“Everyone thought Nicole was so perfect, but she was just good at pretending to be good. We got in a lot of trouble together. We used to laugh about it sometimes. How your mom was always so tough on you but didn’t know what Nicole was really up to most of the time.”
“It seems none of us knew what was really going on in her life, not in those last few months anyway.”
“It’s still scary, thinking about her murder. When you’re a teenager you don’t think stuff like that will happen, not to someone you know. Kids stopped going to the lake, or if they did, her murder was all they wanted to talk about. Everyone pretended they were friends with her, or that they knew you and Ryan. I never went out there again, never even talked about her, but I thought about her all the time. I didn’t understand how someone could hate her that much.”
She met my eyes, her expression suddenly nervous, like she was worried she’d said too much.
She said, “I have to go,” and stepped back inside the house, locking the door behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CAMPBELL RIVER
JULY 2013
I went back to the campsite and logged onto the office computer, checking to see if I’d gotten any e-mails. There was one about a landscaping job I’d applied for months ago. They wanted to know if I was still looking. I e-mailed back that I was interested and would love to come in for an interview. I didn’t know if I’d be on parole for much longer, but I had another meeting with Suzanne coming up and I needed to show her I was trying. Plus, I needed money. I gave Suzanne a call, but she wasn’t around. I’d been hoping to get a sense of what might be going on.
When I was finished, I did some online searches for a Dave Jorgensen. Unfortunately, it was a pretty common name, and I didn’t see anyone who might be my sister’s old boyfriend. I looked up some people we went to school with on Facebook, then checked their friends’ lists, but there was no one with that name.
Exhausted from all the stress of the last couple of days, I tried to have a nap but I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d learned from Darlene about that last year with Nicole. According to Darlene, Nicole might’ve broken up with Dave a couple weeks before she started hanging out with the girls. So why was she still sneaking out? Had they reconnected? I’d assumed her necklace had been lost that night, but maybe the killer had taken it. But if this guy was the real murderer, why had the girls lied at my trial? Just because they hated me?
It was possible, but my gut told me Shauna was involved more deeply in Nicole’s death than just lying at my trial, something that seemed even more likely now that Darlene had revealed that Shauna had been angry with Nicole. Could Shauna have been involved with this Dave guy too? She didn’t have a boyfriend that last year, not that I remembered. Something had been going on. But what?
I’d hoped talking to Darlene would help me clear things up, but now I had more questions than answers. The only thing I knew for sure was that my sister had had a secret life. One that had probably gotten her killed.
*
The next morning I headed into town to do some shopping, but when I got to the plaza I noticed Ashley’s car in the parking lot. Her boyfriend was sitting behind the wheel, smoking, and Ashley was standing outside the car. Shauna’s car was parked beside them, and she was also standing outside. They were obviously fighting about something, their faces angry and their hands stabbing at the air as they made their points. I parked around the corner where I could see them. They exchanged a few more angry words, then Ashley got into her car while her mom was still talking and slammed the door in her face. Ashley and Aiden drove off, Ashley wiping at her cheeks like she was crying, and Shauna staring after them, her face flushed and her mouth an angry line. She got back in her car and started talking to someone on her cell. Whatever Shauna was pissed about, I was sure Ashley’s letting her boyfriend drive her car hadn’t helped matters. Shauna put down the phone and drove around the corner of the plaza. Curious, I decided to follow her.