After Jalen leaves, I look for my dad and nearly collide with him striding out of the kitchen. His face is pale, his lips thin and bloodless. “I’ve got to go out for a little while,” he says.
“What’s wrong?” Did he overhear Jalen and me? Does he know we found the book?
Keys jingle from his restless hands. “Nothing. I… There’s just something that needs to be taken care of.”
“Dad, before you go we need to talk.”
He cuts me off with an impatient wave of his hand. “Later. Lock the door behind me.” He starts to move around me.
“It’s about Emily,” I say, and he freezes. “Were you having an affair with her?”
He turns and his eyes lock onto mine. “Absolutely not,” he says emphatically. “My God, she’s your age.”
“We found a book in your office. It has a missing page.”
He starts to dismiss what I’ve said, and then he stops. “What?”
“We found The Corn Maiden.”
He shakes his head impatiently. “I don’t know that book. You said it’s missing a page?”
“Not just any page. The first page.”
He glances at his watch, frowns deeply. “We’ll talk more about it when I get back.” He reaches past me for the doorknob.
“Dad,” I say sharply as if he’s fallen asleep and I’m trying to wake him. “We need to call the police. Now.”
“We will. Trust me—this is important, or I wouldn’t leave you.”
“Important how? Where are you going? What are doing?”
He pushes the door open. A furnace blast of heat, as if he is stepping into hell, flows through the opening. “I’ll tell you everything when I get back. I’ll only be an hour. Lock the door behind me,” he says, and then he’s gone.
But he doesn’t come home in an hour and doesn’t pick up when I try his cell. I’m pacing the living room when headlights slide across the blinds. My heart pounds when I pull the curtains aside and see the police car idling in our driveway. Then it drops when, moments later, Detectives Rodriquez and Torres step out of their car and give the house a long, assessing look.
At the front door, Detective Rodriquez greets me with a question. “Where’s your father?” Under the porch light, the officer’s heavyset features are stoic and unyielding. Next to her, tall, thin Detective Torres stands slightly hollow-eyed, as if he has seen this scene play out a thousand times and never once has it had a happy ending.
“He isn’t home.”
“Where is he?” Detective Rodriquez’s deep-set eyes lock onto me. There’s an eagerness in them I have never seen. A sick feeling spreads through my veins.
“I don’t know.” My heart thumps so hard it’s distracting. “Why are you here?” I ask, even as the answer seems clear. Jalen must have called them right after he left. He said he’d wait, but he didn’t.
“When will he be back?” Detective Rodriquez keeps her gaze locked onto mine, and I have to fight the feeling that she can read my mind.
“I don’t know.” Dead silence. “He didn’t say.”
She shakes her head as if I am her best student but I’ve given the wrong answer to a very basic question. “You don’t have to keep doing this, Paige—lying for him.” She gives me a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “This is a search warrant,” she says, and for the first time I notice the papers in her hands. “It gives us the legal ability to search your house. Please step aside.”
“What are you looking for?” But I already know the answer, and it’s sitting on the desk in my father’s office. They move past me without answering.
I try calling my father’s cell, but it just rings into voicemail. Why doesn’t he pick up? Why didn’t he tell me where he was going? When I can’t reach him, I do the only thing I can think of—call Dr. Shum.
He’s assuring me that everything will be okay when I hear Detective Rodriquez shout from my father’s office, “Torres, come check this out.”
I follow Lieutenant Torres into the room, where Detective Rodriquez is holding the copy of The Corn Maiden.
The Shums arrive just after Lieutenant Rodriquez has called in an APB for the arrest of my father, who they think has gone on the run. Stepping inside the house, Mrs. Shum hugs me as Dr. Shum demands to know what’s going on.
The police answer his questions with their own. Did Dr. Shum realize my father was spending time with Emily outside the park? Did he realize they had an inappropriate relationship? Had he ever read The Corn Maiden?
Dr. Shum sputters in indignation. “What are you talking about? Duke is a friend of the family and is a respected member of the academic community. He would never…” His blue eyes blaze with fury. “How dare you denigrate the reputation of a world-renowned archeologist?”
Although shorter than Dr. Shum by nearly a head, Detective Rodriquez meets his gaze with a steely one of her own. “I’ll ask you again. Did you ever see Dr. Patterson alone, outside the park, with Miss Linton?”
Dr. Shum looks down at her coldly. “This is a witch hunt,” he says. “Any questions you want to ask me or my wife will have to be done in the presence of my attorney.”
The corners of Detective Rodriquez’s plump, pink lips curl up knowingly. “Consider it done,” she says.
We all look up at the sound of a car door slamming. We step onto the front porch in time to see my father jogging toward the house. “Paige!” he shouts. “What’s going on?”
He doesn’t make it to me. The two officers intercept him. Within seconds, he is spread-eagled against the wall in the dining room. They pat him down and then cuff him. As they start to read him his rights, I feel dizzy, disoriented, as if I am here, watching this, but also apart from it.
Mrs. Shum tucks her arm around me. “Honey,” she murmurs, “it’s going to be okay.”
But it isn’t. Moments later, Detective Rodriquez charges my father with probable cause in the disappearance of Emily Linton. Detective Torres opens the back door to the squad car and puts his hand on my father’s head as he gets in. For a moment, my gaze locks with my dad’s.
“Call your mother. Tell her to come get you.” My father’s voice cuts off as he loses his balance and almost stumbles into the car.
Mrs. Shum’s arm tightens around me as the car backs down the driveway. She smells of paint and turpentine and something slightly sweet, like roses. “Don’t worry, Paige,” she murmurs. “Your father’s lawyer will meet him at the police station. They’ll work it out.”
Dr. Shum’s blue eyes rest gently on me. Under the porch light his rugged features reflect concern. “Your father is a good man,” he says gruffly. “The police do this sometimes. They’re under pressure to make an arrest, so they have to charge somebody.”
I don’t say anything, but the lump in my throat swells. I take a deep breath, and it cracks into a thousand gasping little pieces.
He doesn’t know that the police have new evidence. He doesn’t know about the book or that my dad no longer has an alibi. And he doesn’t know that I have been betrayed by the one person I thought I could trust. In the space of a few hours, I have lost everything.
Dr. Shum’s broad brow furrows, and he pats my shoulder in a gesture that’s formal and yet oddly comforting. “Ah, little one,” he says gently. “You’ve had yourself quite a night, haven’t you? Are you hungry?”
Mrs. Shum brushes my hair back from my face. “We should stop at Jack In The Box,” she says in the false, cheerful tone of someone who has no idea that she’s saying the entirely wrong thing. “I know you girls like those black-and-white shakes.”