CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

Bryn Peterson had her fingers linked with a boy, and they sat together on a couch. She lived in one of the apartment-style dorms, but not in the same building as the one where Gilbert had died. She was hardly looking at us. Instead she seemed intent on the guy she sat with. She couldn’t keep her hands off him, clutching his thigh, squeezing his fingers. “That’s a fucking lie,” she said.

“So, none of it’s true at all?”

“No way.” Bryn brushed the guy’s hair away from his forehead. “Gilbert was an old boyfriend, but I have a new boyfriend now.” She grinned at the guy, moving her face close to his.

They kissed. It was prolonged and sloppy.

Brigit and I turned to each other and made a face.

“Yes, we see that,” I said. “You did go to camp with Gilbert and Duke?”

“Sure,” said Bryn. “I wouldn’t deny that, because that would be lying. But right now, I’m telling you the truth.”

“Okay,” I said. “So, you didn’t know about Preston’s drowning either.”

“Of course I knew he drowned. I was at that camp, same as everyone else.”

“Yeah, according to the director there, you were really broken up about it. Kept sobbing and sobbing. Did you have a special connection with Preston?”

“No,” she said. “I was upset because I found out what Gilbert did, and I didn’t know if I could like him after that.”

“And what did Gilbert do?” It was important that I verify she knew. If she couldn’t tell me this, then it was likely that she was telling the truth and Duke was lying.

“He and Duke made Preston go down there,” she said. “They tricked him into it. I know they didn’t mean for him to die, but…” She paused, giving us a funny look. “Wait, if you know all about that, why aren’t you arresting Duke for killing Preston?”

“It’s not a crime to play nasty pranks on a kid,” I said. “And I can’t arrest people. I’m a private detective.”

“Oh.” She was squirreling this knowledge away.

“So, how long ago did you and Gilbert break up?”

She turned to look at the other guy, a pained look on her face. “Sorry about this, baby.”

“It’s okay,” he said, smiling at her.

They gazed into each other’s eyes for a couple seconds.

“How long ago?” I repeated. I strongly suspected that she’d just turned away to her boyfriend to buy time to think of a lie.

“It’s been a while,” she said. “I don’t remember exactly.”

“But you did transfer here to be closer to him?”

She looked to her boyfriend again.

“Don’t look at him,” I said. “Look at me. Answer the question.”

“Listen, Gilbert and I are old news,” she said. “I’m not with him anymore. I’m with Dylan. And a good thing too, since Gilbert went all psycho and shot everyone. Hell, if I’d stayed with him, maybe I’d be dead now. Anyway, I think we’re done here.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I still have questions.”

“Well, too bad,” she said. “Because if you’re not a cop, then I don’t think I have to talk to you, and I’m not going to. So, get out of my dorm.”

* * *

“So, something’s off with that girl,” I told Brigit as we drove back to the office. “But I don’t know if she figures into our investigation much.”

“She seems… manipulative,” said Brigit. “I could just see the wheels turning in her little head.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But none of that really gives her motive to hurt Gilbert. Even if she was blackmailing him, she was obsessed with him, right? She liked him. So, she wouldn’t have wanted him dead.”

“I don’t know,” said Brigit. “If she was really twisted, she might. Especially if Gilbert wasn’t cooperating with her anymore. She might have thought that if she couldn’t have him, no one should.”

“That’s true. And she doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d much worry about the collateral damage of killing five other people. But we don’t know anything about her. We don’t even know if she was at the party that afternoon.”

“And it doesn’t seem like she’s going to talk to us again.”

I sighed.

“So,” said Brigit. “What do we do?”

“We see what we can find out from other sources. About both her and Duke,” I said.

* * *

We spent the afternoon on the phone, but we didn’t get much of anywhere. People remembered seeing Bryn at the party that afternoon, but that wasn’t unusual, because people apparently saw Bryn pretty much everywhere that Gilbert was, at least when he was in public.

There had been a confrontation between Bryn and Charlene Jarrett, apparently. Bryn had called her names, and Charlene had thrown a drink on Bryn’s outfit before disappearing into the room where she would later be killed.

Brigit and I concocted a possible scenario.

Bryn had seen Gilbert’s gun earlier, and she’d somehow taken it. When she went into the room, maybe she only wanted to threated Charlene, or maybe she intended to shoot both Charlene and Gilbert.

But Gilbert saw her, and they struggled over the gun. It went off.

Then Bryn panicked and shot everyone else.

It was such a good theory that I shared it with Miles that evening when we were having dinner in my house yet again. This time, we weren’t eating my cooking, because we’d spent the evening loading up a rental truck with all my bigger furniture from my old apartment and bringing it to my new place. Afterward, we were sweaty and tired, so there was no way I was cooking. I’d ordered pizza instead.

Miles listened to my theory and then thoughtfully munched on a slice of pepperoni and mushrooms. “Well, I guess she sounds pretty unhinged, so it’s possible.”

“No proof, though,” I said. “And I don’t even scare her, so I doubt I could lean on her and force her to confess.”

“I don’t know, Ivy, you’ve been all over the place with this case. There’s a new theory every couple days.”

“True,” I said. “I wish it was coming together more easily.”

“Maybe there’s nothing there to find.”

“How would that make you feel if it were true?”

He sighed. “I don’t know.”

We were quiet.

“Give me a little more time on this before you decide that it’s a lost cause,” I said. “I feel good about this theory. I think this girl might be the answer. I’ve just got to figure out how to find proof.”

“Okay,” he said. “A little longer, then. But I’m getting to the point where holding onto all of this is just causing me more pain.”

“I get that,” I said.

“I feel like, in some ways, losing Gilbert has been good for me. It’s pushed me out of my comfort zone. I didn’t think it would have been possible for you and me to be together before. But now, I feel like life is too short, and I need us to be together now, no matter what it takes.”

I smiled, grabbing myself another slice of pizza. “And it’s working. This between us is working.”

He grinned too.

We just grinned at each other, like we were silly in love.We were doing that a lot lately.

And then Miles looked away. “We still have work to do.”

“Sure,” I said.

“No, I mean it,” he said. “So far, we’ve been together practically every night, and it’ll go on that way for a while. We’ll be around each other all the time, because it’s new and exciting. And we’ll think that means that everything is going to be easy, because it will be easy for a while. But at some point, we’re not going to spend all our time together, and you’re going to be out somewhere, and you’re going to get one of your urges.”

“And then I’m going to call you,” I said.

He squared his shoulders. “And I’m going to have to… sleep with you.” He didn’t sound particularly excited by the prospect. “Actually, I’m going to need to do that all the time, as a preventative, right? How often did you say?”

“Miles, I don’t want it to be like that. It shouldn’t be an obligation—”

“It shouldn’t,” he said. “But you and I are not normal, and this is the best way to deal with our situation. So…” He rolled his neck on his shoulders and stretched his arms. “Take your clothes off.”

I giggled at him. “I’m eating pizza.”

“I’m serious,” he said. And he was. He had an expression his face like he was concentrating really hard.

“Miles, don’t be ridiculous. We can’t just have sex on demand.”

“Why not?” He was eyeing my body, and his voice had dipped in pitch.

“Because…” I suddenly felt a little warm under his gaze. I set down my uneaten piece of pizza. “Because, it doesn’t work that way,” I said, but my voice had gotten breathy.

“So, how does it work?” He crawled over the carpet towards me.

“Well, you shouldn’t be so… direct. You kind of work up to it by talking around it, not just saying it out loud.”

“That seems stupid.” He was right next to me now. “Why make it more difficult than needs to be?”

“Doesn’t have to be difficult.” I reached out a hand to touch him, but I stopped just short of his body, not wanting to push things. “It can be fun.”

He seized my hand and pressed it against his skin. “Doesn’t sound fun,” he said, his voice gravelly.

And then he kissed me, his fingers inching their way under my shirt.

* * *

After, he pulled away from me, gasping. We lay on our backs on the carpet, both breathing hard.

It was the second time we’d ever had sex.

And it had been… nice. So, so nice.

I was basking in the afterglow of it, my limbs loose and relaxed, my body still thrumming from my release.

But then I remembered that Miles had said that he hated this last time. I rolled over on my side. “Hey,” I whispered. “You okay?”

He swallowed.

“Was it horrible?” I said.

He looked at me. “No. Not horrible. Good, actually.”

“You’re saying that to make me happy.”

He shook his head. “I guess I see why people like it. But it just seems… needlessly complicated for what it is.” He gazed up at the ceiling.

“You want to take a shower?” I said.

“Oh, God, yes,” he said.

I laughed.

He hesitated for a minute and then he laughed too.

“I don’t know why you started this when we were already so sweaty and gross to begin with,” I said.

“I thought maybe it would make it better if I didn’t feel myself getting sweaty. Like I was already messed up to begin with, so it wouldn’t bug me?”

“And?”

“Yeah, not so much.”

“Miles, you can tell me the truth. If you really hated it—”

“I said I didn’t,” he said, and he reached for me across the carpet.

I let him pull me close.

He kissed me, and our nude slippery bodies pressed into each other.

I shut my eyes, and I was transported by the sensation, by his closeness.

Eventually, he would let go of me, and I would go hunt him down towels, and he would get in the shower to wash this all away.

But for now, we were close.

We were together.