Page 145 of We Are All Guilty Here

“Dad,” she whispered. “Please tell me what to do.”

There was no answer, but now more than ever, Emmy longed for her father. The rudder steering her in the right direction. The gentle prompts that made her see the clues that were right in front of her.

What do we know? What do we think we know? What are we missing?

Emmy felt the questions working their way through her brain in slow, lazy arcs, the same way that Emmy and Hannah used to coast their bikes down the backroads. She forced herself to stand up. She looked back at Virgil’s house. The lights were off. The curtains were open.

In most predatory kidnappings, the bodies are found within twenty miles of the abduction site. The area is generally familiar to the kidnapper. He oftentimes revisits the scene to relive his crimes. He usually conceals the bodies in some way—covered with leaves, buried in a shallow grave, submerged in water, hidden in an abandoned building or shed, disarticulated and disposed of in a landfill.

Virgil wouldn’t take Paisley to his home. He would want tokeep her somewhere isolated, contained, accessible. A place where he felt comfortable. A place that he could return to so he could relive his crimes. A place where Emmy had watched him loop a chain around a hasp lock the same way he’d looped a chain around the concrete block at the bottom of Millie’s pond.

The barn.

Emmy started running down the hill. The grass was soaked. Her foot slipped. She stumbled, catching herself with her left hand. Her wrist exploded with pain. Emmy jumped back up, kept running. She slid down the last part of the slope on her ass, then she was up again. Sprinting thirty more yards to the barn.

Hope took hold again. Stupid, pointless hope. Virgil hadn’t told her that Paisley was dead. There was a slim chance, a statistical anomaly, that Paisley Walker could still be alive.

The chain was still tied through the hasp lock. Emmy wrenched it away with one hand. Threw open the barn door. Light and shadow danced around the interior. The sun split through the cracks in the old boards. She felt it strobe across her face as she checked the empty stalls, the tack and feed area, the equipment room, the office.

“Paisley!” she yelled. “Paisley Walker!”

Her voice traveled up to the rafters. Emmy stepped back so she could see up into the hayloft. Bales of hay were stacked up like a fortress. The ladder was missing. Emmy searched the barn, ran past the stalls again, pushed open the back doors. She found the rickety fourteen-foot ladder on the ground behind the barn. Fire shot through her sprained wrist as she dragged it back inside. She could barely get it upright, but somehow managed to line the side rails up to the notch in the loft floor. She used one hand to climb, the other throbbing like a metronome as she navigated her way toward the top.

“Paisley!” she screamed.

Emmy waited, her ears straining for a response.

Nothing.

She climbed the rest of the way. There was only a narrow ledge between the hay bales and the railing. Emmy went up on her toes, but she couldn’t see over the top. The bales were stackedfour high, jammed end-to-end. They were at least fifty pounds each.

Emmy jogged down the ledge, pressing her palm against each section, searching for a weak spot. She didn’t find it until the end of the row. One of the bales gave way. Emmy shouldered the rest of them over. She could only see darkness beyond. She took a small flashlight out of her vest pocket. Climbed over the fallen bales. Virgil had stacked them three deep. She didn’t think about the fact that they were there for soundproofing. For cover. For soaking up blood and fluids and misery.

Her boot thumped against solid wood. The darkness crowded in. Virgil had paneled over the walls and ceiling. The sun couldn’t slice through the gaps in the boards. The beam from the flashlight was weak. She started to scan the area back and forth. A glimmer of bright white stopped her.

Skechers sneaker, pink laces.

Emmy tried to summon the stillness, but the despair would not be ignored. She saw the matching shoe. A blue hoodie with the Eras tour logo. Wadded-up black leggings. A pink sports bra. A pair of underwear with a Hello Kitty pattern and pink elastic, because fourteen-year-olds were still little girls.

The light started to shake from the tremble in Emmy’s hand. The beam shifted up. Bounced into the far corner.

“No …” Emmy whispered. “No …”

Paisley Walker lay on her side. Blood spotted her face, her torso, her legs. Her eyes were closed, lips swollen. Her hands were grotesquely misshapen. The skin was black where the blood had pooled around the shattered bones. Her feet were the same, the arches curled the same way Cole’s had when he was a baby.

Emmy went to the girl. The ceiling was low. She had to crawl across the floor. She put her flashlight down, let the beam bathe Paisley’s face.

“Paisley?” Emmy could barely say the name. She pressed her fingers to the girl’s wrist. “Baby, can you hear me?”

Emmy closed her eyes, trying to drown out her own racing heartbeat as she felt for a pulse. Paisley’s wrist was too bloated. Fluids bulged out her skin like a water-filled balloon. Emmy laiddown beside the girl. Gently turned her face away from the floor, held the weight of her head in her palm. Pressed two fingers to the side of her neck.

Again, Emmy closed her eyes. She didn’t think about Madison or Cheyenne or even Paisley. She thought about her precious son. Giving birth to Cole had nearly killed her. Emmy was supposed to be on bedrest for a month, but she couldn’t stop herself from going to the nursery every few hours to make sure he was okay.

Her first solo call-out as a sheriff’s deputy had been for a baby who’d died from SIDS. Emmy had been terrified that the same fate would befall her little boy. She could still remember the elation every time she pressed her fingers to his carotid artery and felt the quick tap of blood pumping through his precious heart. It was the same sensation she felt now with Paisley.

“Oh, God!” Emmy cried.

She was alive.

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