Page 122 of We Are All Guilty Here

Emmy remembered the sense of limbo from her own teenage years.

“That’s the part that makes me so fucking sad,” Hannah said. “We didn’t really get to meet her. Madison will always be trapped between those two people. The woman we didn’t get to meet, and the girl we used to know.”

Hannah’s sadness filled the room. Emmy couldn’t help but feel it, too. They weren’t just mourning Madison. They were mourning themselves. Emmy had lost herself to Jonah’s insecurities. Hannah had lost herself to Paul’s grief. Virgil had joked about how raising girls could kill a man, but he had no idea how fucking hard it was to grow yourself into a woman.

“Oh,” Hannah said. She was looking at the door. She’d been imprisoned in this small space for almost thirty hours. Every part of her senses was attenuated to movement on the other side of the glass.

Emmy looked to see who was there. The tightness came back to her chest when she saw Jude. The woman’s scowl was an exact replica of Myrna’s when Emmy had done something stupid or disappointing.

Hannah mocked, “‘Miss Bennet, you ought to know that I am not to be trifled with.’”

Emmy smiled at the Lady Catherine impression, but she knew Jude had her reasons, too. She stood up, telling Hannah, “I’ll see about that pillow.”

Jude stepped back into the sallyport so that Emmy could open the door. Cole’s badge was on a lanyard around her neck.

Emmy asked, “Did you steal that from my son?”

“Are you taking me to task for not following procedure when you just spent twenty minutes tainting the GBI’s case against a suspected cop killer?”

“It was closer to fifteen minutes.”

“You can wipe that smirk off your face,” Jude snapped. “We both know your entire conversation was recorded. There’s no way a jury will see you two joking around and believe that Hannah is guilty. She can’t even be called as a witness now. The prosecutor would be laughed out of the courtroom.”

“Okay.” Emmy fished her badge out of her pocket. “Can you explain to me why Adam Huntsinger’s probation officer called to ask if I wanted Adam put back inside?”

Jude scowled again. “Why did the PO call you? I told Brett to take care of it.”

“Why are you giving my deputies orders?”

“What did you tell Adam’s PO?”

Emmy had to end this game of question ping-pong. “I told him to do whatever he wants because only a fool would weaponize the sheriff’s department against Adam Huntsinger while we’re under intense public scrutiny.”

“So your fifteen minutes with Hannah Dalrymple was …?”

“None of your goddam business.” Emmy waved her badge to open the door. She heard the angry thuds of Jude’s motorcycle boots echoing behind her as they walked down the hallway.

Jude said, “Adam Huntsinger admitted that he had sexual contact with Cheyenne Baker.”

Emmy froze. Her hand had been reaching out to open the next door. The lanyard swung like a pendulum from her laminated badge. She turned around, silently repeating the information in her head so that she could understand it.

Jude said, “He told me that Cheyenne normally charged fifty bucks for a blow job, but they traded for weed.”

Emmy had lost the ability to speak.

“He said she had a lot of customers, that she was saving up her cash, talked a lot about leaving town—no surprise there. He also said that they didn’t do vaginal penetration, but consider the source.”

Emmy started nodding, if only to let Jude know that she was listening.

“He said he never touched Madison. Claimed she was too young for him, but I don’t know about that, either.” Jude reached past Emmy and used Cole’s badge on the door. “Is it left or right?”

“Left,” Emmy managed. The initial shock was starting to wear off. Now, she didn’t know whether to be envious or impressed that Jude had been in town for less than twenty-four hours and somehow managed to break Adam Huntsinger. “We heard the rumors that Cheyenne was selling herself for sex. There was no proof, though.”

“What about the source of the drugs?”

“What about it?”

“Adam claims that Woody was using Cheyenne to expand into the North Falls market. Pretty risky, but I imagine the mark-up made it worthwhile. North Falls people would nevergo down to the truck stop to save ten bucks on an eight ball. It’s the same theory with the sex. Why pay a seasoned sex worker twenty bucks a blow when you can have a North Falls teenager for fifty? For a lot of these guys, breaking the taboo is part of their fetish.”

---