Page 114 of Don't Say a Word

“It doesn’t even ring a bell. It’s like I blocked everything out on Monday.”

“Why didn’t you walk back with her from the volleyball game?” Angie said.

“I’ve thought the exact same thing a hundred times. If I had, she would still be here. I’d left some papers I wanted to grade in my classroom, went to get them and ended up in a conversation with Mrs. Porter. Fifteen minutes. And she was gone.” He shook his head. “I’ll track down Ms. Angelhart.”

“You want to talk to the PI?”

“The police said Lena called her before she was k-killed.” He cleared his throat. “But they didn’t tell me anything else.”

“I have her number.” Angie pulled her phone from her pocket and showed it to him.

He put Margo’s number into his phone. “Thank you.”

He made no move to get up, so she sat there with him. It was weird, and she wanted to go back to the game, but Mr. Parsons looked so sad.

“Um,” she said, bit her lip. “Are you okay?”

“I will be. Thank you.”

“I’m going back to the game. Do you want to watch it?”

“I’ll sit here for a minute.”

She got up. “I’ll see you tomorrow in class?”

“Yes. I’ll be there. I need to get back to work, it might help.”

Angie headed toward the gym, but looked back at Mr. Parsons. He was still sitting on the bench, watching the football practice. But she wondered if he could see anything at all.

Instead of going into the gym, she left campus and walked tothe Cactus Stop. She had a sudden urge to check in on Benny. She didn’t know if he had taken her seriously this morning, and if she had to, she would call Chris and let him know why she was worried. If anyone could convince Benny to quit, it was his brother.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Margo Angelhart

I drove to the O’Reilly house and convinced Christina’s mother to call her for me. We had a good ten-minute conversation where Christina confirmed everything Megan’s mother said, and added more details about Megan’s relationship with Scott Jimenez. She was completely attached to him. She visited him every week while he was in jail, and they planned to move in together when he got out.

Christina also remembered seeing Megan near the end of the summer after graduation. She seemed to be doing better, and said she had a part-time job. That was news to me—her mother hadn’t mentioned it, and I hadn’t seen anything about a job in her room. “Rumor was,” Christina said, “Scott was supposed to be released right before Christmas, when he turned nineteen. I heard through the grapevine that he bailed on Megan. She was already on thin ice, and that broke it.”

Christina didn’t know where Scott was or who I could talk to about him, other than his sister Desiree.

I thanked her for her time and left. Eric McMahon had texted me while I was there and said he was leaving for work at four.

I had fifteen minutes. I texted him that I would be there in five minutes.

I glanced around, noticed an older model black 4Runner I thought I’d seen turn into the neighborhood after me. The driver was still in the car, looking at his phone. I made a mental note, but when I pulled away from the curb, he didn’t follow.

It took me five minutes to get to Eric’s house.

Eric refused to let me inside. We stood on his porch, him with his arms crossed, glaring at me, even after I explained who I was and what I was doing. He was a lean six feet and would have been attractive if he didn’t have a chip on his shoulder a mile wide, and eyes that looked older than his years.

“I can’t help you,” he said.

“What I’m trying to understand is how Coach Bradford’s drug distribution network operated.”

“Why do you care?”

“As I told you, an honors student died of a drug overdose, and I don’t think it was an accident. I think someone poisoned him.”