Page 16 of We Are All Guilty Here

Felix gave a dry laugh. “She likes her stuff.”

“Most girls do.”

“I yelled at her this afternoon,” he said. “I wanted her to go with us to the river. I told her it was important to do things as a family.”

Emmy gave him some grace. “It’s hard raising a teenager.”

He gestured toward the eyeshadows and blushes strewn across the desk. “We gave up the battle over her make-up. Ruth said she was too young, but she would put it on as soon as she left the house, so …”

Emmy heard his throat work as he swallowed.

“Cheyenne was right,” he said. “She told me I wouldn’t be at the river anyway. That I would get tied up at work, and that I would be late, so what did it matter if she was there or with Madison.”

Emmy studied his face. She felt his regret was genuine, but she didn’t have the luxury of giving people the benefit of the doubt. “Did she have a laptop or—”

“Ruth took away her laptop last year.” He shrugged. “Cheyenne figured out a way around the parental controls. We didn’t want her using social media. She’s only allowed to use the desktop downstairs for homework.”

“Can you get the laptop for me?”

“I’m sorry, I think Ruth donated it to the church. The nuns have a program for underprivileged youth.”

“That’s okay.” Emmy would follow up on it later. “What about her phone?”

“It’s an old flip phone I tossed in a desk drawer a few years back. Ruth was furious at her for scratching her initials into theplastic …” His voice trailed off as he seemed to realize that he’d wasted too much time being angry over stupid things. “We monitored all of her online activity. She wasn’t allowed to have internet access outside the house or at school. There are so many bad people out there that …”

Emmy watched his face collapse as he realized that the bad people had gotten to his daughter anyway. She told him, “I should get started.”

“Of course.” Felix clasped his hands together. “Do you need my help with this, or—”

“The sheriff probably has more questions for you.”

“Right,” he said. “Right.”

Emmy watched him leave. His footsteps were heavy in the hallway, squeaking every floorboard. She heard his tread down the split-level stairs. The click of the front door. Emmy was about to get started on the search when she heard a soft squeak closer by.

Pamela peered around the edge of the open doorway. Emmy smiled at her, but the girl quickly pulled back. Her footsteps were light as a mouse across the hall. One of the bedroom doors opened, then closed.

Going after her was an option, but Emmy had to weigh the fact that Pamela was a ten-year-old whose sister was missing against the probability that she had any useful information. The girl would probably remember every part of this night. She didn’t need to remember being terrified of an aggressive sheriff’s deputy. Besides, the worst way to get something from a child was to demand they speak up.

Emmy started the search of Cheyenne’s bedroom with a quick visual scan in case anything obvious was lying around. Cheyenne seemed to like pink and blue, which was unsurprising considering how she’d decorated her bike. This wasn’t a little girl pink on the walls, though. The color was closer to hot pink, likely chosen to annoy her mother.

The bedspread was an almost identical vivid blue to Cheyenne’s bicycle. The sheets were an explosion of multicolored flowers. The throw pillows were in a similar range. Glow-in-the-dark stars had been stuck onto the ceiling and pressed onto the bladesof the ceiling fan. There was a fake sheepskin rug on the floor. The edges were curled. A pair of deep gouges had damaged the hardwoods. The top of the desk was almost completely covered with various types of make-up. Three bottles of dark nail polish rested beside a history textbook. Underneath was a yellow legal pad with doodles drawn in purple ink. Emmy knew both girls were in summer school because they’d failed social studies during the regular year.

She checked to make sure the doorway was still empty before taking a pair of gloves out of her pocket and pulling them on. She paged through the textbook. Skimmed the class notes. Cheyenne’s handwriting was a girlish loop with circles instead of dots. From what Emmy could tell, none of her notes were personal in nature. There was a backpack leaning against the side of the desk. She bent down to look inside. Another textbook, a copy ofRomeo and Juliet, a Twix bar, an empty water bottle, a school ID, three crumpled dollar bills, thirty-two cents in loose coins, and what looked like a furry Tic Tac.

Emmy stood back up. She started with the low-hanging fruit. Ran her hands between the mattress and box spring. Peered under the bed. Opened the bedside drawers, checked inside, then slid her fingers along the wooden undersides. Then she performed the same routine with the dresser drawers. She rifled the closet shelves. Rummaged through the trash. Searched random pockets in clothes. Looked inside the zillions of pairs of shoes tossed into the closet.

Bingo.

Emmy found a small, metal lockbox tucked into the very back corner of the closet. She didn’t waste time looking for a key. The box was flimsy, the sort of thing you would give a child, not engineered with a patented lock from Fort Knox. Emmy unclipped the multi-tool on her belt and found the auger. She jammed it into the keyhole and twisted. The box opened.

“Huh,” she mumbled.

There had to be at least 3,000 dollars in the box. She took out the bills to count them. The money wasn’t Cheyenne’s only stash. There was a baggie of weed, more seeds than stems, but still. She placed it all on the floor.

The only thing left in the box was a strip of photos like one you’d get from a booth at the fair. Each of the four squares showed Madison and Cheyenne, arms around each other, posing for the camera. They were dressed up, probably for a party that neither set of parents had known about. Madison’s eyeliner was too heavy, her lips ballooned out with cherry red lipstick. Cheyenne’s too-tight shirt gaped open wide enough to show her black bra underneath. The gold necklace with her name spelled in script practically disappeared into her cleavage. Madison had a matching necklace with her name, but in contrast, she was more modestly dressed, as if she hadn’t been able to fully commit to the look. The last photo on the strip raised an interesting question. Cheyenne was holding Madison’s head in her hands as she kissed her on the face.

Not the cheek, not the lips, but somewhere in between.

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