“Okay. Fine. But I need to see you. To be alone with you.” He leaned in so close now, she thought he was going to kiss her. The idea nauseated her. She pulled her head back.
“Not here. In case a neighbor is watching. Let’s wait.”
“Until when? You don’t have Leo this weekend, right? You had him last weekend.”
She shuddered despite the warm air. He knew her schedule. She had allowed him into the most personal crevices of her life. “Right.”
“Okay, then we’ll do something this weekend. I’m dying without you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m fucking dying. I can’t go on like this.”
Her whole body rigid, Tori took her chance and pulled back from him, disentangling her fingers. “Good night. I’ll see you this weekend.”
On the balls of her bare feet, she ran back to her house, her kimono fluttering behind her. Inside, she locked the door and chained it. She had not been able to get rid of him, but at least she had bought herself a little time.
THIRTY-ONE
Finn and I walk out of Tori’s office building shrouded in a heavy silence that seems to hang over just us two, like our own personal storm cloud. We’re both too stunned to speak to each other on the way back to the car. I’m afraid to even glance at Finn, as if the slightest tilt of an eyebrow will loosen the scream I am holding so tightly. It isn’t until we are both back in my car, the door shut, and we are in our own muffled semi-soundproof space that I let out a guttural howl.
“What the actual?” I turn to face him. “I don’t even know where to begin. I know I’m supposed to be horrified that she was sleeping with Van, but all I can think about is my daughter was involved, yes only briefly, but still involved with someone who is violent and controlling. I mean, am I being self-involved here?”
“No, you’re a mom and you’re freaked out.”
“Thank you. I am a mom who’s freaked out. I mean, I’m grateful that nothing really bad happened to Rachel, but my gosh, this kid is a piece of work.”
“Umm, so is Tori.”
“Oh, I agree. Totally. I mean, what is wrong with that woman? I wanted her to keep talking so I didn’t interrupt her, but seriously?”
Finn nods. “Completely insane. On so many levels. And she’s a therapist treating other people.”
“Right?” I try to piece together what Tori Price confessed with the timeline of Rachel’s junior year. It seems like Tori’s affair with Van was way after he ended things with Rachel. So at least my daughter is not involved in any way. “And she was basically saying what? That she thinks Van killed Autumn. I mean, that is what she was saying, right? That he lost it when she broke up with him?”
Finn shrugs, looking nauseated. “I don’t know what to think. But it’s definitely what she was implying. That he had a temper.”
“That’s what Rachel said too. He wouldn’t let her leave his room. He made her crawl out a window.”
Finn’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay, so that’s not good. He sounds very controlling about women. But do you think he could kill someone? Did he have access to a gun?”
I shrug. “Why not? More people own guns than you might think. The Allards really changed when Daniel inherited all this money from his dad. You could kind of tell they thought they had leveled up or something. But it wasn’t just money. It was a sense of entitlement. The way they would throw their weight around, get rules bent to favor their kids.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s weird. They always acted like the sun rose and set on Van. I remember when he played on the same youth soccerteam with Zach and Jo felt the coach wasn’t giving Van enough time. She got him fired. I don’t know how she did it. But after Daniel inherited that money, they lost touch with reality. In high school they bought him a Range Rover.” She turns to squint at Finn. “Do you know how much a Range Rover costs? Close to a hundred K.”
Finn lets out a low whistle.
“He totaled it in the first month. A girl was in the front seat and she broke her collarbone. No consequences for Van. When I saw the Allards right after, I distinctly remember thinking that they must be mortified but they both laughed it off. They replaced it with a Jeep. Daniel said, ‘Until he stops crashing cars, he’s going to have to drive a Jeep.’ He actually said that.”
Finn shakes his head in disgust and we drive in silence down River Road for a few minutes. As we wend our way past the familiar houses in my neighborhood, I feel like I am seeing it through Finn’s eyes and I don’t like what I see. Well-maintained houses with tasteful lawns hide the pulsing, grasping, striving that permeates everything. The feeling that this world is in danger if we don’t stockpile what we can and guard it with our life.
Finn pulls up in front of my house and parks.
“What now?” I ask.
“I’m going to reach out to that detective I told you about and tell him what we learned. That’s the only thing I can think of doing. What about you?”
“Obviously I want to talk to Kenya and Shawn about the message that you saw. But don’t worry, I won’t get you in trouble. I feel like I’m in the middle of some horrible elaborate prank that everyone is in on except me. Even Miguel and Yumi.It looks on the surface like it was about that gold bracelet, but that’s not enough to explain all these lies, all this manipulation.”
“Murder. That’s a motive.”
