Chapter 12
I pulled into the lot behind the auto shop just as the first beams of morning light pushed over the ridge. The place was tucked between two warehouses, and as I walked to the garage, I noticed a patch of cracked pavement and scattered oil stains marking the ground like a badge of honor.
Inside, the garage door stood open, and the sound of metal tools echoed through the space, followed by a voice that rose above the clatter.
“Yo, give me a minute. I’ll be right there.”
A kid who was about college age emerged from behind a half-restored Camaro.
He had a rag slung over one shoulder and a combination of dust and grease all over his arms. His thick blond hair fell across his forehead in uneven waves, and his gaze carried the sort of intensity that could draw one in or drive one back, depending on the situation.
He offered me a slight smile and said, “What can I do for you, ma’am?”
“Are you Colton Jagger?”
“I am.”
“I’m Georgiana Germaine.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about you.”
“From whom?”
He wiped his hands on the rag and leaned against the workbench, studying me but not answering my question.
“I heard you’ve been making the rounds, though I’m not sure why you want to talk to me,” he said.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about Audrey.”
His jaw tightened. “Figures.”
I stepped around a discarded tire and got a little closer. “I’d like to know about how the two of you met, and what interactions you had with her.”
“There’s not much to tell. My first day at school, I saw her walking toward her locker, giggling with a couple of her friends.
She flicked a piece of hair out of her face, looked back at me, and smiled.
I thought she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.
I asked a few of our classmates about her, and they told me she was dating Logan. ”
“You knew about Logan, and yet you still pursued her?”
“I mean, there are guys like Logan, and then there are guys like me. Didn’t see him as much of a competition.”
Guys like Logan.
What did that mean?
“You seem to have a high opinion of yourself,” I said.
He swished a hand through the air. “Don’t act like you don’t know the feeling. I mean, look at you. If I was into cougars, you’d be at the top of my list.”
“Let’s keep the focus of this conversation on Audrey.”
“Like I said before, there’s not much to say. I made a move, she shut me down, and I backed off.”
“That simple?”
“That simple,” he said. “I don’t chase women who aren’t interested.”
“How long after you showed interest in Audrey did you begin spending time with Talia?”
His eyes flickered, suggesting he was uncomfortable with the question.
“Talia’s super chill and easy to be around. So yeah, we started hanging out right after Audrey said she wasn’t interested.”
“Were you spending time with Talia to make Audrey jealous, or because you were hoping to spend more time with Audrey, or …”
He pushed off the workbench. “It was nothing like that. Audrey missed school because she was sick one day, and Talia passed me in the hall and asked if I wanted to grab lunch. I figured, why not? We started hanging out here and there, and the more we got to know each other, the more we realized we had a lot in common.”
I may not have known Talia long, but from the brief interaction we’d had, they seemed like opposites.
“Audrey didn’t like that you and Talia spent time together,” I said. “Were you aware of that?”
He hesitated. “Talia mentioned it to me a couple of times. It didn’t change anything for me. It was something they needed to figure out.”
“That’s it?”
“I don’t know what more you want me to say. I didn’t see why Audrey was so bent over us hanging out. If she wasn’t interested in me, why should it have mattered?”
He was confident.
Almost too confident.
“Where were you the night Audrey died?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you what I told the police. As far as a timeline, I don’t remember every detail of that night.”
“What do you remember?”
He rubbed a hand across his brow. “I think I was at the arcade. I spend a lot of nights there when I get off work. It’s a good place to keep my mind off stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“I don’t know. Stuff.”
His vagueness was getting on my nerves.
“Were you alone?” I asked.
“At the arcade? Lots of people hang out there.”
“What I mean to say is—were you there with anyone you know, anyone who can give you an alibi?”
“Lots of people were there, but none of them were friends of mine.”
I was getting nowhere, the conversation looping around in circles, which he didn’t seem to mind. Time to shift gears.
“Tell me about your home life, your parents, and your siblings, if you have any,” I said.
“Why?”
“Why not?” I said, looking him in the eye.
He met my gaze head on with a guarded calm that made my instincts sharpen.
“I have one brother,” he said. “He’s older than I am.”
“How much older?”
“A few years. Left home when he was sixteen.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t heard from him in, oh … about nine months, I guess.”
I crossed my arms. “I feel like there’s a story there.”
“There isn’t.”
“And your parents? What are they like?”
“My mom works two jobs, sometimes three. Don’t see her much.”
“And your dad?”
“He doesn’t work.”
“What’s your relationship with him like?”
He turned, staring at a dented toolbox near the car he’d been working on. “We don’t have one.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a drunk, for starters.”
I thought back to the comment he’d made about the arcade being a good place to keep his mind off stuff—stuff tied to his father among other things, I guessed.
“Look, I don’t mind talking to you, but not about my family,” he said.
“All right, fine. Going back to the night Audrey died, did you see her that day?”
“I didn’t, and just so we’re clear, I never laid a hand on Audrey, and I didn’t follow her into the forest that night.
I wouldn’t have ever done anything to hurt her, or any other woman for that matter.
I get that you’re looking for a suspect, but you can chase down every shadow in this town. You won’t trace one back to me.”
His comment struck me as odd.
“When I mentioned Talia, you gave me a look that leads me to believe she’s more than a friend. Is she?”
“Ask her.”
“I will, later. Right now, I’m asking you.”
“Fine,” he said. “We’re dating.”
“For how long?”
“Since a few weeks before Audrey died.”
“Why keep it a secret?”
“Talia knew Audrey wouldn’t approve.”
“Audrey’s opinion no longer matters, so why keep the truth from everyone now?”
He shrugged. “We haven’t talked about it since Audrey died. Talia’s been having a hard time, so it doesn’t feel like the right moment to put our relationship on blast, not when there’s a sick psycho murderer out there.”
A sick psycho murderer.
I liked the label.
“Do Talia’s parents know about your relationship?” I asked.
“They didn’t before, but now that Talia’s spending most of her time in her room, I’ve gone to her house a lot more than usual. They haven’t said anything to me, but I think they suspect something’s going on.”
“What about your friends? Do they know?”
He shook his head. “A few. I felt kinda guilty.”
“About what?”
“Talia told me Audrey hated secrets, and she hated lies even more. They fought about it once. Big fight. I walked in on it. Audrey called me trouble, and Talia said she didn’t know me well enough to judge me the way she did.”
“Do you agree with Talia’s assessment of you?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, but hey, sometimes I think I don’t even know myself. You know what I mean?”
“I do. There have been times in my life when I’ve questioned everything about myself.”
“You? I can’t believe it. You look like the most well-put-together person I’ve ever met.”
“I suppose I am—now. It wasn’t always that way. Going back to the argument between Talia and Audrey … is there anything else I should know?”
He gave the question some thought. “Maybe one thing. Talia accused Audrey of keeping a secret herself.”
“How did Audrey react?”
“She stormed out of the room and left.”
“Do you think Audrey was keeping a secret?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s possible she saw something she shouldn’t have or knew something she shouldn’t have, and someone murdered her because of it.”
A man exited an office, narrowing his eyes at Colton as he said, “What did you do with the wrench?”
“Check the desk. I may have left it there when I went to answer the phone.” The man nodded, and Colton turned toward me. “I need to get back to work.”
“One more question. When was the last time you saw Audrey?”
He blinked, going quiet, and for a moment the two of us stood there in silence.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I do. I just don’t want to get myself in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Trouble with the law.”
“I’m not the law. I’m a private investigator.”
“Doesn’t mean you won’t snitch.”
“Unless it’s something major, like you confessing to Audrey’s murder or having any part in it, your secret’s safe with me.”
He glanced outside at a man who had just pulled up in a shiny blue truck.
“My boss is here,” he said.
“Then we better make this quick.”
He took a deep breath in and said, “I’m older than I look. I’ve had to repeat a couple of school years more than once.”
It was a confession, but I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“And?” I asked.
“I’m twenty-one. If I get caught at parties with my classmates from school, I’d be seen as contributing to the delinquency of minors.”
“Is this your way of saying you were at one of those parties and you witnessed something?”
“Not witnessed. Overheard.”
I leaned in closer. “I’m listening.”
“I was coming around the corner, and I saw Audrey huddled in the corner with Logan. They didn’t see me when I walked by, but when I did, she said something to him about worrying she wasn’t safe. Then she said if she wasn’t safe, he wasn’t safe either.”
Hearing his words, it felt like everything had just tightened around me.
If Audrey was right, and someone ended her life to keep their secret from being exposed, I now understood why Logan had vanished.