Page 29

“I suppose it’s possible …”

“You sure?”

I glanced into the barrel again. “Well, no, I’m not sure about anything, but at least I think the scarf is a match. Calloway and the Tucson folks will want to know.”

“Yeah. They will.” Verro grabbed his phone and made his way around Jenna and then back out into the daylight.

“Did you find this?” I asked Jenna when he was gone.

“No, Verro did. I didn’t know this space was back here, though I might have found it eventually. Verro’s been spending a lot of time walking around.”

I nodded. “Did you guys find anything else?”

“No, nothing,” Jenna said. Even in the shadowed space, I could tell there was more she wanted to say but seemed to be hesitating.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked her.

“I … nothing.”

“Okay.”

The air between us became fraught with a sort of electricity. We didn’t even know each other, but I knew she didn’t like me. I hadn’t formed an opinion, but I wondered what I’d done.

“Jenna … Officer Griffen, what’s going on?” I asked.

She sighed. “Verro thinks I might have come on a little too strong this morning.”

I rewound my mind back to the time in the diner. “I don’t remember.”

She frowned at me. “Hazel, you need to learn things about your father. At least … look at what’s out there. There are things—”

“He was my father. I lived it.”

“But you were a kid. You didn’t know him fully. Others might have. Take a closer look. See if anything helps you put together some answers.”

“Is there anything you want to tell me? An abridged version maybe?”

“No, Hazel. You need to take a deeper dive yourself.”

I nodded once, but I didn’t answer. The stubborn part of me still wanted to argue, but if I knew anything, it was that whenever I wanted to dispute, taking a step back first was always the wiser path to take. Not that it was always the one I took.

Verro returned a moment later but didn’t offer a summary regarding the call he’d made. I was dismissed as Verro told Jenna to gather and bag the scarf.

I didn’t think I was here because of my position as a consultant. The lines between the things happening in Black Vulture and my job were blurring. I was a witness as well as someone who could potentially provide answers to some of the mysteries—both professionally and personally. I needed to be careful, though I wasn’t even quite sure what that meant.

I left, but what I didn’t tell them was that I would make my way back to that patio as soon as I could. The local police were focused on the scarf. The boot meant nothing to them.

But it might mean something to me.

The twenty years since Wilmot disappeared had both trudged along and flown by. The desert demolished everything. The sun was a hungry and cruel beast. But this barrel had been shaded by some old wooden slats for a long time. It could have been around for just a few years, but it could have been longer—a lot longer.

That boot, though covered with grime, looked familiar. Sure, lots of people wore the grocery store boots, but when he’d disappeared, so had Wilmont’s boots—everyone assumed he’d been wearing them, along with the jeans and sweatshirt that I’d witnessed him wearing the morning of his disappearance.

I was going to fish out that boot and give it a good once-over.

I had to wait until the police were gone first, though.

CHAPTER