Page 153 of Don't Say a Word

I watched Cal. He worked the nurses, Angie, even me. He was charismatic. It was subtle, but it was undeniable. The guy who stalked me—okaytailedme—was extremely affable.

Probably charmed everyone he met. A regular Mr. Prince Charming.

I couldn’t help but wonder exactly where his scar was.

“So, that’ll take them awhile—in the meantime, I’d like to pick your brain,” Cal said.

Angie looked at me.

“You’re not in any trouble,” I told her. “Right, Cal?”

“Not at all. I mean, if you weremykid, I might lock you in your room until you turned twenty-one for sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, but I did worse.” He grinned again, an easy smile that, this time, reached his deep blue eyes.

Cal continued. “You know something. You don’t know you know it. Between Margo here and Officer Morales—Josie—I think I know what’s been going on. One of the reasons my bosses love me even when I drive them crazy is because I see patterns. I see how things fit together—or don’t—and that solves cases.”

I thought back to how he tweaked the information on myboard at the office and how everything became so much clearer when he moved a few connections around.

“And I’ve gone over everything that happened in the last few weeks. Plus, Margo came up with the one thing I missed three years ago.”

“The work permit?” I asked, thinking about Scott Jimenez.

He frowned at me. “Okay, I missedtwothings. The big one? Coach Bradford wasn’t the only adult involved at Sun Valley High School. Margo thinks that Lena Clark was killed because of something she learned, because she was asking questions about Elijah Martinez and maybe she got a sense that something was wrong. Maybe someone lied. Maybe someone looked at her the wrong way. Maybe she asked the wrong question to the wrong person.

“I’d like you to relax, close your eyes, and go back to Monday,” Cal said to Angie in a hypnotic voice. “You went to the volleyball game and Mrs. Clark came to talk to you.”

Angie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She was tense and trying to relax. I’m sure the pain didn’t help. “She saw me coming out of the bathroom,” Angie said. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I’d cut school.”

“A witness said that you were arguing.”

“Yeah. I felt bad for cutting school because Mrs. Clark had always been so nice to me, but I didn’t think anyone cared about what happened to Elijah. And—it was more than that.”

“How?”

“I was mad at myself for not making Elijah tell me what was going on. I knew something was off with him. But he was so prideful, he didn’t want to ask for help. Not from me, not even from Andy who was his best friend since they were little. Like me and Gina.”

“Okay,” Cal said, “you argued. What did Mrs. Clark say?”

“I don’t remember. Really, I don’t. Except that Elijah’s mom had hired a private investigator to find out what happened that night. How he got to the park, who he was with, that stuff. Shewanted me to sit down with her and the PI, but right then I knew I wanted to talk to her—you—” she glanced at me “—alone. I didn’t want Mrs. Clark there as a buffer where I couldn’t say what I wanted. So I went to her office and took the card.”

“You told the police that Mr. Borel saw you leaving the office,” Cal said. “I read the report,” he added when I glanced at him. Then he smiled again. “I told you, I see connections, but that’s only because I read fast.”

I almost laughed. He was both supremely self-confident and humble at the same time. It was almost endearing.

“Yeah, I got out of there fast.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No.” She paused. “Yes. Not really.”

“What do you mean by no, yes, not really?”

“I was leaving and I was going to go out the closest door because I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but I heard two people coming in, talking. One was I think Mrs. Clark. Because of her jewelry.”

I nodded, said, “Lena Clark wore a lot of necklaces.”

“Yeah, but—” Angie paused.

“What did you remember?” Cal asked.