He nodded and they sat in silence for another moment before Laura added, “I’ll get back to the newsroom now. Thank you for entrusting me with this information. I won’t tell anyone, but I’ll start to think of the wording in case we need a retraction. Oh, and thank you for believing me that I would never hurt a fly, let alone Faith. I will do anything to find her killer.”
“You’re welcome. I knew it couldn’t be you,” he said. “As for the other person from the station on the list, we’ll see. But I will do anything to find her killer too, Laura. We at least owe her that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Steve
June 4
Was Faith really pregnant with Steve’s child? Were they madly in love?
Steve couldn’t be 100 percent sure. Sometimes reality and fantasy conflated in his mind. He thought about things so deeply that he could make himself positive they were true. But he did occasionally make things up too. The picture of him and Faith on the beach. OK fine, it wasn’t real. He photoshopped their heads on two bodies, but he just knew that some sort of trip like that was in their future so why not do it now? The name of their daughter being Charity if the baby was a girl? He read in that magazine article about Faith coming to Channel 9 that she had a sister named Charity who died at age three. He figured she would probably like to honor her sister. He was proud of himself for being so thoughtful.
And the night she died, he had been on duty to follow her for her dinner break. So what had gone wrong? He thought he lost sight of her car but he couldn’t really remember. Or maybe he had gotten into the passenger seat of her vehicle on a backcountryroad with the intent to talk, and maybe she said she wanted to cut things off, and maybe he went a little nuts. He’s really, truly not sure. He has images of things in his mind. Different things, different scenarios. In one, she was going very fast and he couldn’t keep up with her and her car was gone, and in the other he wrapped his hands around her perfect neck and she begged him to stop and he wanted to but he couldn’t. And then she went limp and he scrambled back to his car and raced home.
Where was the truth? He wished he knew. And when the police shocked him by knocking on his door the night of the vigil and he had to sit on the couch between his mom and dad, his mother shaking uncontrollably, he was forced to tell an outright lie to protect himself. He couldn’t divulge to the cops about his full, deep relationship with Faith or he might be a prime suspect. How did they even know he had anything to do with Faith? He couldn’t figure it out.
So he said he went to the casino for the night as an alibi (it’s only later when he realizes they can probably check security cameras) and he says that yes, while he and Faith corresponded at times, it was nothing unusual or important. He is hoping against hope they won’t find the emails between him and Faith.
When the police finally left after a bazillion questions, his father turned to him sternly. “Stephen, what is going on here?”
“It’s nothing, Dad, no big deal. Must be some kinda mix-up.”
“Stevie, I just can’t believe you’re wrapped up in this,” cried his mother, still shaking.
“Ma, don’t worry about it. Cops make mistakes all the time.”
Then he bolted up from the couch, grabbed the laptop from the desk in the dining room, went to his room, and called up the email exchange between him and Faith. He printed a few things to keep forever, but as much as it pained him to do so, he deleted everyflirty email and photo the two of them shared. How he wished he could keep them all, but it was too dangerous. Instead he committed them to memory and lay down on his twin bed, letting some tears finally come—for Faith, for himself now caught in some kind of weird thing with the cops, for his parents and their worried looks, but most of all for what he and Faith almost had and now lost that she was gone. He knew he would never find another love like her, ever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Carol
June 4
Carol was proud of herself for her detective work at the FWFFC meeting, and she couldn’t wait to share the information with Olivia. In fact, she texted as soon as she got to the car in the coffee shop parking lot.
Olivia—I’ve got something. I don’t know how important it is but it’s very interesting. It’s about Steve, the guy from the list. Can you call me ASAP?
Olivia called immediately, saying she was on dinner break.
“What is it, Aunt C?”
Carol laid it out for Olivia, how Steve had shown her the photo with the autograph and the handwritten note and how they hadn’t matched the writing or signature from the autograph Carol got.
“Well, I saw Faith sign the photo for you, Aunt C, right in front of me, so I guarantee the one you have is her signature. Theone this guy Steve has, do you think he faked it? He sounds like a weirdo.”
“Yeah, I thought about him faking it but it looked like a woman’s handwriting for sure, just different from Faith’s. Very different. I don’t know, it all felt fishy. Steve seems to really think they were in love, though. Did you get to sniff around with Matthew or that woman Laura?”
“Yeah, a little. Laura, I just don’t see it. She has a newborn, photos of her baby all over her desk, she takes breaks to pump breast milk. Not that a mother can’t be a killer but it also doesn’t work because she was at the station all night Friday. But Matthew… I don’t like him. He made a snide comment to me when I asked him if he needed more time for the show. I thought he meant minutes and he said it was seconds but he said it in a really mean way. I just didn’t know, I’m new.”
Carol’s dislike and distrust of Matthew grew exponentially. She narrowed her eyes.
“That’s horrible,” she said. “You’re an intern. Of course you’re learning. If Matthew has a mean streak in him maybe we should focus on him.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking,” said Olivia. “Let me think of some other ways I can poke around or get more info on him. Can you imagine if we broke this case open? We’d be heroes.”
“But Liv, you have to be careful, so careful, for your safety and for your job.”
