of being questioned for something they didn’t do.”
I’m not sure I believe that. Willa gives me that doe-eyed look all the time. I know she never lies to me. “Hmm. Are you sure?”
“There’s a science behind it.” If there’s a science behind it, it should be something I know about from my psychology degree. “It has something to do with cognitive demand.”
“The attempt to form truth and logic increases cognitive demand,” I say as if I’m reading from one of my textbooks. I never paired that trait up with lying. I should have—I’ve covered the topic in my courses. “I can’t argue that theory.”
“In any case, you aren’t telling me a story with a doe-eyed look, so you’re innocent—and also dripping ice cream on the ground.”
As I peer down between my feet to where the ice cream is landing, the top scoop falls to the ground. “Oh my God. How about now? Haven’t you realized yet that I’m not great company?” I ask, trying to laugh through my embarrassment.
“You failed to notice I sat on the bench to rest my arm over my shorts where I also dripped ice cream.” He lifts his arm to show me the stain. “I think we’re in perfect company.”
“Fair enough.” I stare at my sad cone and feel more motivated than ever to do something other than sit here feeling as if the world is staring at me. “Maybe I will give the reporters a statement so they have their so-called-update to me being a suspect in questioning.”
“Wait, before you do that—” Liam reaches over with a napkin and dabs the corner of my mouth. “You don’t need strawberry ice cream on your face while being brave. You can’t be blushing either. You might give the cameraman the wrong idea.”
