Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
When I entered Morgan's hotel room, I let out a breath of relief. She came over to give me a hug, and I hugged her back, realizing how much I needed her embrace. Even though Colton had been more than helpful, Morgan had been with me through everything.
After our hug, I put my bag on the second bed in the room and sat down.
"I brought the clothes you bought the other day," Morgan said as she sat down on the bed across from me. "In case you want to change."
"Thanks. I'm good for now."
"So, tell me, did you spend the night with Detective Barclay?"
"You make it sound more illicit than it was. I slept on his couch. It was late, and I was thinking I needed to find my own hotel, but I hit a wall and just felt too exhausted to move."
"I felt the same way last night. I fell asleep around nine, which is probably good, since I would have been worrying about you otherwise."
"I did mean to call and tell you where I was. Sorry."
"It's fine. What happened with Colton?"
"We talked everything out. Went over all the players.
I told him what Liam said about Ray MacIntyre.
He's going to bring him in. And he'll talk to Hale again.
But I think right now he's focused on luring that car into a trap to see if he can get to the person who set fire to our building, maybe killed Cabot, and maybe killed Paige. "
"I've been thinking that there might be more than one person involved."
"We're all thinking that. But if we can find one, hopefully, we can get to the others. Has anything else come up on your end?"
"No. I went through the comments on our videos again. A few more trolling comments, veiled threats about not sticking your nose where it doesn't belong kind of thing, but most of those comments come from new accounts with no other posts anywhere online."
"They're hiding their identity because they figure I'll recognize them."
"Probably. Most of the comments are great, and people are begging for another update. What do you think? Is there anything we can report?"
I slowly shook my head. "I promised Colton that I wouldn't share anything we discussed on the podcast unless he approved it."
Morgan gave me a look of surprise. "Seriously? Why would you make that promise?"
"It was the only way to get him to share information with me. It's not an open-ended promise, more like a twenty-four-hour thing. We can still post something; I just don't know what. I can't tip off anyone that we know more about them than they might think."
"I was thinking about giving our listeners a better view of Paige. I found photos of Paige in campus newspaper articles, which showed her in the theater, rehearsing for the show she didn't live long enough to star in." Morgan paused. "Do you have pictures of her on your phone?"
My stomach twisted. "Not on my phone, but maybe in online storage. I moved most of those photos off my phone after graduation."
"What about your other friends? If we can collect some photos, I think it would be interesting for you to talk about Paige, who she was before she died, get our audience more invested in her life. You know a fair amount about her, don't you?"
"Yes, and that's a great idea."
"Let's put together a short slideshow. I also found some family photos from the public memorial that was held for her. If you can come up with anything else, we can add those in or just go with what I found."
"Let me see what I can find."
"You do that, and I'll finish the rough script I was working on."
I pulled out my computer and logged into my online storage account.
It felt ridiculously difficult to open my archived photo files, but, somehow, I did it.
And then the memories came flooding back.
It was one thing to think about Paige, to remember her, but seeing her face frozen in time at the age of twenty-one, knowing what I knew now, was very painful.
The young and beautiful girl—I couldn't really call her a woman—was full of life in most of the photos I had of her.
Because, frankly, those photos had all been taken before we'd gotten caught up in our ambitious fight.
There were fewer photos of Paige in the months before her death, but there was one that gave me pause.
It wasn't one I had taken but a photo that had been shared with me by someone else in the play.
It was me and Paige, standing together on a stage, probably snapped during a rehearsal, in between action.
I'd been shadowing her actions for the role, being her understudy, and it was in that one photo that I saw how thin Paige had gotten, how drawn her face was, how tense and stiff her body was, and how there was a pain in her eyes I'd never actually seen.
It felt like she was acting in her own life, as much as she was acting in the play.
In contrast, my face showed all my emotions: naked ambition, overwhelming jealousy, a forced smile that didn't match my angry eyes.
Neither one of us had been caught in our best light, and I had a feeling Paige would have hated this photo as much as I did.
I didn't know why I'd kept it. Maybe because I hadn't looked at it before.
I'd just saved it from someone's text message and then archived it with all the others.
"Did you find anything?" Morgan asked.
"Yes." I clicked out of that photo, picked some of the happier ones, and shared those in a text to Morgan.
"These are good," Morgan said. "You all look surprisingly happy."
"That's when we were friends."
"I guess you don't have many from when you weren't friends. It would have been nice to have something taken right before she died to show the contrast. You said she changed and was super stressed for weeks. It would help us take our listeners through her life with better imagery."
I went back to the photo I'd put away and clicked it open again. "Here's another one. I'm not sure I want to show it." I turned my computer around so she could see the image. "It was probably taken two weeks before she died, maybe less."
"She looks very different. So do you. That play took a toll on both of you."
"I don't think it was just the play; it was our need to be the best, to be the center of attention."
"Clearly, you both felt the pressure."
"I was just her understudy. I had a small role in the play, about ten lines in total. But I was clearly a mess."
"It's up to you if you want to put this out in the world, Tessa."
"Let's hold off on this one," I said. "It might be better for the end of the story, whatever that is."
"Good point. I'm sending you the script. I'll set us up at the table by the window. We'll show the photos and talk over them for most of the video, if you're okay with everything, of course."
I took a few moments to read through Morgan's script.
It was good, dramatic, and just the way I liked our videos to be.
"This is great," I told her. "Not just the script, but this whole idea.
You nailed exactly what we've been missing.
We're trying to tell Paige's story, but no one really knows her.
They might be curious, but maybe now they'll feel like they can relate to her, like she could have been any one of them during their college years. "
"I'm glad you like it," Morgan said. "You're usually better at this stuff."
"This is the best thing we've ever done."
"Well, hold that thought until we see how it plays out."
"Once in a while, you have to accept a compliment," I said dryly.
"Thank you. Are you ready? Do you want to read it a few more times?"
"No, I've got it."
"Great. I texted Cassidy. She's also on board with the idea.
She's going to watch the comments for us.
You can start with your usual introduction, then I'll flip the screen away from us to the photos, and you read the script.
We end with a teaser about the investigation moving along with an update coming shortly.
" She paused. "Do you want to change before we start? "
"No. I'm good. Let me just read it once more.
" After doing so, I felt more comfortable and gave Morgan a nod.
When we went live, I said, "We know you're eagerly awaiting an update, and there is news, but I can't share it yet.
I know that's not what you want to hear.
But until we can share, I want to talk to you about Paige, about the girl I knew.
To help us do that, I want to show you some photos and tell you a little more about her.
We might not have ended up the best of friends, but we didn't start out as enemies, and maybe it's important to see that Paige's life was a lot more than her tragic ending. Let's begin."
As Morgan flipped the screen to an image of a much younger Paige, I looked down at the script and began to read.
Morgan matched her photo flips with my words, and it was a short but compelling story.
We finished with a twenty-second video clip from Paige, speaking in her own voice about the upcoming play to a local news reporter, and her words held the same amount of stress and strain as her face.
"It's going to be amazing. I'm thrilled to be part of this production," Paige said. "And to be working with so many incredibly talented people. I just hope I can do the part justice."
Her words held layers of meaning for me, especially the fact that she'd used the word justice. She'd never gotten to do that part, but I would get her justice.
When the video was over, the camera flipped back to me. "Now that you know Paige and how important she was to so many people, I hope you'll stay tuned as we find out the truth about what happened to her."
After we signed off, I let out a breath.
"Cassidy is calling on video," Morgan said, hitting the button on the computer to open the screen.
"That was amazing," Cassidy said with a big smile on her face. "Good work. I can't believe how fast you put that together."
"It was all Morgan. I just read her words."