I stare at the table, hoping I’ll sound as convincing as I have to be. “You know, maybe he could have seen me. It took Earl Rae a little while to get me in the closet, and he could have seen me then.” I swallow and keep going. He’s saved me in so many ways—I have to get this right. I have to save him now. “And Earl Rae could have been lying about burning all my stuff. It’s not like I was ever able to confirm it.”
Reyes is silent for so long my hands start to shake. Why didn’t Torrin tell me? Why didn’t he tell me so I could change my story? Why didn’t he tell me? That’s the question that keeps playing through my head, but I guess the simple answer is that he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want to. For whatever reason—be it he didn’t want me to know or he didn’t want me to lie for him or he didn’t think it was that big of a deal—he didn’t tell me. That’s enough for me to accept.
“But he didn’t see you. Earl Rae had every single window in that house boarded up.” Reyes lets the spinning pen fall from her fingers. When it hits the table, it makes a sharp sound that echoes around the room. “And your shoes are ashes that blew into the wind years ago.”
I stare at the folder and wonder why it’s still closed. Why she isn’t making notes like she was earlier. “He found me.” I lean forward in my chair. “Does how he did it matter?”
“Well”—Reyes shrugs—“only if you believe in things like the law, and telling the truth, and not perjuring yourself in order to get a SWAT team to pound down the door of some guy you remembered saying something creepy to your girlfriend ten years ago.”
God, she makes that sound bad. He isn’t just someone who lied either—he’s a priest who lied. That would make it a hundred times worse if this were released.
“Please, don’t,” I say, but my tone is more reminiscent of begging. “He saw me. I remember.”
Reyes lifts her hands as I start to warm up. “Jade, it’s okay.” She keeps them lifted for another second before setting them down. “I knew Torrin was lying when he came barreling in here, ordering every man in the department load up and show up at Earl Rae’s house.”
I blink at her. “You knew? How?”
Reyes checks the cameras stationed in the room. She told me they weren’t rolling or anything since this was a courtesy interview and not an official interrogation, but I get the feeling she’s double-checking because she doesn’t want what she’s about to say filmed.
“I didn’t work your case at the beginning.” Her gaze shifts from the cameras. “I didn’t get it until recently, but I know the detectives who worked it after you went missing. They told me all about Torrin Costigan and how during that first year, he was in here every day looking for an update or delivering one himself. He called them on their days off and called them even after they retired. He didn’t know the meaning of giving up.” Reyes slides the folder down the table. “That kind of person does not get a glimpse of the girl he’s been looking for for ten years and turn around and walk away. Torrin Costigan wouldn’t catch a glimpse of a shadow of you in a hall, or see your old shoes or a strand of hair he suspected was yours, and let the door close in his face, walk down the front porch steps, and wait two days for you to be rescued.”
Reyes pauses like she’s waiting for a confirmation from me, but I’m not opening my mouth and saying anything else that could get him in trouble.
“If Torrin Costigan saw you that day, nothing would have stopped him from bringing you home. And yeah, we might have found Earl Rae’s body one day, but the bullet in his head wouldn’t have been from his own doing.”
I shift in my seat, unable to find a comfortable position anymore. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Reyes shrugs. “Because he was right. You were there.”
“He never told me . . . my dad, he never even told me. I had no idea.” My head feels thick with confusion. “Why didn’t they tell me?”
Reyes’s eyes narrow a little as they glance at the door. “Your dad doesn’t know. As far as the official report goes, it was an anonymous tipster who gave us what we needed to find you.”
My eyes widen, but I stay quiet because even though my first instinct is to assume Dad would go bad cop all over this place if he ever found out, I remember something he’s been telling me my whole life—he’s a dad first and a cop second. I was home—the how that went into that wouldn’t matter much to him.
“And as for why Torrin hasn’t told you or anyone that he was the one responsible for bringing you home, I think it’s because he doesn’t want the notoriety or the recognition or anything that comes with that. All he wanted was to find you. All he cared about was bringing you home.”
I have to bite my lip to keep from crying. He found me. He didn’t just look for me. He didn’t just keep believing. He found me.
He failed better until he got it right.
Those ten years I thought I was so very alone, I really wasn’t. He was still there, looking. Searching. Finding. That tether might have stretched and pulled and neared its breaking point, but he never let go. He was with me then too.
“Listen,” Reyes says, “I didn’t tell you any of this at first because I knew you had enough coming at you. I wasn’t going to tell you at all because it doesn’t change anything about who he is and who you are.”