“Your mom, she doesn’t seem angry about your dad dying. When she talks about him, she doesn’t seem angry.”
“Wel , she used to be, for sure. For a few years. But I started to get into trouble in school, you know, and I guess she realized that I was pretty angry too. Maybe a smal part of that was me realizing I was gay and not knowing how to handle it, but mostly it was that I was so angry about Dad. That’s when she started talking to me more about everything. About how carrying that kind of anger around wil poison your whole life. So we agreed to try to let it go, and for the most part we’ve been able to.”
Hannah nodded. “That’s good.” It was impossible not to compare his life with her own. Al her life she’d blamed their problems on her father’s death and Laura’s trauma. Things might have been different if they could have let some of their pain and anger go. Hannah shifted in her seat. It occurred to her that once things had been different. Before the diary, before she had found out the truth, the only person she’d been angry at was her mother.
“What about you? Your mom?”
“Not so much.”
THEY STAYED AT ANGIE CONROY’S INN. SHE WELCOMED
THEM warmly, and asked questions about the case that neither of them wanted to answer.
“Um, look, Angie, we real y want to keep a low profile while we’re here,” Hannah said. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention to anyone that we’re visiting.”
“Of course,” Angie said, managing to look offended. “We always respect our guests’ privacy.” She offered to help them with their bags, but they politely declined and climbed the stairs alone. Their bedrooms were adjoining, on the second floor.
“Meet you downstairs in ten minutes?” Sean asked. He was conciliatory, trying to make up for what he now saw as his insensitivity.
“Fine,” Hannah said. The nicer he was, the worse she felt. They went to their rooms, dropped their bags. Hannah took a moment to use the bathroom and brush her teeth, reapply her lip gloss. Sean was waiting when she came downstairs.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. Camila and I went to the Fitzhugh apartment when we were here last.” It suddenly struck her that there had been no warnings about Jerome Pierce for that trip.
Had something happened to make Parekh more concerned this time around? Or was it simply that they were closer to the trial and tensions were rising? “Maybe we should drive by Samuel’s grandparents’ house—not to stop, I think, but just to find out where it is in case that’s where we have to speak with him.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Sean said. “I don’t think that would go wel .”
“It’s stil worth knowing where it is,” Hannah insisted. “We know that Sam wil be coming from the house tonight when he goes out. If we can figure out where he’s going, then maybe we’l be able to work out his route, and catch him along the way.”
“I thought you were planning on crashing the party.”
Hannah shrugged. “I think we should, if we have no other option.
Assuming we can get the address. But it would be better—and safer —to talk to him away from his friends, I think.”
Sean was busy with his phone. “Sam’s grandparents’ place is on Pulaski Street. It’s a five-minute drive, but it wil take us twenty minutes to walk. I think we should take the car.”
“Okay.”
Sean drove. They parked a little way down the street. The house was a two-story weatherboard home. It was pretty, even if the weatherboard was a little worse for wear and the grass overgrown.
There was no wind that day and the American flag hanging from a flagpole outside the house was limp and sad looking. Hannah’s phone buzzed. She woke the screen and checked social media, scanned the latest entries. “There’s been a lot more chatter,” she said. “It looks like the boys are planning on going to a bar before the party. Somewhere they can play pool?”
“They’re al underage, aren’t they?” Sean said. “I mean, if Sam’s eighteen presumably his friends are around the same age.”
“I guess they have fake IDs. Or maybe the bar turns a blind eye, if they need the money.”
“I’d real y rather not talk to him in a bar,” Sean said. “That’s very public.” Hannah scanned through the messages.
“I don’t think we’re going to have much choice. He’s already with friends, at someone’s house. I doubt if he’s going to go home before he goes out. The bar might be our best chance.”
Sean grimaced. “Wel , which one is it?”
“I don’t know. They al know the place they’re talking about, so no one feels the need to name it,” Hannah said, frustrated.
“Wel , let’s just try to figure it out. It’s Yorktown. How many bars can there be?” He pul ed off to the side of the road and they went through the messages together, looking for references to any specifics that might help. There wasn’t much, and in the end they decided that the reference to playing pool was al they had to go on.
There was a bar, about five miles out of town, that advertised cheap beer, a three-hour happy hour, and pool tables. It sounded like the kind of place that attracted trouble and underage drinkers.
“We should go there now,” Hannah said. “We’l find a table, get something to eat. Have a drink, settle in. We’l be there when Sam and his friends arrive.” She wanted to get this over with.
Sean agreed that it sounded like the best plan, but she could see the tension in his face.
“It’l be al right,” she said. “If he does come in, let me try to talk to him. If I can get him alone for a little while, I’l know pretty quickly whether or not there’s any point in staying and talking to him. If he shuts me down, we get out of there right away, okay?”
“Okay,” Sean said, reluctant but wil ing to go along. “That sounds like a plan.”
THE BAR WAS CALLED THE THIRSTY BEAVER, AND IT WENT
DOWNHILL from there. It wasn’t much more than a large shack and a gravel parking lot one-third ful with pickup trucks and a few beat-up sedans. Hannah and Sean went inside. There was a scattering of tables and chairs between the entrance doors and the bar, which took up the entire length of the far wal of the bar. There was a dance floor too, with a single, sad-looking disco bal . Most of the dance floor was taken up by three large pool tables and two of the tables were already in use—hard men in sleeveless shirts that exposed tattooed and muscled arms and covered generous beer bel ies. Stil , the place was less intimidating than the outside had led Hannah to expect. Most of the tables set out for dining were empty, but there were four couples seated and eating, and six or seven drinkers, comfortable enough to be regulars, were hanging out at the far end of the bar. The barmaid—she was in her thirties, with shiny dark hair tied back in a loose ponytail—looked up and smiled at Hannah.
“Get you?” she said.