It Wasn't Always Like This - Joy Preble Page 0,14

now and Christian’s up in Denton. And . . .” She trailed off, biting her lip. Her gaze roved Emma’s face.

“What?” Emma prompted. Then, “Oh,” with her eyes going wide. “Did she go here? That girl, I mean. The one who . . .”

It had been all over the news the past few days. In fact, it had been the aforementioned Tyler Gentry whom Emma had followed to that bar last night; she instantly recognized the name. Tyler was fond of underage drinking and the occasional recreational pill or two. But a closer look—even before she’d been distracted by Coral and Hugo and Matt and that bottle of bourbon—had turned up no connections. Tyler Gentry had nothing to do with the Church of Light. She’d trailed him just to be certain, for the simple reason that certainty was harder and harder to come by.

Emma, too, could be both complicated and simple.

Still, she didn’t have to fake the tears welling in her eyes. Sixteen-year-old-girls should not be murdered. Elodie Callahan should have been enjoying her Christmas break. She should have been with her family at an all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas, possibly parasailing or f lirting with the wait staff, or at the very least sneaking rum drinks in coconuts up to her room. She should have had the luxury of going to college, of getting hangovers that didn’t miraculously melt away, of making mistakes and maybe living in a crappy apartment with sloppy roommates and realizing that however bold it felt to buy a taco off the street, a bellyache was inevitable.

“Terrible thing,” Melanie said gently. “But don’t you worry.” She fumbled in a drawer for a tissue and dabbed delicately at her eyes. “They’ll catch whoever did it. They will. You’ve come to a good place, honey. We’re glad to have you here.”

At least the last sentence was probably true.

“Everyone loved Elodie,” Melanie added.

Not everyone, thought Emma, but kept quiet. Another lesson from Pete: Be patient. People hate silence. They’ll f ill it for you fast enough. All you have to do is be ready to listen.

Melanie wanted to talk. And Emma wanted to listen. That’s what she was here for, after all. She had all the time in the world to catch Elodie Callahan’s killers.

A beautiful singing voice—that was the f irst thing people always mentioned when they talked about Elodie. Even her friends. Also, she’d been inducted into the National Honor Society. But according to Melanie Creighton, she had “enough of a wild side to make her interesting.” It was interesting; Allie Golden back in Albuquerque had been shy to the point of being antisocial, from what Emma had uncovered.

Hiding in plain sight.

Emma studied Melanie’s face as she rambled on about silly pranks, like toilet-papering Barrett Jones’s house the night after a big football game.

“The next day Elodie brought him a dozen chocolate cupcakes. Smart girl.”

Melanie’s expression shifted. “Her . . . poor aunt and uncle. Here they take her in after her folks were killed in a car accident in Orlando last year, and she’d been doing so well. She was like their own daughter. And now this. I don’t think you ever get over losing a child. Or a parent either, when you’re so young.”

“No,” said Emma. “You don’t.”

Her mind raced with this new set of facts: Elodie had been a transplant (like Allie), and her parents were dead (like Allie’s). “So she was from Florida?”

Melanie nodded. “Oh, that’s right. You said you were, too. What part?”

“St. Augustine originally. But we, um, moved around a lot.”

In Emma’s head, pieces of a puzzle edged together. Tentatively. Maybe. Because lots of people could have poisoned Elodie Callahan. Maybe even Tyler Gentry, although Emma doubted it. Maybe he’d gone overboard with a date-rape drug and panicked. People thought horrible thoughts, and occasionally those thoughts turned to deeds, and girls turned up dead. That’s how the world worked. Certain parts of it, anyway. The sick parts, the parts Emma had seen again and again over the years.

Was the Church of Light involved? Maybe. Were they connected to this place of worship in some perverse way? Looking down at Melanie’s sad face now, Emma couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Melanie certainly didn’t know if they were hiding in plain sight. But regardless of the perpetrator, the murder of Elodie Callahan was an undeniable fact, one that would be true and unchangeable forever, even if their resemblance and their Florida roots added up to nothing more than coincidence.

Emma’s gut told