Chapter 16
Halligan escorts us from the interview room and pushes open the door to the still-empty lobby. “Thank you for coming at such short notice,” he says. “And let’s keep this under wraps for now.”
“Of course,” Logan tells him. “But we’d love to hear your take on it.”
“I’d say what we’ve heard is critical information. If her story checks out and she’s correct about Ruck, it puts him not simply in the area that week but a short distance from Pebble Creek Park and on the prowl for potential victims . . . I’ll follow up with you when I know more, okay?”
“Can you just tell me,” I say. “Did Riley ever get to go back to college for a degree?”
“No, that wasn’t in the cards for her. But she’s the manager of a small insurance agency in Buffalo, and I sense she’s worked hard to put her life back together.”
We nod sober goodbyes and depart. As we cross the parking lot toward the car, Logan lightly clasps my arm, a gesture of support, and I’m too unsettled right now to shrug it off.
“So, what do you think?” he asks as soon as he’s navigated the car out of the parking lot.
“You first,” I tell him.
“Well, as Halligan suggested, it seems to confirm that Ruck was on a killing spree in Cartersville, making it easier to assume that Mel was one of his victims—and that he was lying his ass off when he told David Schmidt he didn’t do it.
I’m pissed, though. What happened to Riley Reynolds is horrific, but Christ, if she’d reported the crime at the time, the police here wouldn’t have spent nearly a month spinning their wheels—and Amanda Kline might still be alive. ”
“I know.” The truth of that has just started sinking in for me.
“Your turn now.”
“Okay . . . I’m having trouble with her story.”
He jerks his head so he’s got me in his line of sight. “You think she’s wrong about Ruck?”
“Maybe. All I know is that something felt off to me.” And then, right there in the car, I put my finger on why. “She looked away a couple of times as she was sharing information—like she was being evasive.”
Logan’s in profile now, but I see his brows shoot up in surprise. “Wait, are you saying she lied to us?”
I shrug, at a loss. “At certain moments, it seemed that way. Remember that time Mel’s senior year in high school, when you and I went out of town one Saturday night, and her friend Hadley was going to stay over, and we came back to find Mel had broken her foot?
She told us this whole saga about how she and Hadley were moving the couch and it slipped out of their hands.
But there was something evasive about her, and it turned out she’d thrown a party that night, and someone had dropped a case of beer on her foot.
That’s what today felt like—though I can’t imagine why Riley would lie. ”
“A desperate need for attention?”
“That would be pretty darn desperate.”
I glance out the window. We’re on the highway now, and I let the cars and signs all fuzz together, losing myself in the blur. Another memory suddenly stirs.
“What if she’s having some kind of mental health crisis?
” I say. “Years ago, I edited a book on false memories—it was around the time when there was all that backlash about people claiming things about their parents that weren’t true—and I remember the author, a shrink, saying that people who suffered from PTSD or depression sometimes created false memories after they became exposed to certain information, like a news story. ”
“Meaning she might believe it happened to her even if it didn’t.”
“Right. Let’s say something horrible occurred when she was in college, so devastating that she felt the need to drop out of school, and she’s never really dealt with the trauma.
Then she sees that Mel’s case might be reopened, and from there she reads up on the trial and what the women experienced, and she starts imagining she’s a victim of the same kind of crime. ”
“We should run that by Halligan.”
I appreciate Logan hearing me out, keeping an open mind, but at the same time I know I’m grasping at straws.
“Of course, maybe I just read Riley the wrong way. I—I was in a bit of state, hearing all those horrible details and thinking about Mel.”
“I know, me too,” he says grimly. “And Riley might have seemed evasive only out of shame or embarrassment. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean you should totally dismiss what you’re feeling, Bree.
Who knows, maybe you’ve got some kind of mother’s intuition going on right now, and you need to pay attention to it. ”
I press a hand to my cheek, caught off guard by the comment. I’m not sure how to reply.
“Hmm” is all I manage.
“At least Halligan sounds like he plans to check out her story.”
“Right. And I think I would be fine if I just had some kind of corroboration.”
I rest my head back against the seat, letting my eyes close.
Part of me yearns to call Bas right now, to be comforted by the sound of his voice and to ask for his help clearing up my confusion. But I’m not about to let Logan eavesdrop on a conversation with my partner.
“Would you like to be dropped someplace or just back at the inn?” Logan asks.
When I open my eyes, I see we’re already in Cartersville.
“The inn, thanks . . . What are you up to today?”
“Gonna make some calls from my room. Try to catch up on work.”
“Is Lisa going to mind being stuck in the room?”
I don’t know why I’m asking that. She could be stuck in a fucking mine shaft for all I care.
“I decided it was best if Lisa went back to New York,” he replies, his voice low. “She left early this morning.”
Wow. I was pretty sure Logan was going to lay into her, but I never expected that he’d send her packing.
“Oh . . . Is it going to be hard for you, being here on your own?”
“I thought so at first, but it’s better this way. Besides, it’s tough for an outsider to know how to handle any of this.”
Yeah, we’re in a club that few people have the eligibility to join. Beyond that, I’m delighted I won’t have to interact with her again.
As we enter the inn, Logan says he’ll let me know as soon as he hears from Halligan. Back in my room, I take a seat at the desk. I’m troubled, I realize, not only by the encounter with Riley but also by something Logan said: his comment about my “mother’s intuition.”
Was that just Logan—in a caring but misguided way—rewriting history for my benefit?
Surely he knows that, if asked, Mel would have sworn I didn’t have an ounce of intuition in her regard.
Yeah, I could smell a lie about a broken foot, but she found me clueless when it came to knowing who she was, or what she really longed for in life, or understanding the quirks that defined her.
She reminded me of that not only with sighs and eye rolls but also occasional comments she made, like the snidely delivered, “Mom, you’ll never get it, so don’t waste your time trying. ”
No, there can’t be a dormant reserve of mother’s intuition at work here. But there’s something, and it’s making me still question the veracity of Riley’s story.
I search on my laptop until I find the book I mentioned to Logan, purchase the Kindle edition, and spend the next thirty minutes skimming through the early chapters.
The concept is pretty much as I remembered.
People who have been severely traumatized sometimes come to believe, erroneously, that an entirely different trauma has befallen them, triggered by exposure to that information. But it’s rare.
Next, I pull up a map of Cartersville and study the positions of both Pebble Creek Park and Mohegan. As Halligan mentioned, they border the same creek, not all that far apart. At the sight of Pebble Creek Park outlined on the map, my chest tightens and a sob catches in my throat.
I stumble up from the desk and plop down on the end of the freshly made bed.
A friend told me years ago that she sometimes “channels” her late mother and pretends they’re in conversation, with her mother offering pearls of wisdom.
Though I tried that kind of exercise after my own mom died heartbreakingly young, it felt hopelessly fake to me.
Sometimes, though, I reflect on some of the advice she offered me when she was alive.
It was always based on solid common sense, along with a keen awareness of my tendency, mainly when I was younger, to want to accept certain things at face value.
Once, when I was in my twenties and having trouble deciding whether to accept a position I was being offered at another book publishing company, she told me, “It sounds like you don’t have all the facts yet, honey.
” And once I got them, I decided to pass on the offer.
Okay, what I need now, I realize, are more facts.
I return to the desk and do a Google search for Morgan Kroll, the teaching assistant that Riley reportedly broke down in front of.
A surprising number of women with that name turn up, but I soon zero in on one who must be her: an associate professor of English and creative writing at Hudson River Community College, a school within an hour’s drive of here.
That seems like the kind of job someone in her role would have aimed for.
I study the college website photo of Morgan, taken in too bright light.
The confident-looking, faintly smiling woman I see is probably in her early to mid-thirties, which would fit, too.
Her wavy black hair is cut to just below her chin, and she has a longish face with brown eyes and thick, perfectly groomed eyebrows.
Not a beautiful woman but a very arresting-looking one.
Since Halligan is going to try to verify Riley’s testimony, that effort will surely include talking to Professor Kroll. But I don’t feel like waiting any longer.
I dial the number for the college, and within moments, Kroll’s line is ringing and then goes to voicemail.
I’ve acted rashly, without planning in advance what my message should be, but rather than hang up, I end up blurting out my name and saying that I’m the mother of Melanie Chase, who died while attending Carter College.
I ask if she would have a few minutes to speak to me about her time at Carter, if she had indeed worked there.
“I could really use your help,” I say at the end. It’s a clumsy add to my request, but I don’t want her to think I’m planning to throw any blame her way.
As soon as I hang up, I’m second-guessing myself. Did I reveal too much in my message—or not enough?
But twenty-five minutes later, my phone rings, and I see with a jolt that it’s her.
“Thanks so much for calling back,” I say. “Are you the Morgan Kroll who once worked at Carter College?”
“Yes, that’s me,” she replies.
I exhale the breath I’ve been holding. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about something that happened while you were at Carter. Would you be open to that?”
A few beats of silence follow.
“All right,” she says at last. “I’ve actually been expecting your call.”