CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jessie felt guilty.
When she went back to the research department after taking her mental break in the station’s courtyard, things had returned to normal, no thanks to her.
She’d bailed in the middle of Drew Hartwell’s breakdown, leaving Ryan to pick up the pieces and try to get some semblance of coherent answers.
The fact that Ryan and both researchers were all focused intently on their computer monitors suggested that he might have been successful.
“What did I miss?” she asked.
Ryan looked up from his screen.
“Quite a bit,” he said with less irritation than she would have expected.
“Drew Hartwell is heading to the airport now. He hopes to be back by this evening. I got him calmed down enough to confirm that Diana still kept in occasional touch with several other Thornfield Academy alums, though he couldn’t recall any other names. ”
“We’re actually going through a comprehensive list of former students,” Beth added, “especially looking for those who were in Diana’s and Caroline’s graduating class. Once we have contact info, you’ll be able to reach out to them.”
“We’re hoping they can offer some insight on what connections the victims have that might go deeper than being friends in high school,” Ryan said.
“Great,” Jessie said. “Let’s hope there’s something obvious. I’m concerned that these two might not be the end of it. If there are other potential victims at risk, we need to know as much as possible in order to filter through people to determine who might be next.”
“Should we warn them when we call?” Beth asked.
Ryan shook his head. “We don’t want to start a panic when we don’t know what the common denominator is with these victims. Thornfield makes a lot of sense, but it’s equally possible that Caroline and Diana met there, but have some other connection the killer is focused on.”
“Agreed, though we might have to revisit that at some point,” Jessie said. She was a little hesitant to ask her next question, but did anyway. “How was Hartwell doing when you hung up? Did he seem okay, all things considered?”
“I told him a counselor would be reaching out to him momentarily,” Ryan said, “but to answer your question: no. He was still clearly in shock. But what can we expect? He’d only had a few minutes to process the news, after all. People might understandably mourn a loss like that for years afterward.”
Something in the softness of his tone made Jessie look more closely at him.
She wondered if his comment was also a veiled reference to her miscarriage and recent admission that it still haunted her.
The comforting warmth in his brown eyes told her that her intuition was right.
In that moment, even though she knew they still had a lot to work through, she felt certain that they would ultimately find their way together.
“Give me some names to call,” she said quickly, sensing tears behind her eyes and trying to quell them before anyone noticed. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”
*
It was the yearbook that did it.
After an hour of searching through emails, making calls to Thornfield alums, and researching school archives, Jessie was starting to get a sense of the place and its students.
For the last fifty years, Thornfield was a boarding school for the daughters of the rich and powerful.
And as such, the students were often treated with kid gloves by the staff.
When called, several fellow alums admitted that they were spoiled brats during their time at the school and had to grow out of it.
But until Jamil found a digital version of the yearbook from the 2013 graduating class, no one could offer much insight into Caroline and Diana's relationship. Nobody they spoke to could immediately recall anyone holding a grudge against one of them, much less both.
But the yearbook was more revealing. It included graduation headshots of both women and lots of club photos that they were both in. None of that was particularly helpful. But what Jessie did find intriguing were the senior quotes.
Most of them were inside jokes among the girls that would make no sense to an outsider. But one leapt out at her. It was written by Diana to Caroline and read: That thing where you date the same guy but decide the friendship is more important than the boy. Girlbosses: 2, Alex K.: 0.
“Do we know who Alex K. is?” she asked the researchers after showing them the quote.
They were quiet for a moment before Beth’s face lit up. “I might have an idea!”
She returned to her computer, her fingers flying across her keyboard. It took less than a minute before she turned back to them. She was smiling.
“I think I might have found him,” she said, pushing her chair back so they could all see her screen, which showed a rakishly handsome teenage boy with dirty blond hair.
“Who’s that?” Ryan asked.
“His name is Alexander Krantz,” Beth explained.
“I started thinking—how did these two girls who went to a relatively isolated boarding school date the same guy? So I checked and found that there’s a boys’ boarding school just down the road from Thornfield Academy.
It’s called The Griffin School. They partner with Thornfield on all kinds of activities.
And Alexander Krantz graduated from Griffin the same year as Diana and Caroline.
He was the only Alex K. at the school at the same time as them. It at least seems worth looking into.”
“Absolutely,” Ryan agreed. “Maybe things weren’t as copacetic among the three of them as that quote makes it seem. If Krantz was dumped by both of them, then maybe he’s still holding a grudge. I could see any number of motives there.”
“Even if it doesn’t turn out to be that, or something else like a love triangle gone wrong,” Jessie added, “it can’t hurt to talk to the guy. Dating both of them, he might have insights we wouldn’t otherwise get. I say we pay him a visit. Where is he now?”
Jamil had the answer to that one.
“He and his wife live in the Hollywood Hills. But he works downtown. He’s an investment banker with Lubow & Crane.”
Their headquarters are in the Bradbury Building. That’s almost walkable from here.”
“But we’re not walking, right?” Jessie protested. “Time is of the essence.”
“We can drive,” Ryan said, “but I don’t think I’m aware of the real reason you don’t want to walk.”
“What?”
“It’s hot as hell out.”
“I confess,” Jessie said, holding up her hands with a smile. “Now let’s go see what Alexander Krantz will confess to.”