Page 51 of We Are All Guilty Here

“Michael said she came from the west.” Emmy held her notebook so her father could see. “The backroads go like this, kind of like a tic-tac-toe box with three extra squares along the bottom. This is where Cheyenne’s house is in Verona. This is where her bike was hit by the car. The fastest route for her to take would be here, which would bring her in from the east, not the west. She wouldn’t cut through Taybee’s place because of the dogs. Plus there’s the fence. She’d have to lift her bike over the—”

“Came through here.” Gerald pressed his finger to the bottom corner.

Emmy felt gut-punched. “That’s Aunt Millie’s land. Taybee told me she was complaining about strangers cutting through her yard.”

“Call her.”

Emmy could see the missed call notifications from Millie stacked up on her phone. There were eleven voicemails. She felt as if her stomach was folding in on itself as she selected the number. She tapped the icon to put it on speaker. Five long rings passed before her aunt finally picked up.

“Millie Clifton,” she announced.

“It’s Emmy. Taybee told me—”

“You took long enough to get back to me,” Millie interrupted. “You’re lucky I happened to come home from searching for those poor girls so I could take my blood pressure medication. Why didn’t you answer when I called?”

“Aunt Millie,” Emmy tried to keep her tone even, “please, just tell me why you were calling.”

“One of those missing girls. She was in my yard yesterday, and not for the first time. I recognized her face from the newspaper.”

Emmy felt stunned—not by the information, but by the fact that she could’ve had it as early as this morning. “You saw Cheyenne Baker in your yard?”

“No, the other one, the thick-waisted girl.”

“Madison.” Emmy felt her throat tighten around the name. “What was she doing?”

“She was talking to Adam.”

Emmy shot a questioning look at Gerald. He shook his head.

She asked, “Aunt Millie, who’s Adam?”

“The man I told you about last month. The one I hired to fix my retaining wall. I told you he was up to no good. Just sits out there smoking cigarettes with whatever riff-raff he can drag in. You girls never listen to me. You think I’m an old fool.”

Emmy couldn’t stop shaking her head. “What time did you see Madison?”

“I guess it was just before lunch time. Adam told me he didn’t mind working over the Fourth, but then I look out my kitchen window and I see both of ’em smoking and laughing with their bare feet in my pond.”

Emmy’s heart felt like it was going to explode in her chest. “Can you tell me Adam’s last name?”

“Oh, sonowyou want to know about him?” Millie asked. “I’ve told you for a month about strangers cutting through my yard to see him. Some lunatic even knocked on my front door at five in the evening. She thought he lived here at the house with me. And I’m talking a young girl, barely out of high school. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather.”

“Aunt Millie, please. I need to know Adam’s last name.”

“All right. Lemme look in my address book. It’s not under A for Adam …” Millie started singing the alphabet. “A, B, C, D, E—”

Emmy bit her lip so she wouldn’t scream. Her aunt’s address book was as thick as a regular phone book, except Millie had her own way of categorizing people.

“P,” Millie finally said. “Here it is. Adam Huntsinger.”

“Thank you.” Emmy’s finger hovered over the button to end the call, but she felt frozen.

The tickle. The bad feeling. TheDon’t Feel Right.

“Aunt Millie,” she said, “why was Adam Huntsinger under P in your address book?”

“Oh, that’s from the young girl who knocked on my door,” Millie said. “Nasty little hooligan looks me right in the eye and tells me, ‘I’m here to see the Perv.’”

CHAPTER SEVEN

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