Chapter Nineteen

THE INTERROGATION ROOM IS Awindowless white-walled box with a two-way mirror. Chelsey takes her time settling in at the metal table across from Salt and his defense attorney.

"Mr. Salt," Chelsey starts. "Let's talk about Ellie Black."

Salt turns to his attorney, who gives him a subtle chin dip of permission. They'd spoken for twenty minutes before letting Chelsey in.

Lewis Salt shifts, chains around his wrists rattling. "Never heard of her."

Chelsey studies Salt's impassive face. "How about Gabrielle Barlowe?"

Salt taps his fingers against the table, bits of grime cling to the corners of his fingernails. "Doesn't ring a bell."

She flips open the file and withdraws a photograph of the University of Washington sweatshirt spread out on a metal table. "A week ago, Ellie Black appeared wearing this sweatshirt. The blood on it garnered a familial match to your dad. We're running your DNA right now—"

Salt sneers, leans forward as close as he can get to Chelsey's face. "It won't be a match. You ain't got shit on me."

A knock sounds at the door. Montoya enters, lays a piece of paper face down in front of Chelsey, and exits. Chelsey scoots the paper to the edge of the table and flips it up to read it like a poker hand. Dogs didn't find anything. She folds the note in half. No evidence of Ellie or Gabby on Salt's property. He could have a second property, she thinks, but feels less convinced now. If not Lewis Salt, then who?

"Bad news?" Salt's face oozes with a smile.

"I'm just wondering." Chelsey composes herself. A radiator against the wall clicks on, stirring warm air into the tiny room. "I'm just thinking…" she says aloud, allowing the guilty threads she'd bound up Lewis Salt with to unravel, trail away, lead her in a different direction.

The first time Chelsey's father brought her to the woods, they didn't do any hunting. They'd camped and spent their days driving logging roads, parking alongside clear cuts with binoculars to find deer or elk among the severed trees—a twisted version of Where's Waldo? Once, she'd even spotted a starving cougar panting in the underbrush. What is she not seeing here? She narrows in on Salt's hands, his fingers stained yellow from nicotine, then up to his wrists to a couple of tattoos. Music notes, a set of baby footprints with a date—February 1st, 2013.

All the hairs on Chelsey's arms stand up. "You got a kid, Salt? That didn't come up in your background check." She flips through his file to make sure.

Salt sneers at her. He tucks his sleeve back down in a protective gesture. "Her ma wouldn't put me on her birth certificate."

"Her mother?" Chelsey chokes out, her words bending the air. "You have a daughter?" Everything Chelsey was sure of quickly shatters, glass splintering to reflect a new distorted picture. What if… what if the blood on the sweatshirt was from another victim? Kinsley had said there was a mixture of DNA, female and male. She'd considered it once, outside of the Fishtrap, that there could be another vic, but then she'd landed on Lewis Salt. On his rural home, his barn with a cellar, and his blue station wagon.

Salt's gaze flickers. "I'm not talking until you tell me what this is all about."

Chelsey regroups and thinks for a moment. What is the best course of action here? How much should she divulge? Interrogation is a carefully choreographed fan dance of revealing and concealing the truth. "I'm investigating an abduction case. DNA from blood on a sweatshirt the victim was found in is a partial match to yours. I thought—"

"You thought like father, like son," he cuts in. "Because my daddy is a rapist, I'd be one, too."

Chelsey blinks and keeps her voice even. "You match a profile. Along with some other key evidence that fit." Salt squints his eyes, narrowing them at Chelsey. And now, Chelsey thinks about all the ways people can be wrong. A testament to assumptions. Lewis Salt is innocent. "When was the last time you saw your daughter?" Chelsey continues.

Salt turns a cheek and crosses his arms. "I haven't seen her for six years. I left her in the car to go into the casino"—he sticks up a finger—"once. I was only in there for an hour. Her ma didn't let me see her after that. She took me to court. I lost custody." He wags the same finger and pushes it into the table. "And a year and a half ago… a year and a half ago, cops showed up at my doorstep asking me all sorts of questions about Willa. If I've seen her. If I know where she is. Her ma reported her missing, I guess. So excuse me if I don't want to talk to any more cops. You all are the same. Harassing innocent men while the real criminals go free."

Missing. The word claws into Chelsey's brain. She works to stay still, even though everything inside of her is exploding. "How old is your daughter?"

"Willa," he says, "was seven when she went missing. She'd be nine now."

So young. Chelsey swallows hard. This is the first piece that doesn't fit. Why would Ellie's abductor take a seven-year-old? She focuses on the questions she can answer instead of the ones she can't. "If she's missing, why isn't her DNA in the system?"

Salt looks at Chelsey for a long moment. "My ex gave samples. Cops collected mine. You tell me why." Irritation floods his voice.

Chelsey nods, knowing all too well. With no suspect, DNA can take up to a year for a result. She pictures the racks and racks of rape kits in endless precincts that go unprocessed. Because of the cost. The manpower. Because she works for an institution that was not built for women or their interests. How much is a girl's life worth? "We can fix that." Chelsey fidgets with Salt's file. "In light of this new revelation, it's now my belief that your daughter may also be a victim of this man's."

"Finally, you're getting something right." He crosses his arms again and looks over Chelsey's shoulder at the wall. "I'm as innocent as the day I was born."

"Noted," Chelsey clips out. "Now, please, tell me about your daughter. Everything."

For a moment, the room is deathly still. "Not much to tell. Like I said, I haven't seen her since she was two. Her name is Willa. She was a sweet baby. Had a birthmark on her cheek. Red." He circles the upper part of his face and under his eye.

"What do you know about the investigation? What happened to her?"

Salt taps his fingers against the table. "She was out riding her bike and was snatched off the street. At least, that's what my ex told me. If you ask me, her ma's boyfriend had something to do with it."

Chelsey has heard enough. She does not need Salt anymore. She rises from the table. Thanks the defense attorney but does not spare Salt a second glace. Montoya is in the room next door. He's watched the whole thing through the two-way mirror.

"I'm going to need a photograph of Willa," she says.

"Already on it," he says, phone in hand.

Chelsey's heart beats double time. "And her DNA, whatever they collected when she first went missing. We need it pulled from the lab to compare against the blood found on Ellie's sweatshirt."

"I'll email over the case file soon as I have it."

Chelsey walks to the corner and presses her palms to her eyes until she sees stars. She is angry. Confused. A third girl. Why wouldn't Ellie tell her about Willa? What reason would she have to hide it?

She drives back to Coldwell in an agitated fog. Halfway there, Montoya sends two photos of Willa. Chelsey pulls over at a rest stop to stare at them. The first is a school picture. Willa smiles for the camera, red birthmark on her cheek scrunched like an un-bloomed rose. The next is Willa on a playground, hanging from a set of monkey bars, looking like the best days of childhood—blessed, beautiful, unbroken. Waiting to be carried home.