Cul de Sac, page 17
Chloe barely remembered the man, though Danielle was already wrapping him up in a big hug. Chloe stepped back and pretended to find something interesting in the hallway that led to the reunion’s central hub just to avoid a similar embrace.
Danielle finally joined her, affixing her name tag to her low-cut shirt. Danielle had never been shy about showing off her assets and tonight was no exception. Chloe was happy for her, though; she looked cute tonight, and completely unaffected by recent events with Sam and their father.
“That was Malcolm something-or-another, right?” Chloe asked.
“Malcolm Price,” she said. “He asked me out in tenth grade but I said no.”
“Heart-breaker,” Chloe said.
They walked into the large room that held the reunion. It was an enormous room, decorated to look like a rural lodge. Their high school banners were all over the place, as were balloons of navy and white, their high school colors. A DJ was set up in the far rear corner of the room, currently playing a Justin Timberlake song.
The next few moments passed exactly as Chloe had expected. She met several people she had gone to school with, a few she was actually delighted to see. She spoke with a woman who had been close friends with her through middle and high school; she’d gone to college in Alabama and had come home specifically for the reunion. It was the sort of commitment to high school memories that Chloe simply could not understand. Still, within her first hour, she and Danielle had somehow ended up splitting up. Danielle was talking to a few people she’d spent a lot of time with during her last few years of school (one of whim Chloe knew had once peddled cocaine and LSD through the school halls) while Chloe did her best to hold surface-level conversations with people who had been friends and, at best, passing acquaintances.
She checked her watch, fully intending to hold Danielle to her two-hour limit. When she saw that they had another twenty minutes left, she headed to the bar for her third drink of the night. She and Danielle had already reserved a room at a nearby hotel so if neither of them could drive, they were only a fifteen-minute cab ride from a bed to pass out in.
As she started on her drink—a poorly made rum and Coke—a hand fell on her shoulder. Her bureau instincts nearly had her grab the hand and wrench it around as she turned to face whoever was behind her. She pushed the urge down and simply turned around.
It was as if all of Danielle’s teasing and prodding had manifested itself into reality. Standing behind her was Jacob Koontz—the first boy she had ever kissed, the first boy who had ever cupped her breast, the first boy she’d made cry when she eventually broke up with him. And in a cruel twist of fate, he somehow looked better than he had in school; his age showed, yes, but it had refined him somehow. In high school, he had the sort of face that could have starred on a family sitcom. Now, though, he had the sort of face that should have been on a GQ or Men’s Health cover.
“Jacob,” she said, very aware of the sizable grin spreading across her face.
“Hey, Chloe,” he said. “I have to say…I did not expect you to show up at this thing.”
“I hadn’t planned on it. It all had to do with some nefarious dealings with my sister.”
“Yeah, I saw Danielle when I came in. She made sure to point you out to me. She looks great.” He smiled here, stepping a bit closer. “You do, too.”
“Same to you.”
Jacob stepped up to the bar and ordered a beer. As he waited for it, he turned back to her and grinned. “You know, I tried finding you on Facebook a couple of times but didn’t have any luck.”
“Yeah, I don’t do Facebook. Too public. Too chatty.”
“That’s what I figured,” he said. He then took his beer and raised it to her. “Good to see you,” he said.
She clinked her glass against his bottle. “You, too.”
“So what are you up to these days?” he asked. “I always assumed you’d end up doing something with law. Like an attorney or judge or something.”
“Same ballpark, I guess,” she said. “I’m with the FBI.”
He laughed and then settled himself down quickly. “That’s a laugh of utter shock,” he said. “Not making fun. Because really…it makes sense. Are you like an agent?”
“Yes, I’m like an agent. How about you? What did you end up doing?”
“Well, I was a business owner until my divorce last year. My wife pretty much took the whole thing. So for the last few months, I’ve been a construction consultant…mainly for houses, but a few storefronts and things like that.”
“Yeah, Danielle told me about the divorce. Sorry to hear it.”
Jacob shrugged. “It was sort of doomed from the start, I suppose. Anyway…so, with the bureau…I guess you’re living in DC?”
“Yeah. How about you?”
“Just outside of Baltimore.”
And just like that, Chloe found herself slipping easily and naturally into conversation with a man who had nearly stolen her heart eleven years ago. That decade between then and now seemed like some huge chasm, though. It was hard to imagine her younger self talking to Jacob. But they had clicked in the sort of way that made both of them sure that they had been meant to be together, that they would last a very long time. She missed that naïve teenage love, but not the gullible person it had nearly made out of her.
They spoke at the bar for nearly twenty minutes, catching up and sharing their thoughts on current events, pop culture, and sharing high school memories—many of which involved their dating life. As they started to get truly comfortable, she saw Danielle walking across the floor, headed to the other side of the bar. She gave Chloe a sarcastic nod before glancing at a watch that was not on her wrist and then shrugging. Chloe rolled her eyes, but was unable to hold back her smile.
As she looked away from Danielle, she caught sight of a woman sitting by herself in a little lounge area across the room. Chloe could barely remember her from high school. She thought her name was Tasha or something like it. She looked quite uncomfortable, like she really didn’t want to be there. It almost made Chloe feel guilty for having changed her tune so quickly.
“You okay?” Jacob asked. “You sort of spaced out there.”
“Yeah, I’m good. It’s just a lot, seeing all these people from high school and—”
Her name is Tasha Haskins, she thought suddenly. She never really fit in and never tried. And she’s doing the same now. Watching everyone from afar, wondering what their lives are like. Maybe hers is the same. Maybe…maybe you’ve seen someone just like her in the last few days…
“Chloe?”
A thought dawned on her. It struggled to get out, wrestling through the haze of the three drinks she’d had so far.
“I’m good,” she said, though she wasn’t so sure she was. “Jacob, I can’t believe this…but I think I have to go.”
“Was it too much? Me just coming up and acting like ten years hadn’t passed?”
“No, no…it’s not that. It’s a work thing and…”
She stopped here and grabbed a napkin from the edge of the bar. She borrowed a pen from the bartender and scribbled her number on the napkin. “Here’s the proof I’m not just ditching you. Wait a few days and call me. I’d like to catch up.”
“I would, too,” Jacob said.
Chloe gave him a hug, her eyes already searching for Danielle in the crowd. She found her and broke the hug with one final goodbye to Jacob. It was harder to walk away from him than it should have been, especially with images of Moulton in the back of her head. She approached Danielle, who was currently awkwardly dancing with a few other women to a god-awful pop song that she knew Danielle hated.
“You look worried,” Danielle said. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know. Danielle, I just had a thought and…well, you’re going to hate me for this but we need to go.”
“It hasn’t been two hours quite yet,” Danielle said in a disappointed mocking tone.
“I know. I swear…Danielle, this is important. I think we might have gotten something wrong on the Barnes Point case and I need to get back to DC as fast as I can.”
“Damn…you’re for real, aren’t you?”
“How much have you had to drink? Can you drive?”
“Two beers. Nothing strong yet. I can drive.”
Chloe knew it was irresponsible, especially given her profession, but she didn’t see where she had any other choice. “Thanks,” she said. “Danielle, really…I owe you one.”
Danielle said a few quick goodbyes and, to Chloe’s delight, didn’t seem to be too bothered to be leaving. In fact, she thought her sister looked a little excited to be driving her FBI agent sister back home so she could jump back on a case.
As Danielle pulled out of the parking lot, sipping on a water she’d taken from the bar before leaving, Chloe pulled out her cell phone. She called Rhodes first, feeling like a jerk to be making such a call at nine o’clock on a Saturday night. When Rhodes answered, she sounded slightly bored, yet glad to hear from Chloe.
“Sorry to bother you so late on a Saturday, but I think we might need to meet up. I think we might need to go back to Barnes Point.”
“What the hell for?”
Chloe told her the thoughts that had gone parading through her head. Rhodes sounded convinced, almost in an excited sort of state by the time they ended the call. She then immediately made her next call, not expecting an answer, but hoping for the best. The call was answered on the third ring. When the person on the other end answered it, his voice was almost entirely drowned out by loud, blaring music.
“Scott? It’s Agent Fine. From the sound of it, you’re on the job.”
“I am. What can I do for you?”
“Is there any way possible that we could meet up at your studio? I want to take another look at that video of the reunion.”
“Give me an hour. I’ve got a backup I can bring in to relieve me.”
Chloe gave her thanks and ended the call. She looked to the road, then to her sister.
“You sure you’re sober?” Chloe asked.
“If I wasn’t before, I am now. Hearing you on the phone like that, it’s sort of exciting. I feel like a sidekick.”
“That’s exactly what you are. But as a sidekick, your partner is an FBI agent. That means you can speed it up a bit.”
Danielle grinned and did as she was asked. The reunion nothing more than an afterthought in their heads, Danielle sped them back toward DC while Chloe looked back over the case, wondering how she and Rhodes had missed something so obvious.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Scott Lambast seemed as if he felt very much like Danielle had felt; excited and eager to help out on the case in any way he could. By the time Chloe and Rhodes appeared at his house just shy of midnight, he had already settled down in his studio and pulled the footage up. He had paused it at the scene where Jason Morton could be seen lurking against the back wall, as if waiting for Lauren Hilyard to come back out.
“I figured this is where you’d want to pick it up,” Scott said.
“A good thought,” Chloe said, “but I need to go backwards a little bit.”
Scott did as he was asked and cycled back through the footage. It took about twenty seconds for him to get to the spot she wanted. “Right there,” she said, stepping forward and pointing at the screen—to the lonely woman at the end of the bar.
“You said her name was Melanie, right?” Rhodes asked.
“Yeah,” Scott answered. “But I don’t know about a last name. At the risk of sounding like a putz, I never really paid much attention to her in school.”
Yeah, I bet no one ever did, Chloe thought.
Chloe watched Melanie for the next several minutes. She spent a lot of her time looking painfully in the direction of several different groups. But her eyes almost always drifted back to Lauren. Even when Lauren was separated from her group of primary friends like Tabby and Kaitlin, Melanie seemed to track her.
“Skip ahead a bit,” Chloe said.
Scott fast forwarded the scene, Chloe keeping her eyes on Melanie. She stayed against that one side of the room, as if she were using the bar as a sort of base. She didn’t drink that much; as far as Chloe could tell, she only had two drinks the entire time. When she finally did move away from the wall and started across the room, Chloe placed a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “Stop it right there.”
The screen went back to normal speed as Melanie seemed to be walking in the direction of Lauren and another woman. She got halfway across the room and came to a stop. She seemed to consider something for a moment before turning and walking to the back of the room toward the restroom. When she walked into the ladies’ room, she stayed there for quite a while. Eight minutes passed by, most of which Scott fast-forwarded through, until she came back. When she reappeared, someone approached her and spoke with her briefly. But it was clear that Melanie was not interested.
Within a few minutes, she was back to stalking around the crowd. She blended in well; she did it in a way that suggested she had been doing it her whole life.
“Do you have the capabilities to print a screenshot of this out?” Chloe asked.
“The best I can do is get a screen grab and save it as a JPEG.”
“That’ll do.”
As Scott worked at doing this, Rhodes and Chloe adjourned to the back of the studio. Rhodes took one final look back at the screen, where Scott had paused the video again.
“I know it seems like a stretch,” Chloe said. “But it sort of fits, doesn’t it? The girl that was never really seen by anyone in high school. Envious of the popular girl. Rhodes, did you see how intently she’s staring at Lauren in that video?”
“I did. It was sort of creepy.”
“We have to talk to her. And even if she does nothing more than give us more terrible stories about how Lauren Hilyard treated people in high school, I feel like someone that drawn to Lauren could either strengthen the case against Jason Morton or show the holes in it.”
“But you don’t think Jason did it anymore?”
“I don’t know. The way he had those pictures…it was pretty sad and perverted but there was nothing in them to suggest he wanted to see her hurt. He was objectifying her by looking back at those pictures, sure, but…”
“But a man that wanted her dead wouldn’t be appreciating her body in such a way.”
Chloe nodded. It had been the one thing that had not sat well with her since they had arrested Jason Morton. It had not seemed to fit with the profile she had been putting together in her head.
“I’ve got your picture printing out,” Scott said. “But if you don’t mind my asking, how are you even going to find her based off of this one picture?”
It was a good question, but Chloe already had a few ideas.
***
Nelly’s was in high gear when Rhodes parked the car in the crowded parking lot. Even before they got out of the car, they could hear the bass of some shit-kicking country song coming from within the bar. They exchanged a slightly disgusted glance over the roof of the car as they headed inside.
Chloe sized up the room, a little taken aback at just how packed it was. She started to look around for people who looked to be between twenty-eight and thirty but found it harder than it should have been. She figured the best thing to do would be going to the expert. She walked directly to the bar and spotted the bartender who had been here when she and Rhodes had questioned Sebastian Fallen.
“Hey,” the bartender said cautiously. “I’m not looking for another scene.”
“We’re not, either,” Chloe said. “You know who Lauren Hilyard is?”
“Yeah. She was killed two weeks ago, right? Married to Jerry Hilyard. People still talk about how she was hot stuff in high school.”
“That’s right. Can you point out anyone in here that might have graduated in the same class as her?”
“Well hell…yeah, that’s easy.” He nodded directly behind them, to a small table where a man was sitting by himself. It was a man Chloe recognized—a man she had seen quite recently, in fact.
Jerry Hilyard looked like he might fall off of the chair he was sitting in. He had both hands wrapped around a mug of beer, looking down into it as if there might be tea leaves (or, in this case, hops leaves) to be read.
“How long has he been in here?” Rhodes asked.
“A while. Since at least nine. A few people have gone up to him to be polite. Offer their condolences and all. But he clearly just wants to be left alone, you know? He came in, ordered his first beer, and asked to keep an open tab…and to make sure he never had an empty beer on his table until he left. I told him I could do that, but he’d need to leave me his keys. He did, and I have a cab company number ready to go.”
“How many drinks in is he?”
The bartender shrugged. “I’m not sure. Eight? Maybe nine.”
Chloe thanked the bartender and then slowly made her way over to Jerry. Rhodes followed behind, eliciting at least one catcall as she did so.
Chloe stopped at the table and took the open seat across from him. He looked up at her and it took a moment for him to recognize her. He nodded as if she had said something and then looked at his surroundings.
“Not my finest moment,” he said. His words were slow, and he enunciated each one carefully. “I wanted to be out around people…but all people want to do is tell me how sorry they are.”
“Mr. Hilyard, are you okay?”
She had to raise her voice to be heard over the music. She hated herself a bit for recognizing the song. “Fast as You” by Dwight Yoakam.
“Sure,” Jerry said. “Neither of my kids want to come home. Even after the funeral…they wanted nothing to do with me. Lauren’s parents think it’s just too painful here right now for them. But they never asked how I was doing. Assholes are probably glad she’s dead just so she can’t be with me anymore.”
Realizing that this could quickly devolve into a toxic bashing session, Chloe got straight to the point. She pitied the man but had to trust that the bartender with his keys would do the right thing when the time came.
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