Page 48 of Find Me

She made sure that Decker didn’t have anyone follow her from the house before parking on Newtown Lane, removing Hope’s cat keychain from her key ring, and dropping it in a trash can beneath a rumpled takeout bag. After a quick pop in to Carissa’s Bakery, she slipped to the opposite side of the street and dumped Alex Lopez’s cell phone.

No turning back now.

She heard Hope’s voice in her head.Don’t ask me why, but when you said Wichita, I immediately thought, Doo Dah.There was only one explanation: like Alex Lopez, Hope had grown up in Wichita.

She opened the Facebook app on her phone and pulled up the summer camp alumni page where she’d found Katy Barnes’s post. She scrolled until she spotted a user named Holly Gunther, and then lookedup the camp’s phone number. She got back into her car to make the call.

The woman who picked up sounded like she had started smoking straight out of the womb. “Edgemoor Rec.”

“Oh, hi, my name is Holly Gunther, and I went to camp there when I was a kid.” She hoped the woman wouldn’t recognize the name. “My old fifth-grade teacher is retiring, and her family is trying to collect messages from all the students she had such an impact on over the years. She’s the best teacher I ever had.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s so sweet!”

“I’m trying to find a kid from my class named Alex Lopez. I know he went to COP camp, too.”

She heard keys tapping on the other end of the line. “A few years ago, I did my best to digitize all the alumni info and such, but it’s catch as catch can. Yep, he’s in here. Enrolled for three summers. But there’s no contact information. I mean, that was a long time ago.”

“I think he had siblings?” She was spitballing now. “Any other Lopezes in those same years?”

“Yep, here we go: Emilia. Enrolled for the same years. We do our best to record their age and grade. It looks like she was one year older than Alex. But we only have her name. Could be two different families, for all I know.”

“That’s still helpful. Thanks.” Emilia was a less common name than Alex. If they were siblings, maybe Lindsay could find the sister, and maybe she’d recognize an old photograph of Hope. A lot of ifs and maybes, but it was better than nothing. “I’ve got an even trickier request. There’s a girl I went to high school with who was super close to Mrs. Jones, but no one can remember her name, and we don’t want to ruin the surprise by asking Mrs. Jones directly. Her children found a photograph of her—that’s how close they are—and a bunch of us are just trying to place a name to the face. Any chance I can send the picture to you to see if any of the long-term staff remembers her?”

“From back then? Oh, bless your heart, no. I’ve been here . . . ten, eleven years? And I’m the old-timer of the staff. Some of the cops volunteer year after year, but they’d all be long retired by now.”

Lindsay had known it was a long shot that someone from the camp might recognize Hope. “So, wow, you’ve worked there a while though. Nothing to do with Mrs. Jones, but I heard some pretty dark rumors a few years ago about bad stuff that may have happened to some of the kids at the camp. Abuse, from what I heard. But I never saw even a hint of that, to be clear. The cops were such great role models, and we had so much fun. Sometimes I wonder if people just make stuff up years later to get attention. Did you ever hear whispers about anything like that?”

There was a pause at the other end of the line, and when Smoky Voice spoke again, she sounded less friendly: “What did you say your name was again?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you so long. Thanks for your help!”

The first hit for Emilia Lopez in Wichita, Kansas, was a LinkedIn profile for a paralegal at the Immigrant Community Legal Office. According to her resume, she’d earned a BA from Wichita State University only four years earlier, but graduated from Southeast High fifteen years before that, making her roughly thirty-seven years old. Lindsay thought she could see a resemblance to Alex Lopez through the eyes and forehead.

When she called the number listed on the profile, it went straight to voice mail. “You’ve reached Emilia Lopez with the Immigrant Community Legal Office. Today is Tuesday, June 22. I will be meeting with clients for the rest of the afternoon. Leave a message at the tone, or if this is an urgent matter, press zero for a receptionist. If—and only if—you are an existing client and are facing the threat of imminent detention by immigration authorities, press three to be connected to my cell phone.” Lindsay was tempted to press three, but she knew it would immediately put her on a bad footing with the woman she was desperate to talk to.

After the beep, she left her name and number, explaining that she was a lawyer in New York City. Before disconnecting, she added, “It’s about your brother, Alex.”

When she returned to the cottage, she rapped her knuckles gently on the door, doing her best to pretend that she had not just disposed of two critical pieces of evidence in a murder investigation.

When Decker opened the door, she handed him the box of muffins she had bought at Carissa’s. “Have you finished up yet? My client is happy to answer any fair questions as long as she has counsel to represent her.”

Lindsay, of course, would be the one to determine which questions were fair.

“Is she? That’s good to hear.” He turned his head and spoke in Hope’s direction. “Let’s start with, What do you know about the death of Richard Mullaney?”

“Don’t answer that,” Lindsay called out, pushing past Carter so she could see Hope, still seated in the corner chair, her cuffed hands on her lap. She searched Hope’s face for any sign of recognition. A flicker of light in her eyes, followed by a blink. Had Lindsay imagined it? Or maybe it was a blink of confusion. “And what kind of ambush is this? First you don’t look for her after she got attacked by a stranger, then you turn it around and hold a press conference where you basically accuse her of murder. Now you pull some other name out of a hat?”

“It was a simple enough question. If the name means nothing to her, that’s all she needs to say.”

“On my advice, my client is invoking all her Fifth Amendment rights.”

“Yep, that’s pretty much what I thought,” Decker said. “Hope Miller, you are under arrest.” He moved quickly toward Hope’s chair and pulled her to her feet. She began screaming. “No. Please. Stop!”In case there was any doubt that her custodial status had changed, he unlocked her handcuffs only to resecure them more tightly behind her back. Hope winced as he wrenched her shoulders together.

As calmly as Hope had followed Lindsay’s instructions not to answer questions, she clearly had not processed the reality that this moment might come. Her expression was panicked, and when her gaze finally met Lindsay’s, she looked desperate for a solution that couldn’t be offered. “Help me. Lindsay, I don’t have anyone else but you.”

They loaded Hope into the back of a marked police car in front of the cottage. She looked like a dog being taken away to a shelter as the car pulled out from the curb. Lindsay wiped her eyes with the back of her hands before waving for Detective Decker’s attention in the front yard.

“I need to get back inside that house. Your rash and unnecessary decision to take her into custody makes it imperative that I be able to do my work.”

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