Gracie sighs. “No. Well, I mean, she says she didn’t. She said Nat was on something that she shouldn’t have taken, and Aster wanted to make sure she was okay.”
“Oh.” It sounds a little codependent.
Gracie takes the cap off the yellow highlighter. “Seeing those people, Aster’s other friends, I don’t know. Why would I want to get sucked into that world? Look what happened to Jay after he became friends with them.”
“Jack called it the gilded swamp.”
She snorts. “And he’s their king. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” Gracie gives me a look that tells me that she doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, so I shrug and let it go. I suspect a lot of this is Gracie’s insecurity after seeing those beautiful people, and I get that. Hell, Ifelta truckload of insecurity at that party.
I open my notebook to the investigation notes. “Okay, let’s get back to Jay. The way I see it, we’re answering three main questions here. One, who killed Jay?” I swallow. It feels weird to saykilled, because to me, Jay is very much alive. “Two, how did they do it? And three, why? If we solve any of these questions, then the other two will be clear too.”
“For the who, you’re still not entertaining the suicide theory or that he ran away?”
No, I’m not. But I can’t tell Gracie that I know Jay, and that I trust he wouldn’t do that. “Yeah, I suppose it’s a possibility, but thehowand thewhystill need to be answered.”
“Who’s on your suspect list?”
I list the names. “Emma, Bailey, Taylor, and Jack. And of course, the Birdwatcher. Who might be one of those people.”
She shakes her head. “I think we can safely cross Emma off the list. It was clear that her only interest in Jay was using him to get closer to Bailey and her friends. Did you hear anything on Saturday that implicated anyone else?”
A lot of Saturday night is a blur. I shrug. “Jack said a lot of cryptic stuff. I’ll bet he knows more than he’s saying, but I have no idea if what he knows is relevant.” I can’t forget what Jay said about Jack—that he’s both the most and least trustworthy person in the group. “When he gave me back my sweatshirt, he said he believed it started with a picture on a text, whatever that means.”
“He texted Jay the night he disappeared? Why?”
I shrug. “He didn’t say. Talking to Jack is like talking to a ghost.” Except, not really. The ghost I talk to all the time, Jay, is way clearer than Jack.
“We should probably talk to him when he’s sober,” Gracie says. “What about Taylor? Why is she on your list?”
“There was something off about her expression when she found out I’m living in Jay’s room.”
“That doesn’t really tell us much.”
“No, not really.”
“Okay, what about motive?”
And there I was at a loss too. True, I was a little blinded by my serious crush on Jay Hoque, but the reality was, none of the rumors about him were awful enough to motivate someone to commit murder. Some people thought he was a player, but not more than any of the other guys in that crowd. Others said he was aloof, yet he had a circle of friends. He ended up in a rich, snobby crowd for a while, then got out of it when he discovered they were fake as hell.
I go over what his professors told Gracie about Jay. None of them believe he actually cheated on his schoolwork. His professors all liked him. He was doing well in his classes. And he was close to his family. He wasn’t the bad boy everyone thought he was. He was actually kind of sweet.
“Love or money,” I say.
Gracie raises a brow.
“It’s the root cause of all crime.”
Gracie exhales. “Yeah, I have to agree.”
“We can set aside the love motive for now. I don’t think he dated anyone seriously enough to cause that, despite what that Instagram said.”
“But we don’t know for sure. He could still have a romantic stalker.”
“True. But we should think about money as a motive. Even Jack told me to follow the money.”
I squeeze my lips together. Suddenly I remember something from Jack’s party. A random memory that somehow survived the vast amount of alcohol I consumed. And the marijuana.
“Gracie, was Jay’s scholarship anacademicscholarship?” I ask.
