Page 53 of Did You See Evie

She tries to walk away again, but I stop her. “Like where?”

“I can’t tell you anything else,” she says. “All I can say is that if you come across any more important information, reach out.”

“I tried reaching out,” I say under my breath.

I’m not sure if she hears me. Either way, she heads to her vehicle and gets inside. I get into my own car just as quickly, dodging stares from Kelly and Mr. Lake in the process. The last thing I want to do is have another conversation. Right now, everything is spinning in circles. I need to find out what happened to Evie, and fast.

When I return home, Connor is already there. He works from home sporadically during the week. It’s hard for me to keep up with when he’ll be in the office and when he’ll be here. I walk inside, expecting to see a mess in the kitchen. It’s what tends to happen when he’s been left to his own devices all day. Instead, he’s sitting in the living room, hunched over and staring at his phone.

“I think I made a mistake,” he says, when I walk up behind him.

“What?” I try not to be short, but I’m not sure how much more bad news I can stand.

“I talked to the police.”

That response wasn’t one I was expecting.

No one is off the list, Detective Fields’ words slither back to me.

Why would she be talking to Connor? His only connection to Evie is through me. Maybe that’s what she was trying to find out more about.

“Who?” I ask Connor, my thoughts scrambling. “When?”

“That detective lady,” he says. “She came by my office and everything.”

So he didn’t work from home today. Maybe that’s why the house is so clean. I’m wondering what rattled him about their conversation that he decided to come home early.

“What did she want to know?”

“She was mainly asking questions about you and the girls,” he says. “She wanted to know how much time I spend around the team.”

“You’re hardly ever around them,” I say. I can’t figure out why she would be talking to him, unless our past encounters have given her more reason not to trust me.

“That’s what I told her,” he says.

“So, why do you think you messed up?”

He exhales. “She asked me where I was on Friday night. I told her I spent the entire night here.”

“That’s true.”

“Right,” he says. “I didn’t tell her I came by the school.”

It feels like a rock is falling in my stomach. “You lied?”

“I didn’t lie! I was just so nervous. I mean, I’m not used to being interrogated by the police. I was thinking about how I came home that night and spent the entire night alone. I woke up the next morning and went to the gym. It wasn’t until after that I even knew Evie was missing. By the time I remembered I’d come to visit you, we were so far ahead in our conversation, I didn’t know what to say.”

“I told the police you came to visit me,” I say. “They’ll see you on the video.”

“I know.” He seems overly nervous. “Do you think I should call her? Tell her I forgot?”

“I don’t know.”

I certainly don’t want Detective Fields to think that Connor is lying. At the same time, I don’t want him inserting more of himself into the investigation. They can’t really think he’s involved in Evie’s disappearance, could they?

TWENTY-EIGHT

The following workday moves excruciatingly slow, each hour seeming to stretch even longer into the next. Everyone is moving forward, trying to act like it’s a normal school day. For my part, I try to interact with my students as little as possible, allowing them to have free rein of the gym during my P.E. classes.

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