Page 55 of Carry on Wayward Son

Madden hadn’t moved. The composure was still there, but something had shifted beneath it. The prosecutor’s distance cracking at the edges, her jaw set in a way that meant she held something back that wouldn’t be held back forever. She’d spent years building the case file. She’d been the one who wouldn’t let it go, who’d kept asking when everyone else had stopped. Now a survivor sat in this living room who’d been in the hold with Gwen.

Rios finally moved, laying a hand on her shoulder in support. But he didn’t take his eyes off Layla. He’d spent so many years being the convenient answer to a question nobody could prove, and now he had to reckon with the full shape of what really happened to the girl everyone had blamed him for. That would leave its own scars.

Willa lowered her hands from her mouth. Her eyes were wet, and the look on her face broke something in my chest. She’d been in those woods. She’d been on that boat. She’d been thrown into the water, surviving by the grace of God and Sawyer, only to spend all the years since not knowing what had happened to the person she’d been with that night. And now she was looking at someone who’d been there. Who’d been in that hold. Who’d seen Gwen when she arrived.

“She was scared when they brought her aboard,” Willa said. It wasn’t a question.

Layla looked at her. “Yes.”

“But she was alive the last time you saw her.”

“Yes.” Something moved across Layla’s face. “She was alive.”

Willa closed her eyes, and Sawyer pressed his lips to her temple and held there, offering comfort as only he could.

I still crouched in front of Layla, below her eye level, not touching. Close enough that she could see me and know I was there. She wasn’t looking at me right now. She looked at Willa, at what the confirmation had given her and what it had cost. But I stayed where I was. Present. Available. Not requiring anything.

“I’ve been doing this work for years.” Layla’s voice softened. “The photographs. The cold cases. The families who never got answers.” She looked down at her hands in Koa’s fur. “It started because of her. Because of what happened to her and the others like her. Because they didn’t have anyone asking.” A pause. “This is why.”

“She had us,” Willa said. Her eyes were still closed. “She always had us asking. We just couldn’t find the answer.”

“You never stopped.” Layla looked at her. “That matters. You have no idea how much that matters.”

The room breathed in and out. The fire had gone completely cold now. Nobody moved to rebuild it. Too caught in the amber of shock, absorbing the significance of what Layla had just revealed.

Rios brought us back with the steady purpose of someone who understood that while grief needed its moment, work did too, and that both could be true at once. “There’s something else in the original file that was never followed up on. A witness statement. Someone who said they’d been asked to deliver a note to Gwen that night at the bonfire. The statement was taken and nothing else was ever done with it.” He checked his notes. “The name is Lauren Holloway.”

Willa’s head came up sharply. “Lauren? She runs the animal shelter. She’s been here for years. She was at the bonfire?”

“According to the statement, she told the investigating officer that someone had asked her to pass a note to Gwen that night. She didn’t know what was in it. Gwen read it and she—” He consulted the notes once more. “She looked surprised and pleased, was the description. And then that was it. Nothing else. Nobody ever went back to ask Lauren anything more.”

“Because Carson had his answer.” The flatness in Ford’s voice held an edge.

“Because Carson had his answer,” Rios confirmed. “And once he had it, he stopped asking questions.”

I looked around the room. We’d all arrived at the same place.

“We need to talk to her,” Madden said.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “First thing.”

Layla set her water glass down and sat with both hands flat on her thighs, Koa pressed against her leg, her face composed in a way that I understood was costing her significantly. She looked up at me when I said it and gave the smallest nod.

Tomorrow. First thing.

Tonight she had given this room enough.

Twenty-Eight

LAYLA

The Sutter’s Ferry Animal Shelter sat on a side street a few blocks from the waterfront, in a low building with a cheerful mural of dogs and cats on the side wall. The colors had mellowed from their original brightness into something warmer. I’d photographed it on my first morning walk. It had seemed like a good sign then, the kind of place that meant a community cared about something.

The layered noise of animals in close quarters hit us before we were through the door. At least a dozen dogs barking and howling, cats yowling from somewhere. After a few seconds, it all settled into a kind of white noise. The building smelled of industrial cleaner over the distinct warm animal odor you couldn’t fully neutralize no matter how clean you kept the place. A young woman at the front desk looked up when we came in.

“Hi, is Lauren Holloway here?” Jace asked.

“Sure.” She picked up the phone on the desk. “Can I ask what it’s regarding?”