“What about a necklace?” Alex asked as they stepped out of the elevator.
“I don’t know. Not yet, anyway.”
“Come on, Laurie. I know you. I can tell when you’re working on a theory. It’s that kind of hunch that Leo calls your cop instinct. Is this about Susan’s necklace? The one found near her body?”
“Just give me two minutes to work it out in my head, okay?” She could barely hang on to the various threads of thought starting to knit together in her mind. She didn’t want to lose her momentum by trying to spell it all out prematurely. “Can you round up Grace and Timmy from the cafeteria? I’ll get the car from the garage and swing around front.”
“Aye-aye, Captain. But I’m dragging that hunch out of you once we hit the road. You know my interrogation skills,” he added with a smile.
As she walked to the parking garage, she pulled up Nicole’s number on her phone and dialed, holding her breath, hoping that she would answer.
She did. “Laurie, did you hear the news? Martin Collins was shot.”
“I know, but I need to talk to you about something else.” Laurie got right to the point. “You said that Susan was rummaging for her lucky necklace when you argued about Keith and the church. Did she find it?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I really don’t remember after all these years. So much else happened later that day.”
“Think, Nicole. It’s important.”
“Um, she was running around, opening drawers and searching in her bedsheets and behind the sofa cushions. That’s right: she was digging through the couch in our common area when I got so mad I threw my book at her. Then she stormed out. So I’m just about sure she didn’t find it.”
“Thanks, Nicole. That’s a big help.”
Susan had fled her dorm room without her necklace but had been wearing it by the time she was killed. Where would she have gone? That had been the question that Alex had pressed with Keith, Nicole, and Madison. And that had been the question that Dwight Cook kept replaying on the surveillance video before his death.
Laurie thought about her own habit of taking off her jewelry when she was busy at her desk. She believed she knew where Susan had found her lucky necklace.
She pulled up another name on her phone and hit ENTER.
Alex answered after two rings. “Hey, I just found Grace and Timmy. We’ll meet you out front.”
“Okay, I’m walking into the garage and am about to lose my signal. Can you do me a favor and call Madison? Remember how she said she sent a sexy note to some love interest to pick her up at the dorm but he never showed? Can you ask her who the guy was?”
“This is for your theory, right? Just tell me, Laurie.”
“Call Madison first. It’s the last piece of the puzzle, I promise. See you in a jiff.”
As she beeped the Land Cruiser’s locks open, she already knew in her gut what name Madison would give Alex.
Richard Hathaway.