Page 15 of We Are All Guilty Here

To Emmy’s thinking, that sounded a lot like the behavior of a teenager.

Gerald asked, “Were there any boyfriends?”

“No.” Ruth sounded emphatic. “Never.”

Emmy would’ve missed Pamela’s furtive look had she not been staring directly at the child.

Felix added, “Cheyenne isn’t allowed to date. She’s not old enough.”

Emmy bit her lip. Hannah had reported spotting a hickey on Cheyenne’s neck on more than one occasion.

Gerald asked, “Do you have any family members in the area?”

Felix shook his head. “They’re all in Iowa.”

“Did Cheyenne have other friends?” Gerald asked.

“No,” Ruth said. “She was popular when we first moved here. But then her circle got smaller and smaller until …”

Emmy watched tears roll down the woman’s face. Ruth’s throat was visibly strained as she swallowed. She had exhausted all of the blame and excuses. Now it was just cold, hard facts: her daughter was missing. She might never come home.

“Okay,” Gerald said. “My deputy would like to search Cheyenne’s room. Felix, could you show her the way?”

Felix looked surprised that the request was directed toward him. He’d assumed that the sheriff would want to talk to the calmer parent. He didn’t know this sheriff understood that people who were calm tended to be careful about what came out of their mouth.

Gerald had noticed that Felix’s alibi was shaky, too.

“Of course.” Felix reached for Pamela’s hand. “Ready, sweetie?”

Pamela’s eyes lingered on Emmy a moment too long before she let her father lead her up the driveway. Emmy matched their slow pace. She thought about Pamela’s furtive look when Gerald had asked about boyfriends. The girl was five years younger than her sister. There were twenty-two years between Emmy and her brother, but she had treated Tommy as a full-on subject of interest. He couldn’t send an email or make a phone call without her Veronica Mars-ing his ass. Emmy had known he was going to ask Celia to marry him before he did.

It had to be worse with sisters.

“Sorry.” Felix used his key to unlock the front door. “We didn’t have time to clean up.”

“No problem.”

Emmy scanned her surroundings as he took her up the stairs to the main level. She could’ve drawn the floorplan standing atthe curb. Almost every house in the neighborhood had a similar design. Decades ago, some distant Clifton cousins had built split-levels all over Verona. The engineers at the factory loved the twentieth-century modern look. Their wives detested the basement floor laundry room and two sets of stairs you had to climb to get from the garage to the kitchen.

The Bakers’ house wasn’t messy, considering two busy adults, a tween and a teen lived here. The furniture was nice if mostly bland. The couple seemed to favor variations of browns and whites. Emmy could see the same color scheme in the kitchen, the hall, the powder room. There didn’t appear to be any pets. Only a few paintings hung on the walls. There were no rugs to warm things up or even throws and pillows to make people feel at home. If Emmy had to use one word to describe the place, it would’ve beentemporary.

The family hadn’t started talking about moving back to Iowa because of Madison Dalrymple. Ruth had clearly refused to set down roots here. She was looking for any excuse to go back home.

“This way,” Felix nodded for her to follow.

All the doors off the hallway were closed. Emmy guessed that was an Iowa thing. The hardwood floors were old and cupped from the humidity. Every footstep was accompanied by a particular kind of squeak. She imagined it was difficult to sneak out of the house at night. She also imagined that Cheyenne had figured out a way to do it.

Felix paused at the last closed door on the right. His hand wrapped around the knob, but he didn’t open it. Emmy let him have a moment.

“Dad,” Pamela whispered, like she was embarrassed that he had forgotten how to open doors.

“It’s okay, sweetie.” He gave a self-conscious laugh. “Your sister’s going to be furious when she finds out I let a stranger go into her room.”

Emmy heard the shakiness in his voice. She gave him some space to make the decision. Opening the door meant that Cheyenne was really missing. That she might not come back. That someone had probably hurt her.

Felix took a deep breath, then opened the door.

She had been expecting the usual teenage mess, but Cheyenne’s bedroom was next level cluttered. Unlike her mother, she’d set down deep roots. Posters of every band and singer you would expect had been taped on the walls. There were multiple sets of collections—stuffed animals, horse figurines, perfumes, lip glosses, earrings, dried flowers, candles,Harry Potter, theTwilightseries, make-up sets, so many clothes and shoes that the closet door wouldn’t close.

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