Chapter 36
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Wren, Nora, and Marlowe let their mom cry. Let her release her emotions. Let her process everything they’d told her.
Finally, the sniffles subsided, and their mother leaned back and took a sip of her soda. “What else? Is there anything more you’re not telling me?”
They all glanced at each other. How much more could their mother handle tonight? Wren wasn’t sure.
“You heard about Roy, right?” Marlowe finally asked. “Roy Callahan?”
“I heard.” Their mother slowly shook her head, a frown pulling at her lips. “That’s a shame. That’s a real shame.”
“We thought so too,” Nora said.
Then Mom’s head jerked up, and her eyes narrowed with thought. “Why did you ask me about Roy?”
Wren’s pulse quickened. This was what she was afraid of—upsetting her mother even more.
But the thought was already out there.
They needed to handle this conversation carefully.
“Mama . . .” Marlowe started.
“Just spit it out.”
“Roy didn’t just pass, Mama.” Wren forced herself to give the update as plainly as possible. “The police think someone killed him.”
Her mother’s face went white. “Wait . . . are you telling me that—that you think Roy had something to do with Christian?”
Nora squeezed her mom’s hand. “We don’t know anything yet.”
“But that’s what you think.” Their mother took in the three of them. “All of you. You think that man—a man who was like family to us—took my baby ten years ago and put us through this nightmare?”
Wren couldn’t make herself admit it. But the answer was yes. She thought that was a very real possibility.
“He didn’t.” Mom raised her chin with certainty.
Wren rubbed her hands on her jeans, just now realizing she was sweating. “Mama, we found out a few new things about him. He’s been keeping secrets, and—”
“He was on the stage.”
Everyone went quiet at the announcement.
“What do you mean?” Nora asked.
“Roy was on the stage when your brother went missing.” Her mother’s hands went still in her lap. “He’d gotten up to introduce the Fannings, and he made a speech first, the way he always did, and it went too long the way it always did.”
Wren squeezed her eyes shut. If she thought back in time, she vaguely remembered that.
Why hadn’t she thought of it earlier? How could she have missed that detail?
She licked her lips before asking, “How long was Roy up there?”
“Probably twenty minutes,” Mom said. “There were three hundred people in our yard looking at him.”
Wren stared at the tile at her feet.
Every theory she and Nash had put together rested on the idea that Roy took Christian.
She’d believed it enough that she’d taken that information to Luke Wilder.
And all along Roy Callahan had an air-tight alibi.
Nash waited until they were back in Luke’s truck before he said anything. “I can’t stop thinking about the sandwich detail.”
“Me too.” Luke kept his eyes on the road. “And the two cans of gas.”
“It had to be for a generator,” Nash said. “Earl’s probably right about that.”
“There’s nothing out there past the county line.”
As Nash turned the facts over in his mind, his phone buzzed. Wren’s name appeared on the screen.
His heart skipped a beat. Did she have an update?
He read her message and blinked.
Their theory was wrong.
“Everything okay?” Luke asked.
“Wren’s mom told her Roy was on stage at the time Christian went missing.”
Luke let out a breath. “There goes that theory. But . . .”
“But what?”
“His alibi only covers that night. It doesn’t mean Roy wasn’t working with someone.”
“That’s true,” Nash muttered.
“Plus, I seem to remember that Roy and Wren’s daddy fell out over something.”
“Paige seemed to think it had something to do with money,” Nash said. “Roy totally closed the book on the Southern Gospel chapter of his life too. People don’t do that for no good reason.”
“We need to figure out where he was going,” Luke said. “That could give us the answers we need.”
“I agree.”
“I’ll keep digging.” Luke’s jaw set. “Give me a day, and I’ll have parcel records for everything out that way.”
Nash nodded. It was a good start. But the truth still felt impossibly far away.