54 Evie insisted that she and her mother wait at the Sheriff’s Department while Rachel was being questioned. Beth, the deputy on the desk, was kind enough to tolerate Evie’s persistent, hovering questions (Have you ever used your handcuffs? Do you know how to pick a lock? How fast could one of the cruisers go if you floored it on the straight stretch out by the Howards’ farm?). That allowed JJ to sit on a plastic chair, purse on her lap, motionless except for her churning brain. What the hell was going on? The man from the diner had been running by the time JJ turned, so she hadn’t gotten a look at his face. There’d been no security footage from the diner or anywhere on the street where he would have passed. No doubt they’d generate sketches from the witnesses—including Rachel—but so far

