The lifeguard in the stand noticed the cruiser and watched it with mild interest as Annie backed into a spot facing the pool. She let the car idle for a minute as she gazed through the iron fence. A young woman was sitting on the edge of the pool, the dyed-blue ends of her hair draped over her shoulders as she stared down at her feet, swishing back and forth in the water. Annie stared, her mind replaying something Debra had said while Annie and Jake were at the Boyd house.
She was talking to her friend on the phone, the girl with the blue hair, Stephanie…
Annie switched off the engine and climbed out. The pool gate was unlocked, and she stepped inside. Three young boys were splashing one another in a shallow corner—their mother’s face hidden behind a magazine as she lounged on one of the deck chairs—and in the middle of the pool, an elderly woman wearing a yellow swim cap and goggles was doing some sort of water aerobics.
Annie walked around the edge of the pool to the girl with her feet in the deep end and lowered herself into a crouch.
“Are you Stephanie?”
The girl lifted her face to look at Annie. Her heavy eyeliner was smeared beneath eyes that were swollen from crying, and her nose was pierced with a small silver stud.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Annie Heston. I work with Jake Proudy over at the police station.”
Stephanie looked Annie up and down as she took a cross-legged seat beside her.
“I want you to know that we’re doing our best to figure out what happened to your friend Jamie. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”
“Okay.”
Stephanie slowly withdrew her pale legs from the water, pulling her feet up onto the sun-warmed deck and wrapping her hands around her knees.
“I understand the two of you were close?”
The tears that sprang into Stephanie’s eyes were instant, and two quickly spilled over in shining paths down her cheeks.
“We were best friends.”
Annie nodded, offering a small smile, though her heart ached for the young woman beside her.
“And you shared details about your lives with each other? Secrets?”
Stephanie nodded and a third tear fell. “We told each other everything.”
Annie wished she had a handkerchief or a tissue or even a long sleeve to offer this girl, but she didn’t, and Stephanie ran her bare arm noisily under her nose.
“I know this is hard, but it’s really important that we know who Jamie was close to, who she might have been spending time with in the weeks leading up to her death.”
Stephanie looked away, staring into the pool as she thought, the rippling water reflected in her dark eyes.
“I mean, Jamie had just broken up with someone, like a day or two before she died. She had a boyfriend that her parents didn’t know about.”
Annie prepared herself for the blow. “What was his name?”
Stephanie shrugged. “I don’t know. Jamie was weird about it. She wouldn’t tell me. She said he made her promise. That he didn’t want people to know because they might not understand their relationship with her being younger. She said he was a really private guy.”
Annie nodded, trying not to let the emotion warring in her chest show on her face.Private.That was just about the number one adjective she’d use to describe Daniel Barela.
“Are you sure Jamie never mentioned his name? I know best friends sometimes share secrets with each other that they’re supposed to keep. If Jamie told you who he was, I promise the best thing you can do for her right now is to tell me.”
“She didn’t,” Stephanie insisted, dark eyes flashing. “I already told you, I don’t know.”
Annie turned for a moment, watching the three boys at the other end of the pool, one of whom was showing the others how to blast a stream of water through a foam noodle. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to Stephanie and forged ahead.
“Do you think it could have been Daniel Barela?”
Stephanie blinked at her. “That guy who lives at the end of Jamie’s road?”
