“Just say when.”
“Four o’clock, I guess. That would be okay.”
“Great, I’ll be there. And thank you, Riley. I’ll be so grateful for whatever you tell me. And no judgment on my part, I promise that.”
“Okay,” she says.
“See you in a few hours, then. Oh wait, please just one more question. Right after everything happened, did you tell anyone? So that someone else back then knew the real date, too?”
For a few moments there’s only silence again, this time a chilling one.
“Yes,” she says at last. “One person.”
She ends the call before I can say another word.
Chapter 27
I jump up from the chair, swiping my hands through my hair. So, Rileydidlie. She didn’t come right out and say so just now, but she made clear it’s the reason she wants to meet.
And she told someone right afterward, days before she blurted out the story to Morgan.
I wonder now if I should reach out to Halligan. But after he finished chewing me out for going around him, he’d probably say what I’ve already concluded, that in the end this doesn’t change a thing—Ruck still committed both crimes.
Butdidhe? I’m yanked back to the idea of a copycat, a concept that initially seemed far-fetched. What if the person Riley told her awful story to—or a person he or she told—was someone who hated Mel and wanted her gone from the earth. This could have given the murderer the perfect way to kill her without throwing suspicion on himself.
If things actually played out this way, Mel’s killer must have hoped Riley would eventually go to the cops so that they’d suspect a serial rapist, and yet in the end it didn’t matter. Ruck was arrested in Plattsburgh less than a month later, and soon after that he was linked to Melanie’s murder.
Is Jack the killer after all? Carter College is a small school, so it’s possible Jack heard about Riley’s rape through someone. Or she might have known Jack herself and told him.
My thoughts rush toward Handler next. It’s possible that Riley, an English major, told him about her experience, hoping to get some guidance about handling school in the aftermath. Maybe when she broke down in front of Morgan, she’d only gone by the English department office in the hope of following up on an earlier conversation with Handler.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. I really have no clue.
I force myself back to the present. I call Craig’s number and book a ride for later to Edgerton, explaining that I’ll need the driver to wait for at least thirty minutes.
It’s not even noon yet, so I have several hours to kill before leaving. I told myself earlier that I wasn’t going to take Alison Handler up on her offer to see the studio, but I’ve changed my mind. Though taking a closer look at her paintings isn’t likely to tell me much, maybe talking to her will provide a tiny bit of insight about the Handlers’ world—and marriage.
I find her business card and shoot her a text, asking if it would be possible for me to drop by in the next hour.
??Yes, that would be lovely,??she replies soon afterward.??You know the address, of course.??
Hopefully Handler is hunkered down on campus today. Regardless of whether or not he locked me in theMuseoffice, I don’t want to run into him.
Even though my hip still aches a bit, I decide to go on foot to Birch Street. It’s been days since I had any real exercise, and besides, walking might help me outpace my guilt for a while and keep thoughts about Bas and Logan at bay for now.
I grab my coat and head out from the inn. Fifteen minutes later, when I’m near the north end of the campus, Chip Conway calls.
“Have you got a minute?” he asks.
“Is it about the archive? Because I never received a link.”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry about that. Melanie’s stuff is there, but I ended up in meetings all morning. Give me until later this afternoon, and I promise to get something to you.”
“Great,” I say, eager to be done. But when he coughs briefly, I realize he’s not going anywhere.
“While I’ve got you, I wanted to mention that I’ve had yet another call from that reporter from the AlbanyTimes Union, the one on the crime beat I told you about.”
“Right. Well, you just have to keep repeating the same message, Chip—that we still have nothing to say about Melanie’s case.”
