What choice did I have? I couldn’t allow my personal feelings about Alice to interfere with the way the story was presented.
As expected, the cabin looked deserted. Though the sun was shining brightly today, the air was crisp. I stripped off my jacket when it came time to shoot, fighting off a shiver.
I went through my remarks as best as possible, but I hated standing there with Alice’s house looming in the background, talking about her death and knowing that many viewers would be titillated by the details. I kept wondering, too, if the killer would be watching. Of course he would.
“You okay?” Keith asked after we’d wrapped.
“Yeah, sorry. You’ve probably met rice cakes with more charisma than I managed today. But it’s been such a crazy week.”
“I hear you. It must be really tough at times to do what you do. Covering gruesome stuff like this.”
“Yeah, it can be.”
But that wasn’t really true. Yes, I cared about victims, and was saddened for their families and friends, but my job had never seemedtoughto me before. I loved it. Loved chasing down leads and digging for clues, and, when possible, ripping truths out from beneath the rocks they liked to hide under. And yet there was no denying that at the present moment, I couldn’t relish any part of it.
Keith dropped me behind the hotel and I hightailed it directly to the small café right off the lobby in search of caffeine.
Nowwhat? I thought, staring out the window and waiting for my cappuccino to arrive. From where I was sitting I could see a slice of the lake. The water was a sparkling blue today, mocking my dreary mood. I felt a desperate urge to take action but had no clue what to do.
The waitress had just brought my drink when, to my surprise, I spotted Ben Hatfield striding purposefully across the room in my direction.
Oh God, I hoped he hadn’t been tipped off that we’dbeen shooting video near his mom’s house. He might have taken it as a real affront, and I wouldn’t have blamed him.
“Hey, there you are,” he said, reaching me. “I tried your phone a bunch of times but it kept going to voice mail.”
“So sorry,” I said, realizing I’d switched my phone to vibrate while Keith was recording and hadn’t readjusted it. “How are you coping?”
“Not great, I have to admit.” He sounded anxious rather than miffed. “Can you spare a minute?”
“Of course, please sit down. How about some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’m already over my limit. I’ve been thinking about what you asked—about my last conversation with my mom. You said I should call you even if I remembered something small.”
A chill raced through me. Donotget your hopes up, I warned myself.
“Yes, please. Tell me.”
“It’s so minor, I’m sure it’s meaningless.” He scraped a couple of times at the cuticle of his right thumb.
“But maybe it isn’t.”
“Like I told you, my mom and I spoke on Saturday, like we usually did. Our normal routine was for me to call her in the early evening, generally before my girlfriend and I made dinner or went out for the night, but this time she ended up calling me. At around five.”
It was the same discrepancy my mind had snagged on last night. I took a sip of my cappuccino, thinking.
“So it was pretty out of the ordinary?” I asked, setting the cup down.
“Well, not hugely so. Once in a while she’d initiate a call if she wasn’t going to be around at our normal time, but it’d been a while since that happened. My mom used to say there were too many crazies on the road on Saturday night and she preferred to stay in with Netflix and a glass of chardonnay.”
Perhaps Alice had become apprehensive about her discovery, and, eager for the comfort of Ben’s voice, had called him earlier than usual. But no, that couldn’t be it. She hadn’t turned up the detail that scared her until Sunday morning.
“There’s one more thing,” Ben said. “Again, it’s probably nothing.”
“Go ahead.”
“Like I told you, she didn’t mention any leads she had on the murders, but when I was lying in bed last night, I remembered something she’d asked about a guy I’d gone to high school with. She’d heard that he’d once worked at Baker Beverage and she wanted to know if it was true.”
“Who?”
