Chapter 33
I leaned back and asked the question that had been circling my mind since I arrived. “How did the two of you end up getting back together?”
Tilly glanced at Vaughn, and for the first time since I’d sat down with them, something unguarded passed between them.
Not tension.
Not strategy.
Appreciation for one another.
“We didn’t,” Vaughn said. “Not right away.”
Tilly nodded. “We were apart for six months.”
“Six months,” I repeated.
“I left town for a bit after the breakup,” Vaughn said. “Stayed with my older brother. I needed distance. Every time I thought about Tilly, I thought about everything that happened and everything I’d lost.”
“Did either one of you ever consider reaching out to each other during that time?” I asked.
Tilly folded her hands in her lap. “I’d done enough damage. If we were going to get back together, I wanted it to be on his terms, and not by me trying to force it.”
“How did it happen?”
Tilly smiled as if recalling the memory. “At a gas station, of all places.”
Vaughn nodded. “I was filling up my truck. I looked up, and she was standing on the other side of the pump. When our eyes met, she took one look at me and broke down.”
Tilly shook her head. “I tried to hold it together, but seeing him like that, after all we’d been through, it broke something open in me.”
“As angry as I was,” Vaughn said, “I could still see how much pain she was in. I walked over and hugged her.”
“And that was enough to start things again?”
“Not right away,” Tilly said. “We took it slow. Coffee. Walks. Talking through everything.”
“The love was still there,” Vaughn said. “It just needed time to breathe so it could rebuild again.”
They sat closer now, their shoulders touching, and it was easy to see that whatever they had rebuilt still held strong today.
“Thank you for sharing your story with me,” I said. “Now I’d like to switch topics and talk to you about the friend group.”
“The former friend group,” Vaughn said. “But yeah, I figured you would.”
“All right, let’s start with Aiden.”
His jaw tightened. “Even before the affair, there was something off about him.”
“Off how?”
“He sat back, studied people … or scrutinized them might be a better word. Some of our other friends thought he was great, but I never trusted him.”
“What about Gabriel?”
Vaughn snorted a laugh. “Gabriel was the opposite. Always joking. Always pulling pranks. If there was tension in the room, he could always cut through it with humor.”
“He liked being liked,” Tilly said. “Still does, I imagine.”
“And his wife, Brianne?”
“She was the type of person who always remembered everyone’s birthdays and worried about them getting home safe,” he said.
His assessment seemed spot on. Every time I spoke to Brianne it was easy to see how concerned she was about Talia.
“And Dustin, Audrey’s father?”
“That man would give you the shirt off his back,” Vaughn said. “And if you told him something in confidence, it stayed with him. He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known.”
“And last, the twins, Jordan and Wendy.”
“Jordan and Wendy were inseparable,” Tilly said. “Always finishing each other’s sentences. It was funny. They’re both good people.”
“Wendy talked,” Vaughn said. “A lot.”
“But her heart was always in the right place,” Tilly added. “She never meant any harm.”
Up to now, the conversation had been light.
That was about to change.
“Hypothetical question,” I said. “If you had to choose one person in your friend group as the person responsible for Anne’s disappearance and Audrey’s murder, who would it be?”
Vaughn answered without pause. “Aiden.”
“Why?”
“Because of what I said about him before. Never thought the guy could be trusted.”
I turned to Tilly.
She was silent for a long moment, and then she said, “I don’t feel comfortable naming any of them. At one point, they were all my friends.”
“But if you had to choose,” I pressed.
“I don’t know, Brianne, I guess.”
Vaughn looked at her, surprised. “Why Brianne?”
“She’s just, I don’t know, perfect,” Tilly said. “Or that’s what she wants people to believe, anyway. People who never crack scare me. They know how to hide things, and from my experience with people like that, most of the time they are.”
Two names.
Two motives.
No proof.
I stood, slipping my coat over my arms as I reached for my bag.
“Thank you,” I said. “This helps more than you realize.”
As I walked toward the door, one thought refused to let go.
I was getting close to finding a killer.