Chapter 33 #2
Gretchen’s face was red. Her body shook with silent laughter.
Josie kept scanning the records in her lap while her colleague regained her composure and introduced herself to Annette.
It was in that moment that Josie realized she was looking for something.
What, she couldn’t say. She just knew that she’d recognize it when she saw it.
Why her brain was nagging her about whatever it was, she was just as clueless.
“Emmer grew up in a two-parent household with three sisters—one younger and two older than him—and two brothers, both older than him. He’s originally from Virginia. Parents and three of his siblings still live there. He’s never been married but that’s the least interesting reason I called.”
“We’re all ears,” said Gretchen.
Josie’s fingers froze as she spotted a text exchange that made fireworks go off in her brain.
“I’ve been digging around,” said Annette. “Seeing as you’ve got no probable cause to get into Emmer’s devices, and he won’t let you check them to verify his alibis for the nights in question. Very suspicious, that.”
The exchange had been just before their big date at Sandman’s.
Dani wrote: Wear the blue shirt.
Turner: I’ve got lots of blue shirts.
Dani: The one I bought you for Christmas the year Cass’s Elf on a Shelf was tragically killed in a scooter accident.
Turner: That elf had it coming.
Dani: Are you suggesting it was foul play?
Turner: That case is closed. What if I can’t find the shirt? That was a long time ago.
Dani: Are you or are you not at this very moment wearing the shoes you had on when you graduated from the academy?
Turner: Not answering that without a lawyer present.
“What did you dig up without probable cause?” Gretchen asked Annette.
“Let’s just say I followed Professor Library Card around a bit, and guess what? He’s got himself another little co-ed who hasn’t realized that he’s a sex crime waiting to happen.”
“Shocker,” Josie said as she kept reading.
The texts had the tone of the kind of hard-won intimacy that came with a long and sometimes grueling shared history.
One in which you could laugh now about things that had been completely confounding and exhausting when they happened.
One in which even many of the most trying times could be romanticized once you’d successfully survived them.
“Well, Emmer’s been sneaking around with this girl from a class he taught this past spring called—get this—Victorian Sexualities.”
“That’s a thing?” Gretchen asked.
“Exactly what I said,” Annette replied.
Josie read the rest as she waited for Annette to go on even though she knew exactly where this story was going.
Dani: You’re lucky I like keeping old things around.
Turner: I prefer vintage.
Dani: Well, I can’t wait to spend the night with my vintage husband.
Turner: I miss us.
Dani: I know.
The last bit was flirty and kind of funny—sweet—except for the note of wistfulness in Turner’s very un-Turner-like confession. I miss us.
Dani’s response was the reason Josie’s brain had flagged this exchange, just waiting for the right time to nag her about it.
She hadn’t said: Me, too. That was the response Josie would have expected, especially for a woman who went from handing Turner divorce papers to upending her life and their daughter’s to move to a new city hours away from her only family so they could try to salvage their marriage. Again.
Instead, she’d said, I know. There were no tone indicators in text messages, unless you added emojis, but there was something in that response that spoke of sadness and the inevitable end of something.
Behind that “I know” was a woman humoring a man she knew she was going to disappoint, and she had, getting into an argument with him before they even left the restaurant.
Annette’s voice pulled Josie from her thoughts.
“I talked to this girl—informally—after I accidentally ran into her at the little coffee shop near her apartment. After I figured out she goes there every morning. She told me she’s stayed over at Emmer’s house almost every night for the past two weeks, including the nights the Barnes women were murdered and Dani and Cass were taken. ”
“So Emmer is out,” Gretchen said. “He’s got alibis but he didn’t want to give them up because—”
“It’s not a good look,” Annette said. “I don’t know what university policy is but the last time he pulled this kind of thing, well, the last time we know of, he got in trouble with the law.
I know what you’re gonna say—better to be in hot water with his employer than to be facing murder and kidnapping charges—but as much of a weasel as he is, he’s also smart.
He knew or suspected you didn’t have enough on him to press the issue and that if it came to it, he could produce the alibis. ”
“Why put his job in jeopardy unless he absolutely had to,” Gretchen said.
“Exactly.”
“Annette,” Josie said abruptly, scraps of conversations starting to coalesce in her mind. “When Dani decided to come here to Denton with Turner like a ‘scalded cat,’ you said, did she tell you why she changed her mind?”
Turner had said Dani had started using her maiden name before the move. They were sleeping in separate bedrooms, avoiding each other at home. When he was there, she would go to the gym or get her nails done.
“Oh,” Annette said, momentarily thrown off by the sudden change in subject. “The same old shit. She wanted to give it another try.”
“Because of Cassidy?”
“Oh, I mean, sure. Cass was always a factor.”
“When she told you she’d decided to follow Turner, did she mention Cassidy?” Josie pressed.
Annette laughed. “Why do I feel like I’m in an interrogation room?
Honestly? I don’t remember. I’m sure she did.
It was a lot of things. Not wanting to keep Cass from her dad, feeling sorry for Shitbird even though he was the one who ruined everything, not wanting to live alone with just Cass, feeling like she should give it one more try. ”
The little loose ends of everything Josie had read and heard the last few days started to form a theory. “Dani said she didn’t want to live by herself?”
“Yeah. Stupid, right? She’s living in Denton by herself, isn’t she? Even though she gave me some line about living alone being too creepy and how she didn’t feel safe. I figured it was because of Emmer. I told her they could move in with me or vice versa, but she went after Shitbird anyway.”
“Josie,” Gretchen said, brows drawn up in curiosity. “What’s going on?”
As the realization hit her, it caused an uncomfortable prickling sensation racing over her skin. She opened her mouth to answer but the words got lodged in her windpipe. Clearing her throat, she said, “The pattern is similar.”
Annette said, “What did you say?”
There was no way Josie was going to say the words out loud to Annette. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I’m just exhausted. Going in circles. I don’t even know what my point was with all those questions.”
“Been there,” Annette said.
Josie and Gretchen thanked her for her update on Dustin Emmer and said their goodbyes. Once the call ended, Josie tossed the records back onto her desk and sank down in her seat.
“You want to tell me why you look like you just ate a truck stop hot dog and it’s coming back to haunt you?” asked Gretchen.
“We’ve got things reversed,” Josie said.
“Dani came first. Her marriage to Turner broke down while they were still in Alden. Things were really bad. She started using her maiden name and then came the self-care. Gym. Nails. Who knows what else? She didn’t want to stay in Alden but living alone there was too creepy.
She changed her mind about coming here on a dime, if Annette is to be believed. ”
“Because she was running,” said Gretchen. “Not because she wanted to try again.”
Lover. Stalker. Kidnapper.
“Yeah,” Josie said sadly. “She was having an affair. The killer didn’t see Dani while he was stalking Maxine. It was the other way around.”