“The park’s not on the way to Eve’s apartment,” Cal pointed out.

“No,” Jenny said. “It’s not. I don’t know why they were there.”

Calling it a park was really nothing more than wishful thinking. A couple of swings, a cracked cement tunnel usually filled with dead leaves and cat shit. An old wooden seesaw studded with splinters. The elementary school next door had been torn down before I was born, and all that remained was the neglected playground, surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence. Junie and I went probably once a year, and I always swore to myself we wouldn’t return. It was a sad excuse for a park, one that left you feeling depressed rather than carefree. But if you wanted the chance to push your child on a swing in Barren Springs, it was your only option.

Land pointed one finger at me. “You work a full shift at the diner today?”

I nodded. “Eight thirty to five.”

“What about you, Zach? Were you at work today?”

“Yeah. Left this morning around eight. Spent the whole day at the dealership. I was still there when you all showed up.”

“Take a lunch break or anything?” Land asked, eyes on his notebook.

Zach paused, and his arm jerked next to mine the moment he caught up. “You think one of us might have done this?”

Land gave a small shrug, held up both hands. “Of course I don’t. But I have to dot all my i’s and cross all my t’s. That’s the way these investigations work.”

I snuck a glance at Zach, saw the muscle in his jaw jumping. “I took a twenty-minute lunch break. Late, around two. Went down the road and grabbed a sandwich.”

That took him off the hook, assuming he was telling the truth. The boat dealership was a good thirty minutes away, in the next town along the highway. One with a Dollar General and a McDonald’s and an actual library, small as it was. There was no way Zach could have gotten from there to here, killed two girls, and gotten back in twenty minutes. Not that I’d actually entertained the idea he might have done it. But still, it was good to check his name off the list in my head.

“And what about you?” Land asked, turning to Jenny.

“I was home all day,” Jenny said. She still seemed confused about why he was asking. Surely he didn’t think she could have done this awful thing.

“Didn’t go anywhere after the girls left?”

“No.”

I leaned around Zach to look at her. “I tried to call you around three. You didn’t answer.”

Jenny blinked at me. Her eyes were big and brown and protruded a little, like some kind of innocent woodland creature. “I . . . I was home. Maybe I was doing laundry? The dryer can be loud.” She looked from me to Zach and back again.

“Why did you call her?” Land asked me.

“To check on Junie. She doesn’t . . .” I paused, sucked in a breath. “Didn’t have a cell phone. I wanted to make sure she was going to be home by five.”