Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
I arrived at the university a little after eleven.
It felt surreal to be back on campus and in the building where I'd spent most of my undergraduate years, dreaming of a career in the theater.
I couldn't blame the school for my failure.
It had prepared me well. And the further away I got from my theater days, the more I wondered if I hadn't ended up exactly where I needed to be. Especially now.
If I'd never created the podcast, I probably wouldn't have ever come back here, but being back in Chicago had shown me that I had some unfinished business, not just with Hale, but with Paige's death, Liam, my former friends, and more importantly, with myself.
As I walked toward Hale's office, it felt good to remember that I was different now.
I wasn't that overly ambitious college girl who had believed that it was stardom or it was nothing.
Life had taught me a few lessons since then, and I was stronger now, more self-aware, more focused on something bigger than myself.
When I reached his office, I squared my shoulders, took a breath, and knocked. But I didn't wait for an answer. I turned the knob and stepped into his office, feeling like I was stepping back in time.
Professor Hale was sitting at his desk, wearing a navy-blue button-down shirt, his focus on his computer. He looked up with annoyance, which quickly turned to anger when he saw me. He jerked to his feet. "What are you doing here, Ms. Conway?"
"We need to talk."
"No, we don't. Please leave."
There had been a time when I would have felt intimidated or, at the very least, worried that this powerful man could affect my life in a negative way, but I didn't have that fear anymore.
"Have you spoken to the police today?" I asked, wondering if I should tell him about Cabot or not.
I didn't want to interfere with the police investigation, so I needed to tread carefully.
"Why would I speak to the police?" he challenged.
"While investigating Paige's death, I've heard from numerous people that you and Paige were having an affair, or hooking up, whatever you want to call it."
His face turned to stone, and he no longer looked like the hot professor everyone used to fawn over, but a man in his mid-fifties who'd suddenly realized his past might be catching up to him.
"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "That was a rumor you started."
"Paige told people it was true. And now I'm wondering if that isn't the reason that she had a tragic accident." I wasn't exactly accusing him of killing her, but he knew what I was implying.
"We're not having this conversation. Leave, or I'll call security and have you removed."
"What about Detective Cabot?" I asked, ignoring his directive. "Did he ever question you about Paige, about the rumors?"
"No."
"Is that because you were friends with Cabot? Chess partners, right?"
Surprise shot through his gaze. He hadn't expected me to know that.
"I told you to go, and I'm not going to tell you again. I'm calling security."
As he reached for the phone, a voice came from behind me. "No need to do that, Professor."
I whirled around to see Barclay behind me.
"I'm Detective Colton Barclay, Professor Hale."
"What is going on?" Hale asked.
"I don't know if Ms. Conway told you…" He gave me a glance and I shook my head. He turned back to the professor. "Detective Cabot was killed last night."
"What?" Hale asked, shock running through his expression. He'd once been an actor himself, back in his teens and twenties, so I had no idea if his reaction was genuine or practiced. "What do you mean he was killed?"
"Exactly what I said," Barclay told him.
"Well, I don't know anything about that."
"But you knew him. In fact, you were at his house yesterday."
I stiffened, realizing that one of the wineglasses must have belonged to him.
"I did stop by Vincent's house," Hale said. "We play chess together. We had a game, a glass of wine, and then I left. He was very much alive when we said goodbye. What happened?"
"What time did you leave?" Barclay asked.
Hale cleared his throat, shooting me a dark look. "I don't think Ms. Conway needs to be present for this."
"Answer the question," Barclay ordered in a firm voice that told Hale he wasn't going to be managed.
"I arrived a little before one o'clock and left about two thirty."
"What did you two talk about?"
"Chess."
"You didn't discuss Paige MacIntyre or the renewed interest in her case?"
"It came up, but he said there was nothing for anyone to find, so he wasn't concerned. He understood that the family couldn't accept the truth. He didn't blame them for that. He knew they were still grieving, still looking for a reason for their pain. That was all he had to say about it."
"What did you have to say?" I interrupted, unable to stop myself.
"I may have to answer his questions but not yours," Hale returned.
"What did you say?" Barclay asked.
Hale let out a sigh. "I expressed the same sentiment. That it bothered me that this was all coming up again because there was nothing anyone could do to change what happened. It was an accident, a tragic accident."
"If that were true, Detective Cabot would still be alive," Barclay said.
"I don't see how the two tie together."
"He conducted the investigation. It's possible he left some things out."
"What things?" Hale asked in a carefully neutral voice, no emotion showing in his gaze.
"What was your relationship with Ms. MacIntyre?" Barclay asked.
"She was my student."
"There wasn't a more personal relationship?"
"No," Hale said. "There was not."
There wasn't a trace of doubt or hesitation in his answer, but I still didn't believe him.
"We have testimony from other witnesses that there was something personal between you and Ms. MacIntyre."
"That testimony would be hearsay, probably spread from the rumors created by Ms. Conway." He gave me another scathing look. "Are you proud of yourself, Tessa? You haven't grown up at all, have you? Still trying to tarnish Paige's reputation even though she's dead."
He wanted to get a rise out of me, and it was difficult not to react. But I was grown up, and I knew that wasn't what any of this was about. "Did your wife know?" I asked.
His face turned red. "That's enough. This is over. If you want to speak further to me, you can go through my attorney, Detective. I have a class to teach." He waved us toward the door.
I thought for a moment Detective Barclay might resist. In fact, a part of me was hoping he'd pull out some handcuffs and take Hale down to the station, but instead, he said, "I'll be in touch."
I followed him into the hallway, watching Hale lock his office door before heading down the corridor.
"What are you doing here?" Barclay asked me.
"I wanted to ask him if he had slept with Paige."
"And you thought he would tell you if he had, that he'd admit to a relationship with a student that could probably still get him fired?" he challenged.
"I wanted to shake him up, make him feel like things were closing in on him. I didn't know he was at Detective Cabot's house. Why didn't you tell me this morning?"
As a student came down the hallway, he put a hand on my arm. "Let's take this conversation outside."
I followed him into an empty elevator and out into the warm sunshine. The quad was nearly deserted, the way campus always was in August. We stopped in the quad outside the building.
"What do you think about the fact that he was at Cabot's house?" I asked.
"Unfortunately, the timing doesn't make him the killer."
"He could have come back."
"If he did, he wasn't caught on any cameras in the neighborhood that captured him earlier in the day."
I frowned, thinking about that. "It is odd, though, that Hale would go there on the same day Cabot ends up dead. Maybe he wanted to be seen earlier so it would be clear that he was long gone before he circled back and killed him."
Detective Barclay gave me a faint smile, and I felt a little shiver run down my spine. With the sunlight on his face, he was even more good-looking, and I had to remind myself that he was a police detective who was barely tolerating my presence.
"You have a good imagination, Tessa."
"It could have happened that way."
"Or it could have been someone else."
"But Hale has a motive. If Cabot knew about his relationship with Paige—"
"A relationship he denies."
"Well, as you said, of course he would deny it. He has nothing to gain by coming clean and he has everything to lose. I wonder if his wife knew about his affair. Maybe we should talk to her."
"There's no we," he countered. "You shouldn't have come here on your own. You almost lost your life in a fire last night. Why would you trust Hale not to come after you, if you think he's a killer?"
"I didn't think he would do anything to me in his office. I felt it was a risk worth taking. Obviously, my podcast has made someone very nervous. They're tying up loose ends."
"And you are a big loose end. You and your friend. Where is she?"
"In a hotel behind a locked door that hopefully no one knows anything about."
"You didn't feel like staying behind that locked door? Is your podcast worth taking possibly fatal risks?"
"It's not about the podcast. It's about Paige. I was friends with her before we became bitter rivals. Even then, I felt a gut-wrenching pain when she died. We were kids, barely twenty-one. We never thought someone our age, in our group, could die like that."
"It's rough when someone that young dies unexpectedly and inexplicably," he murmured. "I had her face in my head for a long time. I wasn't that much older than you were back then. I hadn't seen a lot of dead bodies yet."
"Last night was the first time I saw one. I can't get Detective Cabot's face out of my mind. I'm sorry you had to see your friend and mentor that way. I know that didn't feel like just the job to you."