Earth to Emily Read online

  I heard clanging from the front end of the car. “I can understand that.” Better than she knew, thanks to a drunken lout from the Tarleton rodeo team. He got a feel of my breasts and a knee to the balls. I was maybe thirty pounds heavier than her, though, and seven inches taller. Suddenly, I understood her vulnerability in a way that I hadn’t when I’d heard her story third person from Wallace. “But where will you go?”

  Greg moved forward, too. Both of them were so close I could have touched their cheeks. “We’ll be fine. I can take care of her.”

  A sharpness rent my chest. “Let me help you.”

  “You can’t. No one can.”

  “I can try.”

  Farrah smiled with her mouth only. “Thank you. Really. It’s . . .” She trailed off.

  I gestured toward the backseat. “Hop in, where it’s warm.”

  Both kids took a step back, then another, as the boy shook his head. “We wanted to see if you were okay. We have to get out of here.”

  “Wait! At least take my card. It has my office number and my cell number. Call me if you need anything, please.”

  I pulled a card from the outer side pocket of my handbag, where I’d learned to stash them for easy access. People in need of a criminal attorney were often in a hurry to get someplace else, it seemed. The card had the addresses for both the Amarillo and New Mexico offices for Jack’s firm. I stuck it out the window. Snow fell and melted on my bare hand. The wind flapped the edge of my wrap, and I held on to the flimsy cardstock with a tight grip between thumb and forefinger.

  Greg leapt forward and snatched the card, then retreated just as quickly. The two kids took another step back and the snow and the night swallowed them whole.

  Jack hopped back in the car, letting in a gust of icy air and swath of falling snow with him. “You hit some kind of concrete stanchion.”

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for the repairs.”

  “No need.” His lip twitched. “It didn’t even dent the bumper.”

  For a moment, his words didn’t make sense. Greg said the front end was “wasted” and I’d heard a clanging. Then a warm glow spread from my chest outward as I realized that Jack was pretending I hadn’t caused any damage, and I could only guess it was to keep me from paying for repairs. A truly kind gesture, given the state of my finances, which he knew all about. I played along. “Really? Wow. We hit the concrete so hard.”

  He stomped his boots on the floorboard. “Lucky break.”

  The glow spread further, grew hotter. “Did you see the kids?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “No, I mean, they were right here, at my window. Didn’t you hear me scream?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing except the wind.” He craned to see out my side. “I don’t see anyone now.”

  As hard as I stared into the darkness and swirling snow after them, I didn’t either.

  Chapter Two

  I parked the Jeep at the edge of the truck lot near where a crowd had gathered. Blue and red lights flashed in all directions. Curiosity clawed at me, and I took a few steps closer to the throng. It parted for two EMTs and a gurney, and through the gap I saw someone big and black on the ground, his head in a pool of blood. He wasn’t moving, and the people around him had the hushed mien I’d come to associate with tragedy. I shuddered. Behind his body, a woman peered between the curtains of what looked like the sleeping compartment above a tractor cab whose license plate read TUCK69.

  “Crime scene, ma’am, you need to step back,” a female officer said. She was bundled to her eyeballs with a thick scarf, and she shouted through it to be heard. A roll of yellow tape hung in her hand.

  “What happened?”

  “A man’s been shot.”

  So the noises we heard had been gunshots. “Is he dead?”

  “Afraid so. Now, move along. Give us room to do our jobs.”

  I backed away, still mesmerized by the blood on the new layer of snow in the parking lot.

  “Isn’t that Wallace?” Jack asked, reclaiming my attention.

  I turned, and he pointed back toward the Love’s store. Another crowd had formed there under the shelter of the big-rig gas bay. A tall, lean man with sandy-blond hair stood out among them.

  “It is.”

  Wallace lifted a hand to us as we started walking toward him, then put it on one hip and shook his head, his highlighted hair swinging perfectly over his eyelid. How could he always look so put together, even in the cold and blowing snow, when I looked like the Abominable Snowwoman? I fluffed my bangs, hoping for presentable, and snow fell from them to my face.

  Wallace said, “What took you so long?”

  “We were following the kids,” I told him.

  “You found them?”

  “We did. And lost them again. They’re gone.”

  Something about my words tore at me. I’d lost a baby of my own in October. A miscarriage, and I’d lost my one Fallopian tube, or most of it anyway, at the same time, meaning I was probably barren. Babies. Children. Loss. Thinking about it made time slow down, and as I watched the snow fall I could see every individual flake in the sky around me, suspended almost to the point of not moving. I had to shake it off; I was nearly over it, and I couldn’t let everyone see it still leveled me. I huffed a deep breath, and let it out slowly through my mouth.

  Jack had been standing beside me like a wooden drugstore Indian, but he ended his silence. “She wrecked my Jeep.”

  Wallace turned to him now. “She’s hell on wheels, but I hear she’s much better on horseback.”

  Jack made some kind of noise halfway between a snort and a laugh.

  Wallace introduced a chunky guy with acne and lank hair who had materialized beside him. “This is Byron Philly, you guys. Despite the fact that he looks like a bad episode of 21 Jump Street, he’s actually a married father of three and a responsible adult.”

  “Nice to meet you, Byron. I’m Emily Bernal, paralegal at Williams and Associates. I work for him.” I hooked my thumb at my boss.

  “Jack Holden.” Jack shook Byron’s hand.

  “Byron Philly. Sorry.” He shook his head, like he was trying to clear it. “We have a newborn at our house and no one is getting to shower or sleep. Nice to meet y’all. Now, which direction did my kids go?”

  I gestured behind us. “Way out across the field.” The snow fell faster, and I could feel the flakes landing on my nose.

  “Could you tell if they were dressed for the weather?”

  I thought back, eyes closed. I’d gotten a good look at Greg. Black watch cap. Faux leather lined aviator jacket. Gloves? I wasn’t sure. As for Farrah, I couldn’t say. She’d blended against the darkness, and by the time she’d appeared, it was her words I had focused on, not her clothes. But even hats, coats, and gloves wouldn’t do much good on a night like this. “Coats and hats. Other than that, I couldn’t say. The weather looks like it’s getting pretty bad.”

  He grimaced. “I’ll update the cops.” Byron walked toward the Love’s entrance and a congregation of men and one woman in blue uniforms.

  I turned to Wallace, who was admiring Jack while Jack picked at a fingernail, which of course he made look smolderingly hot. Wallace waggled his eyebrows in Jack’s direction for my benefit. Bless his heart. Wallace never quit trying to promote a match between us, and I had to admit I hoped he’d succeed. I rolled my eyes at him anyway, though.

  Wallace said, “Well, you guys missed some excitement. One of the truckers was shot and killed out in the lot.”

  “Yeah, I saw the scene. Gruesome.”

  Jack dipped his chin once. “Yep. I think we heard the shots, too.”

  To Wallace I said, “I’d guess we almost drove up on it, but then the kids came sprinting by, and we forgot about the shots.”

  A tiny woman approached from the direction of the truck lot. She strolled slowly, almost casually, but her eyes darted left-right, left-right, left-right as she picked her way across the snowy ground cover in sky-high wedge-he
eled boots. Fake leather extended all the way up to her thighs where it almost met a zebra-print tube skirt. The one inch of exposed leg was covered by nothing except fishnet. On her upper half she wore a waist-length jacket with black strands of something that wasn’t fur. Her eyeliner, fingernails, and long, straight hair were as black as the coat.

  She zeroed in on Wallace, calling to him. “Hey, I know you, right?”

  As she got closer, I saw that her makeup didn’t hide the testaments to hard living that time had etched around her eyes and mouth. Thirty-five or more years of time, if I had to guess.

  Wallace evaluated her for a few seconds. “Yeah, I think so, but I can’t remember where.”

  “Well, I’m a dancer. Do you ever go to any clubs?”

  “Do you by any chance dance at the Polo Club?”

  “I do.”

  “That must be it. I was in there not too long ago on an investigation.”

  Her eyes opened so wide I was afraid they’d get stuck that way. “Are you a cop?”

  “Not that kind of investigation. I work for Child Protective Services.”

  She exhaled. “Whew! Well, thank God.” She whispered in his ear and his eyes widened. Goose pimples rose on the back of my neck. I didn’t like secrets unless they included me.

  After a good thirty seconds of furtive back-and-forth whispers, Wallace reincluded Jack and me in the conversation. “I’m going to walk Ms.—”

  “You can call me Ivanka.”

  An eastern European name with that drawl? I didn’t think so.

  “—Ivanka over to my car, and give her a ride home.”

  “Good night, then,” I said.

  “Ivanka” shot a last furtive glance over her shoulder at the Love’s then took his arm, pulling him along. It was hard to say which of them had the better swing to their walk, but I gave Wallace the edge.

  I looked at Jack and he arched his left brow.

  I frowned. “I wonder what that’s all about.”

  Byron walked in our direction with a uniformed officer. As they neared us, though, Byron peeled off after Wallace and the woman. The policeman kept coming. He had on an Amarillo Police Department coat, and it looked warm, as did his blue knit cap with a white owl’s head on it, the Rice University mascot logo. I envied him that coat and hat. I was freezing to death. My toes had started losing feeling. I’d worn thin socks under my boots, not expecting to spend the evening out in the weather. I stamped my feet one after another to warm them.

  The officer stopped in front of us. “Emily Bernal and Jack Holden?”

  The guy looked familiar. Jack caught my eye and raised the same eyebrow he had a moment before. He recognized him, too?

  “I’m Emily. Have we met?”

  The officer got out a small spiral flip notebook and a pen without looking at me. “Possibly. I’m Officer Samson, and I need to ask you a few questions about Greg Easley and Farrah Farud.”

  “Okay.” I stared at him, my mind flipping through a card catalogue of faces.

  White male. Puffy, dark-circled eyes. Uni-brow. Dishwater hair shot through with gray. He was Jack’s height, maybe six foot one, not lean like Jack, though. But the guy I pictured in my mind’s eye had a good six inches of Wonder Bread protruding over his belt and skinny legs. Right now this one looked thin under his jacket. Still, I knew it was the same guy.

  So I recognized him, but from where? I cross-referenced places, looking for a match, and got one. He’d questioned Wallace and me at a witness’s apartment when the little girl we were searching for had been abducted. Not just any little girl. Betsy, the one I would adopt as soon as the great state of Texas approved me, if all went as planned. Jack—who I could tell definitely knew the officer, too—didn’t say anything about it, so I didn’t say any more either.

  “I hear the two of you saw Greg and Farrah tonight, the runaway teenagers?” Officer Samson stood with pen poised.

  Jack gestured at me. “I saw two figures running from the truck lot. She saw more than me.”

  I nodded and pointed toward the field we’d plowed up with the Jeep. “I talked to them, about ten minutes ago, out in the middle of that field. They took off from there.”

  Samson squinted at me. “What did you talk about?”

  “I ran our vehicle into some concrete thing, and they came up and asked if we were all right. I said yes, and then they took off.”

  “To where?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Which direction?”

  “I’m sorry, it was so dark and snowy that I couldn’t tell.”

  He frowned and wrote something. “Where did you first see them, when they ran from the lot?”

  “On the back side, about halfway down.”

  “And you were where?”

  “Also on the back side, but we were pretty far away. We’d made the turn to the back.”

  Two women hurried past us, dressed not unlike Ivanka, but one was bonier than Ivanka and the other had horrible teeth. They cut their eyes down and veered away from Samson.

  He scowled after them. “Damn lot lizards. They’re half the problem out here.”

  I hadn’t heard that expression. I looked at Jack, and he mouthed, “Hookers.” Oh. Oh.

  Samson was talking again. “Did you hear any gunshots here tonight?”

  I nodded. “Yes, several. Right before the kids came running out.”

  He looked up quickly. “Did they have any weapons on them?”

  “No, not that I saw. They just looked scared and young and cold when I talked to them in the field.”

  “Did you see anyone else when they ran from the parking lot?”

  “No.”

  He turned to Jack. “And you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you happen to see the shooting”—he pointed toward the murder scene—“or anyone with a weapon?”

  We answered almost at the same time. “No.”

  Officer Samson chewed the end of his pen. “All right. Call me if you think of anything else.” He handed each of us a card.

  We agreed, and Samson walked back toward the Love’s. There was nothing left for us to do there, and Jack and I walked toward the rear of the Jeep. I was frozen through and through by that time, and Ivanka, Wallace, and Byron had disappeared, and I still didn’t know what my best guy friend had learned from the dancer.

  My stomach growled. “You know, I’m really cold, but even more, I’m strangely hungry.”

  Jack snorted. “No one to blame but yourself for that.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m eating my dinner the second I close the door to the Jeep.” Then I leaned toward him, my voice low in case the friendly Officer Samson could still hear me. “Say, had you met that police officer before? I met him once, at Victoria’s apartment, when we were searching for Betsy.”

  “He was one of the cops at the scene when they charged our client with assault, one of the state’s witnesses against Alan Freeman.”

  Alan Freeman was our client. I’d first met Alan a few months ago, when he was retiling our office floor to pay his bill. I didn’t know which I loved more, the fact that Jack let his clients pay in whatever form they could swing, or that Freeman was the kind of guy who lived up to his responsibilities.

  “I thought it was a former cop, Jason somebody or other, who Freeman supposedly assaulted?”

  Jack walked me to the passenger side and opened the door. I climbed in, and he leaned in a little after me. My pulse accelerated and my brain function decelerated in response. “Wu, yes.”

  “Woo what?” As I spoke, I realized he meant “Wu,” as in Jason’s last name, and not “woo,” as in seek the affection, love, or support of another. My cheeks started heating.

  He raised his left eyebrow, and it was all I could do not to bridge the last few inches of gap between our lips. The dimple puckered. Flames climbed my face. “Woo-hoo.” He slammed the door, and I caught a glimpse of his lopsided smile.

  I exhaled. “Whew,” I said, and put my
cold hands to my flaming hot cheeks.

  Chapter Three

  On a self-declared break from Freeman trial prep the next morning, I parked my aging green Mustang on Wentworth alongside the almost treeless playground at Windsor Elementary. Someone had hung red and green tinsel garlands around the one scraggly evergreen near the school building. The previous night’s snow still clung to the ground around the tree and across the playground, but the precipitation had stopped. Not a great day to pretend to power walk through the neighborhood. Usually I parked farther away—it made me less conspicuous—but today the temperature hovered below freezing, and with the wind-chill factor it felt like fifteen degrees. No way was I walking any farther than I had to, even to see Betsy.

  If I could see Betsy, that is. I glanced at the time on my phone. It was still two minutes until recess time.

  When I found the orphaned girl and Jack and I brought her back from New Mexico, I’d handed her over to CPS via Wallace. She had become the most important person in my life by then, and I was desperate to make her my forever daughter. Wallace showed me how to work within the bureaucracy of the state system, and urged me to trust it. I’d signed up on the foster-care and adoption lists. I’d taken the classes. I was saving up to move out of my mother’s and into my own place, at which time I could schedule a home study. I scrolled back to an email I’d sent myself with the link to a listing for a duplex off Soncy Road that sounded perfect. I needed to book a time to see it. Meanwhile, CPS had placed Betsy with a large foster family with a good record. The Hodges. Trevon and Mary Alice.

  The Hodges had fostered, all told, twenty-three kids, per Wallace. They specialized in noninfant and nonwhite kids, and kids with disabilities; in other words, they took the kids who were hard to place. Wallace said they had a history of keeping them long-term, until someone else adopted them or they graduated from the foster system, whichever came first. I initially found this admirable—astounding even. How difficult it must be to raise so many children, some of whom required extra care.

  Then jealousy crept in. They had Betsy. I didn’t. I’d stalked them a little. On Facebook. While grocery shopping. At their church. Okay, I admit it, the Hodges were an impressive sight with their line of multicolored ducklings in all shapes and sizes following behind them. I’d finally decided maybe Betsy had drawn a lucky card from the deck with them. All those siblings. A family with values, with morals.