by Kate Kessler
“Because I’m…I was his girlfriend.”
“Yeah, but you’re not anymore.” If she could, she’d have taken the words back.
“Right. And you want to be, is that it? Lucy told me you had a thing for him, but I didn’t believe her. I guess I was wrong. Careful, Lish. His last girlfriend ended up dead.” She hung up.
Alisha stared at the phone in her hand and shook her head. If she didn’t know better, she’d think Kendra had just threatened her.
Neve kept her promise and called Alisha from the hospital early that evening. She apologized for making her wait so long and tried to make amends by telling her that Linda said she could come by the hospital the next day if she wanted. Luke was going to be there for a few days.
The Pelletier family wanted to press charges, and Neve didn’t blame them. It didn’t matter at that moment if Luke was Tala’s killer or not. She hated it when people took the law into their own hands. There was a lot of that sentiment in Edgeport: this weird throwback to the Dark Ages when an eye for an eye reigned supreme.
Not on her damn watch.
The Lewises were upset, understandably. Their daughter had been murdered and now their son was locked up for assault. Josh maintained his defiant attitude, saying that Luke had killed his sister and deserved what he got. He refused to name his accomplice, but Neve didn’t think it was going to be too hard to find him.
No, what had her pissed and wishing she could lock people up for being shit-disturbers was Josh’s reason for the beating.
“I heard what he said about her,” the boy told her. “What he said about Tala.”
When he didn’t immediately offer it up, Neve arched a brow. “Which was?”
The young man’s babyish face hardened. “He said he could never love a freak like her and that she deserved to die. He said he was glad she was gone.”
“Who told you that?” Neve had asked.
He looked away, jaw tight.
“Josh, you are in a lot of trouble right now, my friend. You need to tell me what got you so riled up, or things are just going to get worse. You think your college is going to appreciate a criminal record on one of their students? What do you think this is doing to your parents?”
It was the parental card that did the trick. Josh looked down at the floor. “Kendra.”
“Kendra Granger?”
He nodded.
Neve frowned. Kendra was supposed to have a thing for Luke, so why make trouble for him with Josh? “She told you Luke said those things?”
“Yeah. She said he was already over Tala—that he’d been fooling around with Alisha Tripp behind her back.”
Ah. Neve rubbed the back of her neck. God save her from jealous teenage girls. “And you took her at her word.”
“Kendra was the first friend Tala made when we moved to this fucking stink hole. Why would she lie?”
Neve just shook her head in response. Why would Kendra talk about wanting to kill that same friend? Because some teenage girls have an awful lot in common with psychopaths.
Which was why she was standing on the Grangers’ front step waiting for someone to answer when she could have been home enjoying a cold beer and a nice thick steak grilled to perfection by her gorgeous man. Her underarms were sticky, and she hoped she didn’t have BO. She needed a shower and still had bits of hay stuck to her socks.
Kyle answered the door. “Detective Graham.” He grinned. “Couldn’t stay away, huh?”
A smirk was as good as she could muster. “Is Kendra home?”
“Yeah, sure.” He stood back and let her in. “Kendra!”
Neve didn’t even wince. She was used to bellowing boys, thanks to her brothers and their friends.
Mrs. Granger appeared in the hall. “Kyle, there’s no need to shout. Oh. Hello, Neve. What can we do for you?”
“I need to speak to Kendra, Elle.”
“Can’t it wait? This business with Luke Pelletier has her very upset.”
“That’s why I want to talk to her.”
Tiny lines of concern fanned out from the woman’s blue eyes. As a kid Neve had imagined rich white women looking exactly like Elle Granger.
Kendra came downstairs in leggings and an oversized top. She looked as though she’d been crying. Her pretty face was red and blotchy and her eyes swollen.
Neve smiled at her. “Hi, Kendra. Got a minute?”
It was that hesitation, that look of “oh shit” that the kid sent her mother that told Neve what she needed to know. Kendra Granger was a girl who realized she’d fucked up, and now she was trying to think of a way out of it.
“Come into the living room,” Elle said. “I’ll make tea.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Neve told her. “I won’t take any more of your time than necessary. Kendra, did you tell Josh Lewis that Luke said his sister deserved to die?”
Elle’s perfectly lipsticked mouth dropped open. “What?”
Kendra’s eyes were wide. “No,” she said in a small voice.
“So, he’s lying then? You didn’t tell him that Luke had been cheating on Tala with Alisha Tripp?”
The girl frowned. Shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I didn’t say he was. I said I thought he was.”
“Was Luke cheating on Tala with Alisha?”
She shrugged.
“Oh, Kendra,” her mother said on a long-suffering sigh. “Why would you do that?”
It was a good question. Neve waited for the answer.
“Because I was upset that Luke and Alisha are spending so much time together. I didn’t mean for Luke to get hurt. I was just mad.”
“Did you tell him Luke said Tala deserved to die?”
“You already asked that,” Elle said.
Neve kept her attention focused on Kendra. “Did you?”
She nodded, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“Oh, you are so busted,” Kyle crowed.
Neve looked at him, then down at his feet. When she was a kid her mother would have smacked her for wearing shoes in the house. There was a rusty smear on the side of the glossy leather on his right foot, and some on the laces. “Are those Doc Martens?”
His expression turned wary. “Yeah.”
“Size eleven?”
“Yeah.”
She cocked her head. “Is that blood on your laces?”
Elle braced a hand against the staircase. “Oh, my God.”
“Are you and Josh friends?” Neve continued when Kyle didn’t answer her previous question—not that she needed him to. She knew blood when she saw it.
He swallowed. “Yeah.” And then, “Okay, I was with him. He said Luke killed his sister—and he fucked around on mine.”
Kendra sank down onto the stairs, pale and scared-looking. Elle looked as though she needed a drink. “Kyle. What did you do?”
“He helped beat another boy severely, Mrs. Granger. He left his boot print on Luke Pelletier’s face. And he did it because your daughter lied.” She glanced at Kendra. “That pretty much sum it up?”
The girl nodded. She looked like she might throw up.
“So, now I have to arrest your brother for assault. Do you understand what that means? He’s going to jail.”
Tears were flowing down the girl’s cheeks now. Elle was talking, but Neve ignored her. She kept her attention fixed on Kendra. “Did you and Lucy ever talk about wanting to kill Tala in front of Luke?”
“Now just one second!” Elle cried. Kendra’s tears were coming harder now. “My daughter may have made a terrible mistake, but she is not a killer.”
Neve looked her in the eye as she took Kyle by the arm. “Does Mr. Granger own any hunting knives?”
The woman’s face darkened with fury. “Get out.”
Shrugging, Neve drew Kyle toward the door. “You’re under arrest, Kyle. Do you know your rights?”
“I’m calling our lawyer now!” Elle remarked, stomping down the hall.
Neve turned to Kendra, still sitting on the st
airs. “Did you say you wanted to kill Tala?”
“We were joking,” she sobbed. “We wouldn’t have really done it. I was just being jealous. It was just a joke.”
“I get the feeling it’s not so funny now,” Neve retorted, dragging a protesting Kyle out the door. Once she talked to Lucy and other kids from the class, she’d be back, but she’d had her fill of the Grangers’ lies and the fact that everyone involved seemed to want to make Tala’s murder about them, and not about the girl who was actually dead.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Audrey had a full pot of coffee made when Neve and Vickie arrived at the house Wednesday morning. Since the school had called and asked if she’d switch to afternoon appointments that day instead of morning, she didn’t have anywhere she needed to be for a couple of hours.
Neve had Tala’s laptop, her phone, and a stack of papers with her for the three of them to look at. They sat in the dining room, with its tall windows and original wainscoting. It was one of Audrey’s favorite rooms. When Gracie was alive the family always ate in that room. Quite a few times, she ate there with them.
“I’ve flagged several things,” Neve told her. “But feel free to go through feeds and screen shots. Anything you can offer or that jumps out is great.”
“No promises,” Audrey said. “But sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is good.”
They sat down at the table with tea and biscuits and got to work.
Neve dumped sugar in her mug. “Techs are working on recovering deleted texts from Tala’s phone. We should have them today.”
“I’m assuming they use software to recover them?” Audrey asked.
“Either that or they sacrifice a goat,” Vickie quipped. “Regardless, it works. What about this? On February sixteenth Tala tweeted, ‘People say they accept you as you are, but they never do.’ Probably a dig at Luke?”
“I remember that from when she first disappeared,” Neve commented. “Did he respond?”
Vickie shook her head. “No.”
“Not to Tala,” Audrey said, looking up from her laptop. “But on his own page he said, ‘Wish things were different. Wish I was different,’ and then, ‘Don’t feel much like talking, Twitterverse. Out of here for a few days.’ Then Kendra asked him what was wrong and he didn’t reply. He didn’t post again until almost a week had gone by. ‘I miss u. I’m sorry. Come home.’ He posted it once a week for the first four weeks she was missing.”
“Yeah, her phone was full of texts from him begging her to get in touch. Some of them more agitated than others. Nothing that makes him look good for the murder, though,” Vickie said.
“Might just mean he was smart enough not to say anything publicly,” Neve reminded her.
“What about the girls?” Audrey asked. “What were Lucy and Kendra tweeting while they thought Tala was missing?”
“There were a lot of ‘please come home’ and ‘we miss you’ posts. Then some about hoping she was in New York following her dream. Kendra stopped posting before Lucy did. Lucy was still tweeting at Tala a week before we found her. Not even once a week, but she was still posting.”
Audrey looked through the screen shots Neve had provided. “December sixteenth, Kendra posted, ‘The people you’re supposed to trust most r the ones you can’t turn your back on.’”
“Yeah, that’s around the time Tala and Luke got together,” Neve supplied.
Audrey flipped through the pages. “Kendra had a lot of passive aggression where Tala and Luke were concerned.” She turned back to her laptop. “And she spent a lot more time asking how he was after they broke up than she did Tala.”
“Yeah, but she would have seen Tala in person—at least for a couple of days. She might have asked her then.”
Arching a brow, Audrey glanced at her. “Defending the girl whose shit-disturbing efforts put one boy in the hospital and got two more arrested?”
“I didn’t say she was smart—or necessarily nice.”
“I’m just glad we didn’t have this kind of social media when we were teenagers.” Audrey shook her head. “Can you imagine?”
Neve chuckled. “Imagine the shit Maggie would have been posting.”
“Or the stuff people would have said about you,” Vickie offered, glancing at Audrey. “To you, even.”
Audrey’s smile faded. She hadn’t thought of that. For one second she’d forgotten that she’d been a pariah. Social media would have torn her apart back then. It tried to on occasion now. “You’re right. Kids these days are aware of that. We’re not going to find any clues in tweets. We should be looking at the people who haven’t said anything. Who has been uncharacteristically quiet online?”
“Not sure, other than Luke,” Neve replied.
“What about Randy Dyer?”
“He doesn’t have any social media accounts except for Twitter. He’s not on there very often.”
“Maybe he has half a brain after all.”
Neve’s phone dinged. She flipped her finger across the screen. “They’re sending me Tala’s deleted texts.”
Audrey pushed her laptop aside and reached for a biscuit. She had no idea how long this kind of thing took and she was starving. Plus, eating gave her something to do while they waited.
A few moments later, Neve opened the files. “Not too many.” She read off a phone number. “Who is that?” she asked Vickie.
“That’s Kendra.”
“Okay, the day before she was killed, Tala got this text from Kendra: ‘I can’t believe u did this to Luke.’ And then, ‘U might not have been born a girl, but you’re a bitch enough.’”
Audrey swallowed. “That’s harsh—and typical of seventeen-year-old girls.”
“Here’s one from Lucy,” she continued after verifying the number again. “‘How could you have done this to Luke and Kendra? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ And then a few minutes later, ‘Do you want to break Ken’s heart?’”
Audrey frowned. “Is she talking about the two of them dating? Because that happened months before the murder.”
“Here’s another from Lucy: ‘You lying backstabbing bitch.’”
“Whoa,” Vickie said. “What’s that about?”
Neve’s eyes widened. “Maybe about this. Check this number.” She read it off before continuing. “‘Cum’—spelled c-u-m—‘over tonight. At house alone.’ Tala replied, ‘I shouldn’t. It’s not right.’ The person replies, ‘No one will know. Our sercet’—must have meant ‘secret’—‘I just need to be inside you again. I miss you.’ Tala wrote back, ‘I want it too. C u soon.’”
The women exchanged glances. “What the hell?” Audrey said. “Again? I thought Tala hadn’t had sex.”
“Everyone did,” Neve replied. “Or at least that’s what Tala wanted them to think.” Then to Vickie, “Any luck on that number?”
“It’s not one we have on file.” She pulled out her cell phone. “Should I call it?”
“Block your number,” Neve told her.
They all sat in silence as Vickie put her phone on speaker, dialed, then waited as it rang.
“Hey, it’s Kyle. Leave a message. If I care I’ll call you back.” Vickie ended the call.
The workings of some teen lives, Audrey reminded herself, were more interesting than any soap opera. “If Tala was seeing Kyle, that definitely gives him motive to go after Luke. And for Luke to be pissed.”
“Did Luke know?” Vickie wondered out loud.
“I think so,” Neve replied, her face tense. “Listen to this: ‘I know what you did. And I know why. I’ll make you wish you’d never met him. You’ll wish you’d never dumped me. You’ll regret it, I promise.’”
It was at that moment that Audrey realized they weren’t alone. Alisha stood in the doorway, her pretty face pale and hurt. How much had she heard?
“What are you doing here?” Audrey asked. “You okay?”
She shook her head. “Mom said I could stay home and go visit Luke in the hospital. He didn’t say that. He wouldn’t hur
t Tala. Never.”
Audrey nodded. “Okay.” At that moment she didn’t want to say anything to upset the girl further, especially since she had a car she could jump into. “Everyone says shit when they’re mad. That’s probably all there was to it. Did he ever say anything to you about Tala cheating?”
She shook her head. “A little while ago he asked me why I thought people cheated, but he never said anything about Tala. She never said anything to me about Kyle either.”
“Alisha,” Neve began calmly—but sternly. “It’s very important that you don’t tell anyone what you just heard.”
“I know. I won’t say anything.”
“It might also be a good idea if you don’t go see Luke.”
The girl’s expression turned to a glare. “Why? Because you think he’s dangerous? He’s in fucking traction.”
“Lish,” Audrey said, trying to calm her down.
“No. I’m going to see him. You know, maybe you guys should stop looking so hard at the guy who actually loved Tala and wasn’t afraid to be seen with her in public and instead look at the one who pretended to hardly notice her while using her as a booty call. How about that, Detective?” She pivoted on her heel and left the room. The screen door slammed behind her.
“I think I’ve been schooled,” Neve remarked wryly.
“She’s not wrong,” Audrey commented, with a bit of pride.
“No, she’s not.” Neve stood up. “Which is why we’re going to visit Kyle while I still know where he is. I’m thinking Josh Lewis might be interested in the fact that his best friend was doing his sister behind his back.”
“You don’t think he knew?” Vickie asked.
Neve shot her a narrow glance. “You don’t have brothers, do you?” When the trooper shook her head, Neve smiled. “I do. And If Josh had known about Kyle and Tala, Luke Pelletier wouldn’t be the one in traction right now. Let’s go.”
* * *
Alisha put the car in park at the bottom of the road and sat there for a second. Uncle Jake had told her never to drive angry, and she had promised him she wouldn’t, so she took a couple of calming breaths. Rationally she knew it was Neve’s job to look at everyone as a suspect; she just wished people would stop looking so hard at Luke.
