Cora answers, “Well, obviously it was unsettling to her that someone she spent time with every day for several months had that kind of violence in him. I still get a shiver thinking about it.”
Richard sits beside his wife and gently places a hand on her knee. “It was more complicated than that,” he tells us. Cora hangs her head, and I know that look. She’s worried about what we’ll think when her husband finishes his thought. What conclusions we might jump to about her child.
“Laurel has always been a compassionate person,” he explains. “Always taking in the stray animal. Making friends with the kid no one wanted to sit next to at lunch. It’s why she went into social work.”
“She has a big heart,” Cora adds. “She only sees the good.”
Richard nods. “She took a special interest in this young man. When she called back that night, she told me she was afraid she’d gotten too close to him. That she’d crossed a line. She said he was like a friend. There weren’t a lot of patients around her age. She’s justtwenty-three. Most of the patients are older than her grandparents.”
I jump in now. “Did she know about his condition?”
“Yes, of course,” Richard says. “She told us that, when he was taking his medication, he was a gentle soul.”
“‘A sweet kid’ is how she described him,” Cora interjects.
“She felt that maybe she missed something. Apparently, he grew quite fond of her. He would always do whatever activity she was leading, sit by her when they were watching TV. Things like that. She was so upset when she called that night. She felt responsible, even though it wasn’t her fault, and we told her that. Both of us, didn’t we?”
Cora takes her husband’s hand in her own and reassures him. “We did. And she knew, in her mind, that she did nothing wrong. But her heart was heavy. His family withdrew him from the center because they couldn’t afford it anymore. They thought they could supervise him at home. Laurel had no contact with him after he left.”
Richard looks at us now. “No contact. She made sure to tell us that. She hadn’t seen him for several weeks.”
Rowan nods his head to reassure them that no one is judging their daughter for her compassion. He then looks at me, and this is my cue to play the bad cop and ask the harder questions.
“Did she say anything else about Clay that was bothering her—things that in hindsight might have been warning signs? Did he talk about guns or killing, for example?”
They answer in unison—no—which under different circumstances would cause suspicion. But this felt genuine, like they had been thinking it themselves.
“There was nothing like that. She felt guilty because shedidn’tsee any of those things,” Richard explains.
We switch gears to her friends, possible love interests, coworkers she spoke about. Then to her history, college, graduate school, former employers. No red flags appear, and we leave after reassuring them that maybe she just needed to get away, sort out her ambivalence about her interactions with Clay Lucas.
Richard says that she does like to hike, and Cora agrees—yes, she likes to be alone sometimes. Unplug for a while. They make a plan to call some of the hiking hostels she used to stay at.
“She even walked part of the Appalachian Trail,” Richard tells us. “There was a place in New Hampshire she stayed.”
We leave them to this task, knowing it will keep them busy and hopeful. We do not share their optimism, but don’t let on. There’s no point.
Ten minutes later we’re headed back to the station, running through theories and initial impressions of Laurel Hayes and her family.
“I think she was more involved than she let on,” Rowan says.
“A hundred percent,” I agree. “She overstepped somehow. Maybe kept seeing him after he left. Checking in on the family. The guilt doesn’t make sense. She waswell-trained. She knew anything could happen if he went off his meds.”
“Didn’t tell her parents the whole story because she didn’t want them to be disappointed.”
“Right.”
“Do we think she might have been suicidal? Over the guilt?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. The parents seem like pretty forgiving people. But let’s not rule out anything.”
We take a beat to consider where to turn next. The team working the case already spoke to the Lucas family, and they said they didn’t know Laurel Hayes. We consider circling back to Clear Horizons and looking for a coworker willing to come clean about just how close Laurel and Clay Lucas had become and whether she spoke about seeing him after he left.
We’re almost at the station when my phone chimes. It’s not the burner phone, so I take it out and check the message.
Rowan glances at me the moment I see the number. It’s Wade, using this phone again.
I let out one word, a whisper of disbelief. “No.”
