Chapter 39

The soccer field was along the side of the building, sandwiched between a playground and a softball field. Teryn Bailey was the only person in sight. Since she was not a suspect in any crime, they didn't need Hope Bailey's permission to speak with her, even though she was a minor. They didn't even need to notify Hope that they were going to do so, which was a good thing because it was clear that Hope did not want her daughter involved in the investigation now that it was so much bigger than a missing persons case.

As they drew closer, Josie saw a line of small orange cones spread out in the center of the field. Teryn skillfully weaved through them, dribbling the soccer ball. Josie and Gretchen stopped about ten feet from the first cone and waited for her to turn back toward them. She halted for a moment when she noticed them. Then she bent her head toward her feet, a look of steely determination hardening her face as she zigzagged back.

"Does my mom know you're here?" she asked, resting one foot on top of the ball.

"No," said Gretchen. "We're not required to tell her under these circumstances."

Teryn used the sleeve of her hoodie to wipe the sweat from her brow. "Good. We probably have about a half hour before she comes looking for me. I know she said an hour but trust me, she'll be finished with her paperwork and calls before that, and don't worry, her office window isn't on this side of the building."

"We're not worried," Josie said. "But thanks."

Teryn gave a half-hearted shrug and rolled the ball back and forth under her foot. "What's wrong with your voice?"

"Laryngitis," Josie lied.

Teryn gave a quick scan of their surroundings but no one else was there. "I was right, wasn't I? About the photo my mom showed you in there. That's the woman who was just abducted by the guy who killed April. I saw her picture on social media yesterday and I knew it was the same Miss Summers who used to work here. I mean, the same hair! I thought about asking Mom to check the school employee records but she's nuts lately. Ever since April's body was found, it's like she doesn't want me even talking about it. Like she thinks that if I know the details, somehow I'll be in danger."

Knowing what she did about April's condition at the time of her death, Josie suspected Hope was just trying to spare her daughter the pain of knowing what April's last year and final moments were like. If Josie's mental vault didn't work so well, the image of April's gaunt face would drive her mad.

Gretchen said, "She's protective of you. That's a good thing."

Another shrug, feigning nonchalance. "Whatever. What do you want to know?"

Josie said, "You remember Mira Summers? She only worked here for five months."

Teryn tapped a finger against her bun. "The burgundy hair. Teachers and staff were never allowed to dye their hair different colors, you know, other than the standard stuff. Every kid was fascinated with her because of that, although keep in mind, we were all young and pretty stupid. I mean, now if I saw someone with burgundy hair, it wouldn't even register. It's not even a cool color."

"How well did you know Miss Summers?" Gretchen asked.

"Nobody knew her. She was just…weird. A little mean sometimes."

"In what way?" Josie asked.

"Like she was supposed to give food out in the cafeteria. We had free lunches back then. Now you have to pay, but anyway, that was literally her job, to give us food, and there were certain kids she would withhold food from. Like not put it on their trays and stuff. One time, she actually came out from behind the counter, right up to a table, and took food from a kid's plate."

Josie's heart fluttered briefly before resuming its natural pace. What had Rebecca said about Seth? I can't have him thinking that the food we're eating has been tampered with or that our water supply has been poisoned.

Carol Summers had said something similar about Mira always going back to Seth. Doesn't matter what weird new shit he wants her to do, like only eating food he grows himself in some special soil…

Mira hadn't just taken the job at Hillcrest Elementary so that her daughter could attend school, she'd been carrying out Seth's instructions, based on his delusions.

"Her boss or coworkers didn't have an issue with this?" asked Gretchen.

"No one on the staff saw it. That was the thing."

"Which kids?" Josie said.

"I don't know. I don't remember. I just know she did it. No one would tell on her."

"Was it multiple children?" Josie pressed. "Or only one?"

Teryn gave her a strange look. "I told you. I don't know. I just know it happened. I mean, I guess it could have just been one kid. I heard about it from a bunch of people. Some of them said ‘kid' and some of them said ‘kids.'"

"Your mother was the principal," Gretchen pointed out. "You didn't tell her?"

Teryn rolled her eyes. "I was like twelve years old."

"Seventh grade?" Josie asked. "I thought the seventh graders were in a different school."

"Sixth grade," Teryn said. "I didn't fail or anything. I'm a year older than most of the kids in my grade because my birthday came after the cutoff for my mom to enroll me in kindergarten. You had to be six by, like, September first or whatever to start school and I didn't turn six till September sixth, so I had to wait a whole year. Anyway, why do you care so much about my age?"

"We care about your memories of the time that Miss Summers worked here," Josie said, "and how accurate they are."

Teryn rolled the soccer ball under her foot again. "They're accurate, okay? And no, I didn't tell my mom because it was weird. I didn't know what to do. Besides, April caught Miss Summers doing it."

"You mean Miss Carlson?" said Josie.

Teryn glared, her tone becoming defensive. "She was April to me and to my whole family."

"Fair enough," said Josie.

"We heard that April was the one who got Miss Summers the job in the cafeteria," said Gretchen.

"I don't know about that. I just know that April saw her taking food away from a little girl one day and it did not go over well."

"What happened?" asked Josie.

"Nothing at first. I didn't even realize that April had seen it until I went to her classroom after school to work on an art project. She always let me come to her room after school while I was waiting for my mom. We used to have desk picnics. She would bring snacks and juice and a funny plastic tablecloth and put it over her desk, and we'd pretend to have a picnic while I did whatever work I needed to do. Although most of the time she just let me talk to her about stuff." Tears shone in Teryn's eyes. She reached down and picked up the soccer ball, tucking it under her arm. "I was there doing my project when Miss Summers knocked. It was weird. I didn't even know they were friends, but she was all ‘Hi, are you coming out tonight?' And April got all quiet and angry and said something like, ‘We need to talk.' Then they went into the supply closet in April's room."

"Did you hear anything they said?" Josie asked.

"Not much. Only parts of it. I was kind of far away from the closet and the door was closed. They were like, whisper-shouting at each other at first. I did hear the word ‘food' a few times and something like, ‘she's just a little girl,' and that's when I realized that April must have seen what Miss Summers was doing."

"What else?" Gretchen said. "Keep in mind, we're not going to be upset if we find out you eavesdropped."

Teryn exhaled loudly. "I'm not proud of it, okay? I was a kid. I was curious."

"What did you hear?" Josie pressed.

"I got closer to the door. I still couldn't really hear everything. I don't even remember all of it now, but April was like, ‘you can't do that' and ‘I got you this job because I thought you needed it.' She said something after that I didn't hear. Something about her career—April's career. Then she kept saying the word ‘mandatory' over and over again."

"In what context?" asked Gretchen.

"I don't know. Maybe that lunch was mandatory? Because it is! Then Miss Summers started crying. Like ugly crying. It was so loud. I couldn't even make out what April was saying after that but Miss Summers kept saying, ‘please don't' and ‘I'm begging you' and then ‘you have no idea what will happen,' or something like that. She said a bunch of other stuff, too, but I don't really remember it now."

"But you remember that exchange," Gretchen said. "From almost four years ago between April and a woman who worked in the cafeteria for a few months."

Teryn's head reared back. "Damn. Fine. Don't believe me. I don't have to talk to you."

She turned away from them and threw the ball back onto the ground.

"Wait," Josie said. Pain seared her throat. She lowered her voice before going on. "We're not saying we don't believe you. We're just trying to get a clear picture of what happened. My nephew is seven and he doesn't even remember all the names of all the kids on his Little League team."

Teryn looked over her shoulder. "I was really close to April, okay? If you don't believe me, then look." She ran over to the fence where her backpack rested and rifled through it until she came up with her phone. Her fingers swiped and scrolled against the screen as she walked back over. "These are of me and April. Disregard the shitty quality. I had a horrible phone back then. My mom would only get me the kind you paid monthly. That way if I pissed her off, she could just cancel it."

She wedged herself between them so that they could both see the screen. The first photo was a selfie of a younger Teryn cheek to cheek with April. Josie's stomach turned at April's luminous smile. Soft brown locks cascaded over her shoulders. Happiness radiated from her. It was such a far cry from the shell of a woman they had found in Mira Summers's car.

Teryn swiped through a few more, many of them selfies. One of a tabletop, showing only their hands as they worked on some glittery art project. Another was April alone, sitting in a chair made for one of the children, holding her palms up for the camera. Blue glitter covered them, winking at the camera like tiny sequins. Some had gotten onto her nose. Her eyes crossed as she tried to look at them. "She was so much fun," Teryn said so quietly that Josie could barely hear her. She resisted the urge to hug the girl.

Next was another selfie but angled so the camera was looking down at them. Teryn said, "This was the day she got a selfie stick. Remember those?"

She didn't wait for an answer, swiping again. A photo of April pinning different drawings to the display wall behind her desk flashed across the screen. In the next picture, she was facing the camera, smiling widely and extending a hand as if to present the drawing just above it. "That's mine," Teryn said. She pinched her thumb and forefinger on the screen and then zoomed in. "I wasn't even in her class then but she still hung it up. See? My initials are on the bottom. T.B."

Teryn sighed as she zoomed back out. "I remember the day that April argued with Miss Summers because it was the only time I ever saw her mad. Really, truly furious. It was the only time I ever heard her raise her voice in anger."

As Teryn went to close out the gallery app, Josie held out her hand. "Would you mind if I had another look at those?"

"Sure." Teryn handed her the phone.

Gretchen said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said to come out the way it did. Detective Quinn is right. We're just trying to get the details straight here. It could be important. What happened next?"

Teryn slowly rotated her body back to face them. "April screamed at her. Really screamed at her. She said something like, ‘enough is enough' and ‘I don't care.' That something was ‘unacceptable' and she ‘didn't want to be a part of it anymore.' I'm pretty sure she said ‘mandatory' a couple more times. She kept saying something about her family. ‘My family, too,' she said. Miss Summers was crying and crying but April told her to get out. Then she pushed the door open so hard it hit the wall and she kind of pushed Miss Summers out."

Josie looked up from the first photo that Teryn had shown them. "April physically pushed her out of the closet?"

"Yeah, sort of. I mean, not hard but she touched her. On her back. I don't even think Miss Summers noticed me. She just ran out of the room."

Josie swiped to the next photo and then the next, her eyes drawn to the background of each one. Something had flashed past when Teryn showed them the photos, but it had been too quick for Josie's brain to fully register.

"Did April say anything to you?" Gretchen asked.

"She said she was sorry I had to hear that, and I asked her, ‘Is this because she withholds food at lunchtime?' and she kind of looked at me, like she was surprised I knew, and she said, ‘That won't be an issue anymore.' Sure enough, Miss Summers didn't come back. That was that."

"You never told your mother about this?" said Gretchen.

"Why would I? April took care of it."

"A year ago, after April went missing, a detective from the state police was here to talk to your mother and the other faculty members. Did you talk to her?"

"The blonde one? Yeah, I talked to her."

Josie found one of the photos that showed the wall of drawings behind April's desk and zoomed in.

Gretchen kept the interview going. "Did you tell her about the incident between April and Mira Summers?"

Teryn returned to the soccer ball and nudged it back and forth between her feet. "No. Why would I? It happened like four years ago and Miss Summers never came back. Then April moved away. Besides, it was about food in the cafeteria. What would some woman withholding food in the cafeteria four years ago have to do with April going missing from Newsham?"

Absolutely nothing. On the surface. Because no one knew they were half-sisters. No one could have predicted that four years later, in a city two hours away, the two of them would be found stabbed in a car together.

Josie found another photo with the wall of drawings in the background and zoomed in once more. When she found what she was looking for, it felt like a bucket of cold water being poured down the back of her neck. "Gretchen," she said.

Both Gretchen and Teryn looked at her.

Teryn said, "You okay?"

Josie handed the phone to Gretchen zoomed in on a drawing of a flat-roofed red building with a flagpole near its front door and in front of that, two flowers—one a straight stem with pink blobs along its length and the other a rose.

Gretchen stared at it, stone-faced. "There's that flower again. Rosie Summers drew this."

"Who's Rosie Summers?" asked Teryn.

Josie pointed at the screen. "The rose is her signature. Like her initials. It represents her."

Abandoning her ball, Teryn walked around and crowded in between them, squinting at the image. "I had a friend whose actual first name was Princess. In third grade? She used to sign all her art with a tiny princess crown."

Gretchen said, "What about the other flower?"

"It looks like a sweet pea. It's the same as April's tattoo," Josie said.

Teryn frowned. "Hey, you're right. That does look like April's tattoo. Well, sort of. If a kindergartner drew it, maybe."

A kindergartner had drawn it. Rosie's artistic skills hadn't changed much in four years, probably given the fact that she'd been forced into Seth's nomadic life, but someone had worked with her on reading and writing, at least. Enough for her to make a plea for help.

Teryn added, "So if the rose represents the girl who drew this, does that flower represent April?"

"I think so." Josie reached over and used her index finger to shift the zoomed-in portion of the photo so that the building and flagpole were visible. "What is this?"

Gretchen opened her mouth to speak but Teryn said, "Duh, it's the school. You didn't see that ginormous flagpole out front? Like they couldn't find any other place to put it? It doesn't exactly fit the Hillcrest aesthetic, if you haven't noticed."

Gretchen looked at the girl and laughed. "All right, kid, put it all together. What's this drawing trying to tell us?"

Teryn arched a brow and looked from Gretchen to Josie and back. "You're kidding right? Are cops really this dense? It's not trying to tell you anything. It's just this kid, Rosie, and April, and they're together here at school."

Gretchen looked over Teryn's head and locked eyes with Josie. They'd worked together long enough to communicate a whole lot of things in utter silence.

In answer to Gretchen's unspoken question, Josie said, "That's right. The drawing from the scene isn't an eye that sees flowers. Rosie was trying to show someone—probably Mira—where she and April were being held. The drawing is a map. It's a damn map."