Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
“Straightening things out. The place is a mess. No one puts anything where it’s supposed to go anymore.”
“Yeah, there are a lot of kids coming in and out of here, all the time.”
“I remember being a kid in this family and that was never an excuse.”
“Holt’s softer with his grandkids than he was with you boys. I think he’s just happy they’re around.” She adjusts a harness, shifting the way it hangs, before leaning against the old barn wall. “And think, soon there will be seven of them.”
I shake my head. “Sarah’s going to lose her mind.”
“Jon’s gonna lose his head if he doesn’t spend less time playing with drones and taking bets on the spring bison, and more on helping her. I mean, I have one and some days I feel overwhelmed.”
I imagine today is one of those days. “How’s Isla doing?”
“Two-game suspension but she doesn’t care much about that. All she can think about is what Erin said. What everyone’s saying.” Emery bites her bottom lip. “She asked me if I thought Holly was dead.”
“That was bound to happen.” I hesitate. “Did you tell her the truth?”
“That the odds of finding her alive are against us? Yes,” she admits quietly.
“This isn’t on you.” Despite what her douchebag ex says. “You’re doing everything you can to find her.”
“What is ‘everything’?” She tosses her arms to her sides, a helpless gesture. “Everything would be finding her. Anything short of that is failure. I’ve gone over the case reports a thousand times, looking for a gap or a lie and I can’t find one. But it has to be there. It has to be right there in front of me. I’m missing it.”
Emery’s going to drive herself crazy.
“Hey, do you remember that barn cat? The one that disappeared?”
Her brow flickers with recognition. “You mean Socks?”
I smile. “I forgot his name, but yeah.” It was all black except for its white feet. Emery named him. “Do you remember that morning we came out here? You noticed him gone right away.”
“Because he always came to say hello. He was the friendliest cat I’ve ever met.”
“So you freaked out and launched an investigation. You had Sarah and I canvassing the fields, the barn, the house, everywhere. You had a clipboard and everything.” I chuckle, remembering a ten-year-old Emery with her ripped jean shorts, pigtails, and dirt-stained sneakers. “And then my dad rolled in just before dinner and who jumps out of the truck but Socks.”
“He hopped into the back that morning and Holt didn’t notice until he went to fill up in town. He was already late to get to where he was going, so he put the cat in the passenger seat and spent the day with him.” A wistful smile touches Emery’s plump lips. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”
“Memories were all I had to keep me alive. Those and my mother’s letters,” I admit. I clung to them like a rope tossed into the dark well where I dwelled, my only lifeline back to the light.
Her smile slips away. “I don’t think a truck is going to roll up and bring Holly home.”
“No, I know. My point is, you could never have figured out that my father took a road trip with a barn cat.”
She purses her lips and I expect her to argue, but she merely nods.
“Are you gonna look into that Murphy we saw at the rink?” When Emery left me, it was to walk over and talk to him.
“Terry’s on it.” She hesitates. “I shouldn’t be talking about the case with you.”
“You have a habit of doing things with me you’re not supposed to be doing.”
Emery’s cheeks flush as she pushes a hand through her lengthy hair. “About that—”
“I’m sorry,” I blurt. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did the day that detective questioned me on the porch. I panicked. But I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t want you to stay away.” I occupy my focus and my hands on the row of combs laid out on the table to dry after they’re clean, while I wait for her to list all the reasons that she should.
Emery wanders over to realign the saddle pads I hung earlier, shifting some half an inch this way, others half an inch that way, until her hand stalls on the embroidered I.S. initials my mother stitched into the one Isla uses. Isla Sanders. Too bad the kid wasn’t born a McAllister. Or better yet, a Landry. “They’ve always treated her like one of their own, you know,” she says on a deep inhale. “Even before my parents died.”
“My mom wrote about her nonstop. Every letter, there was some update about Isla.” Emery too. “I felt like I knew her before I ever met her. You’ve raised a good kid. Even with a dickhead for a father.”