“Maybe Rebecca came back to be with him. Or to give him the child.” Georgia says.
“What?” Luke says. “She wouldn’t just give her baby to him?”
“It’s a real possibility, Luke.” Georgia glances over to him. “How do you think some of these wealthy parents would feel if they found out they sent their daughter to a very prestigious school to get a top-notch education only for her to get pregnant by the local mechanic?”
“It wouldn’t be good,” he confirms.
“So what? She came back to town to give the baby to Joe Sr.” I weigh that in my head. I’m not used to playing these class status games. These people often feel like they’re from a different planet. They truly don’t have a moral compass that follows normal rules, so really nothing is out of the question here. “You know, she was really popular and involved in a ton of shit.” I shuffle through a few of the papers and find the ones from the yearbooks we’d taken copies of.
“She’s in a ton of groups; shout-outs in the back of the yearbook. You do all those extra activities to put on your college application. Rebecca very much had plans to go to college, in my opinion,” Georgia adds.
I close my eyes, shaking my head. “What year are we in?” Even twenty years ago, women having babies out of wedlock was acceptable by society. “So she went back home to hide out and have the baby? Then came back and handed it over?”
“I’m not saying that; I’m just saying it’s a possibility, but the reality is, whatever the reason she came back, Joe Sr. killed her over it.” Georgia says.
“But like the cops back then, we don’t have proof of that. Only theories.” Grant adds.
He’s not wrong, but there’s no doubt in my mind it’s Joe Sr. It’s always the partner.
“I still can’t believe her parents weren’t here burning this town down.” I would be.
“A rich girl from the right family, hiding her relationship with the local mechanic wasn’t worth the scandal her parents would endure if the truth came out.” Georgia says.
“It’s true. My mother would have lost her mind if I got a girl pregnant.” Luke’s eyes drop suddenly to my stomach. It hits me that I never told him I’m on birth control. We’ve never had any talk about that. I’m going to blame it on the Coach Murphy. Harsh, yes, but she was a predator, so I don’t feel bad.
I pick up one of the pictures of Rebecca. She’s wearing a hoodie with our school colors. The girl had what most would call everything—money, status, the right last name—and she still ended up in pieces at the bottom of the lake.
“Joey. You think he knows?” I ask.
“He has to know what his father did. He grew up in this town,” Grant says.
“They are close,” I add. In the short time I was around the two of them, I could tell that.
“So he’s repeating it,” Luke says, his voice hard. “Murphy. The dismemberment. He’s finishing what his father started.”
I’m shaking my head. I don’t understand the reasoning. Does he hope if he did it the same way it wouldn’t lead back to him? I mean, I never would have guessed him to be involved in this. Luke never cared for him, but he doesn’t care for most people.
“But why Murphy?” Grant asks, taking a bite of his sandwich. “Why now?”
I think of Emily. About how she too left town. “Because Murphy had something he wanted. Or did at one point. He wanted to punish her.”
Georgia’s knee stops bouncing. She looks at me, really looks at me, and I see the understanding click into place. “Emily,” she whispers.
“Emily,” I confirm. “Joey was obsessed with her. Murphy had her attention for a period of time, and he couldn’t handle it.”
“So he kills Murphy?” Grant sounds skeptical. I don’t blame him. I’m still half denying it in my head, but I can’t put blinders on. “That’s extreme.”
“Obsession can make you do some pretty extreme things,” I say. I should know. I’m sitting three feet from Luke, who keeps finding reasons to touch me.
He looks up from his notepad, catches my eye, and holds it. He knows I’m talking about him too. About how far he’d go. But I don’t think he’d kill me. He might lock me in a basement and keep me. He’s rich too. I bet it would be a really nice one. Might not be so bad. I could get a cat.
“Okay,” Grant says, jerking me back to the task at hand. Where my focus should be. “So we have a theory. Joey killed Murphy, copying his father’s crime. But we still don’t have proof. And we still don’t know where Emily fits now.”
“Right! Oh God.” I go to hop off the table, but Luke moves quickly and grabs my hips to help me go down the four inches my feet are from the ground. I can’t deal with him, and I love it. “This was plotted. Like we said from the start, it’s strange that Emily was lured back to town.”
“By Joey,” Georgia adds.
I nod but keep going. “Then Coach Murphy is dead, so either he wants to set Emily up for it or he thought this could pull them back together?”
