Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER THIRTY

RILEY AND EVAN get back into the car and sit. ‘What now?' Evan asks.

Riley says, ‘Maybe we just wait and see if he comes out.' Evan shrugs.

She wonders if there's any point in them being here. Her mind drifts for a while. Then she sees a large, beefy man come out the back entrance of the building and walk in the direction of the truck. She nudges Evan's arm, feels him lean forward beside her. As the man gets closer, she recognizes him from his photo – the red hair and unkempt beard. She finds her heart beating faster.

‘That's him.' Suddenly she's frightened. This is the man who might have murdered Diana. Who might have sat outside her house that night in that truck. It occurs to her now that they didn't tell anyone where they were going, what they were doing.

Prior is carrying a large canvas bag in his right hand. He tosses the bag into the passenger seat and climbs in.

‘What if that bag has evidence he's getting rid of?' Riley says, turning to face Evan. ‘We should follow him.'

Evan says uneasily, ‘You sure you want to do this?'

‘We owe it to Diana, don't we?' Riley answers.

Evan waits until the truck pulls out of the parking lot and then follows at a safe distance. Prior soon drives onto the on-ramp to I-91 North. ‘I wonder where he's going,' Riley says.

‘Please promise me that if he turns off into the countryside somewhere to dump that bag we're not going to confront him,' Evan says.

‘We'll just see where he goes, that's all.'

They drive some distance behind him, keeping the truck in sight without being too obvious about it. They follow him for well over an hour, easily keeping the truck in sight, but Prior stays on the highway. They spend much of the drive in tense silence, each alone with their thoughts.

‘The Canadian border – that's where he's headed,' Evan says suddenly. ‘There's nothing else up here.'

‘We can't follow him over the border. We didn't bring our passports. Do you think he's trying to make a run for it?'

‘Maybe.'

When they've been following Prior for an hour and a half, they reach the border crossing at Derby Line. Evan pulls over to the side as they watch Joe Prior and his truck pass into Canada.

Riley is dismayed. ‘What if he's getting away!' she cries. ‘Evan, what if he killed her?'

‘We can tell the detectives,' Evan says. ‘At least they'll know when and where he went over the border.'

Riley is suddenly convinced that Joe Prior is the man who murdered her best friend. Why else would he run? She pulls out her phone. Evan turns the car around and they begin the long drive back to Fairhill.

Ellen sits frozen on the couch as Brad closes the apartment door behind the reporter. The silence between them is like a loaded gun.

‘Now that she's gone,' Ellen says, looking coldly at him, her heart beating rapidly in fear, ‘you can tell me the truth.'

He seems taken aback. ‘I have told you the truth, I swear!' He sits down beside her. ‘Sweetheart, I never told you about any of this because it was all bullshit, and I didn't want to upset you over nothing. Both Kelly and I knew it was all lies, that's why nothing came of it. If I'd really done anything inappropriate, do you think Kelly would have done nothing? I'd have lost my job if there was anything to it! It was all teenage theatrics. That girl was a fantasist.'

She stares at him. This is a very different picture of Diana than what she got before. She says slowly, ‘Well, which was it – a misunderstanding, or lies?'

He's silent, as if realizing he's slipped up. She presses him. ‘Did she misinterpret what you did, or did she make it up?' She knows she sounds strident, accusatory, but this is all such a shock.

‘Some of it she misinterpreted, but she lied too. Exaggerated.'

‘Why would she do that?'

‘I have no idea. It all just came out of the blue. No one was more surprised than me. You have no idea how distressing it was. I wondered …' He hesitates to say it.

‘What?'

‘I did wonder if maybe she'd had a crush on me, and when I ignored her she might have wanted some kind of revenge. That's the sort of thing teenage girls do.'

‘Is it?' Her voice is hard. She's not so sure. Her experience of the world is quite different. She finds it hard to believe that a girl that everyone seemed to find so smart and kind would do such a thing. She stares at him – he's in such obvious distress – and wonders if he's lying to her.

‘You don't believe me,' he says, his voice chilly. He adds, in a hostile tone, ‘You actually think I was inappropriate with one of my students.'

When he says that, she's suddenly unsure, afraid of losing him. She wants to believe him. ‘Of course I don't!' she protests. Because she simply can't believe it. She refuses to believe it. But now she knows why he's been so upset these last couple of days, since Diana was murdered. Not just because he has lost a student in such horrible circumstances. He's been afraid that this would come out, and that it would ruin his reputation, even though it was all a misunderstanding or outright lies; he's afraid people will believe this of him. She thinks suddenly of her parents – what will they believe? And now it will come out, because this reporter knows about it. It appals her, the thought of what's ahead of them. How will she face people? This is a small town, and everyone gossips.

He takes both her hands in his and says to her, his voice serious, ‘We have to be strong, Ellen.'

She nods, numbly; he's afraid of the same thing, she realizes, about how people talk.

‘The detectives will probably want to talk to you,' he says.

She's confused. ‘Why?'

He looks back at her as if she's stupid. ‘Because I have no alibi.'

The full horror of their situation settles upon her then. He's saying that he might be a suspect in Diana's murder. It hadn't even occurred to her.

‘I can help you,' he says, ‘with what to say to the police.'

Cameron paces his small bedroom endlessly, back and forth, back and forth, between the desk and the wall, over and over. He's either pacing like this or curled up in a ball on his bed; there's nothing in between. He keeps reliving the long day at the police station yesterday, those catastrophic interviews. They'd questioned him relentlessly, pushing and pushing until he thought he was going to just break down and tell them anything they wanted to hear. Then his father had stepped in to protect him, and got him an attorney.

He's not sure it went any better after that.

He's made a big mistake. He should not have admitted to getting out of the truck. They said it as if they already knew. But how could they have known? What did you do when you got out of the truck, Cameron? And so he'd slipped up by admitting it. He shouldn't have. They could tell someone had been in the grass behind the house, and now they're sure it's him. He told them he was there.

When they'd spoken, before resuming the interview, his attorney had warned him that they had enough at this point that they would soon get a warrant for his phone. He'd asked him if there was anything on it they needed to worry about. So Cameron had shown him the messages to Diana, him apologizing, begging forgiveness, saying he was outside in his truck. The lawyer told him it was okay that he'd already admitted that they'd argued, that he was there, outside her house, that he wanted to talk to her. They were going to find out anyway, as soon as they took his phone. But telling them he got out of the truck? That was on him – the attorney didn't know about that. That was a mistake. His attorney hadn't been happy about it. He should have just handed over the phone and kept his mouth shut.

Now he's the prime suspect. The police think he went in through the back and killed her. He's pretty sure that's what his attorney and his parents think too.

They will arrest him soon. Oh God, what is he going to do?