“She is missing. You don’t know that she’s dead.”
Rick looked away.
Then he said something I’ll never forget.
“Those earrings don’t mean anything.”
I looked down at them.
“Yes, they do.”
That night, I slept in the guest room.
I held the earrings in my hand beneath the blanket.
I barely slept.
My mind kept replaying Rick’s reaction.
Not surprise.
Not grief.
Fear.
He had been afraid.
Why?
I’d known that man for more than twenty years.
I knew his expressions.
I knew his voice.
I knew when he was angry.
I knew when he was sad.
And I knew when he was hiding something.
At three in the morning, I sat up in bed.
A terrible thought entered my mind.
What if Rick knew where those earrings came from?
I immediately rejected it.
No.
That was impossible.
He was Hannah’s father.
He loved her.
Didn’t he?
I spent the rest of the night trying to convince myself that I was imagining things.
Then, just after seven in the morning, someone knocked on the front door.
I froze.
Another knock.
I walked downstairs.
Rick was already standing in the hallway.
He looked at me.
Neither of us said anything.
I opened the door.
Two police officers stood on the porch.
One was a woman.
