“Oh, Chloe. I love how naive you are. That’s the beauty of being a kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” I said, sitting up, too. “Besides, his room is locked.”
“Do you have a credit card?”
“No,” I said, embarrassed again. Did Lena have a credit card? I didn’t know any fifteen-year-olds with credit cards—Cooper definitely didn’t have one—but then again, Lena was different. “I have a library card.”
“Of course you do,” she said, pushing herself up from the grass. She held her hand out, her palms rippled with the indents from the blades, specks of soil stuck to the skin. I took it, damp with sweat, and stood up, too, watching as she picked the weeds from the backs of her thighs. “Let’s go. Honestly, I have to teach you everything.”
We walked inside, stopping by my room to grab the small purse that held my library card before crossing the hall to Cooper’s.
“See,” I said, jiggling the handle. “Locked.”
“Does he always lock his bedroom?”
“Ever since I found these gross magazines under his bed.”
“Cooper!” she said, raising her eyebrows. She looked more impressed than disgusted. “Naughty boy. Here, give me the card.”
I handed it over, watching as she stuck it through the crack.
“First, check the hinges,” she said, jostling the card. “If you can’t see them, it’s the right kind of lock. You need the slant of the latch to be facing towards you.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to fight down the panic that was rising in my throat.
“Next, insert the card at an angle. Once the corner is in, straighten it up. Like this.”
I watched, mesmerized as she pushed the card deeper and deeper into the opening, applying pressure to the door. The card started to bend, and I said a prayer that it wouldn’t break.
“How do you know how to do this?” I finally asked.
“Oh, you know,” she said, wiggling the card. “You get grounded so many times and you learn to let yourself out.”
“Your parents lock you inside your room?”
She ignored me, giving the card a few more good yanks until, finally, the door pushed open.
“Ta-da!”
She twirled around, a look of satisfaction on her face until I saw her expression slowly change. Mouth open, eyes wide. Then, a smile.
“Oh,” she said, placing her hand on a popped hip. “Hey, Coop.”
Aaron laughs now, polishing off his latte before placing the to-go cup on the ground by his feet.
“So he caught you?” he asks. “Before you even got inside?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “He was standing right behind me, watching the whole thing from the stairwell. I think he was just waiting to see if we could get in.”
“No weed for you, then.”
“No,” I say, smiling. “That would have to wait a few years. But I don’t think that’s what Lena was really after, anyway. I think she wanted to get caught. To get his attention.”
“Did it work?”
“No,” I say. “That kind of thing never worked on Cooper. It kind of had the opposite effect, actually. He sat me down that night and talked to me about not doing drugs, the importance of good role models, blah, blah, blah.”
The sun is peeking out now, and almost instantly, the temperature seems to rise a few degrees, the humidity getting thick like churning milk. I feel my cheeks start to burn—I can’t tell if it’s from the sun on my face or from sharing this intimate memory with a stranger. I don’t really know what drove me to tell it.
“So, why did you want to meet me?” Aaron asks, sensing my desire to change the subject. “Why the change of heart?”
“I saw Lacey’s body this morning,” I say. “And the last time we met, you were telling me to trust my instincts.”
“Wait, back up,” he interrupts. “You saw Lacey’s body? How?”
“She was found in the alleyway behind my office. Stashed behind a dumpster.”
“Jesus.”
“They asked me to look at her, try to identify if anything looked different from the last time I saw her. If anything was missing.”
Aaron is quiet, waiting for me to continue. I exhale, turn toward him.
“She was missing a bracelet,” I say. “And back when I was at the cemetery, I came across an earring. An earring that belonged to Aubrey. At first I thought it probably just fell out of her ear when her body was being dragged or something, but then I realized that it was a part of a set. She had a matching necklace, too. I never saw Aubrey’s body, but if she was found without that necklace—”
“You think the killer is taking their jewelry,” Aaron interrupts. “As a kind of prize.”
“That was my dad’s thing,” I say, the admission, even after all these years, still making me nauseated. “They caught him because I found a box of his victim’s jewelry hidden in the back of his closet.”
Aaron’s eyes widen before he looks down at his lap, processing the information I just gave him. I wait a minute before continuing again.
“I know it’s a stretch, but I think it’s at least worth looking into.”
“No, you’re right.” Aaron nods. “It’s a coincidence we can’t ignore. Who would have known about that?”
“Well, my family, obviously. The police. The victims’ parents.”
“Is that it?”
“My dad took a plea deal,” I say. “Not all of the evidence was presented publicly. So yeah, I think so. Unless somehow the word got out.”
“Can you think of anybody on that list that would have a reason to do something like this? Any police officers who got too obsessed with the case, maybe?”
“No.” I shake my head. “No, the cops were all—”
I stop, a realization settling over me. My family. The police.
The victims’ parents.
“There was one man,” I start, slowly. “One of the victims’ parents. Lena’s dad. Bert Rhodes.”
Aaron looks at me, nods for me to continue.
“He … didn’t handle things well.”
“His daughter was murdered. I don’t think most people would.”
“No, this wasn’t normal grief,” I say. “This was something different. This was rage. And even before the murders, there was something about him that was just … off.”
I think back to Lena, jimmying my brother’s locked door. Her involuntary admission, that slip of the tongue. Pretending not to hear when I pressed her for more.
Your parents lock you inside your room?
Aaron nods, blows a steady stream of air through his pursed lips.
“What did you say the other day about copycats?” I ask. “They can either revere or revile?”
“Yeah,” Aaron says. “There are two different categories of copycats, generally speaking. There are people who admire a murderer and want to mimic their crimes as a form of respect, and then there are people who disagree with a murderer in some way—maybe they have an opposing political belief or just think they’re overhyped and want to do it better—so they mirror their crimes as a way to draw attention away from their predecessor and toward themselves. But either way, it’s a game.”
“Well, Bert Rhodes reviled my father. For good reason, but still. It seemed unhealthy. Like an obsession.”
“Okay,” Aaron says at last. “Okay. Thanks for telling me this. Are you going to bring it to the police?”
“No,” I say, probably too quickly. “Not yet, at least.”
“Why, is there more?”
I shake my head, deciding not to mention the other part of my theory—that the person taking these girls is talking to me, specifically. Taunting me. Testing me. Wanting me to the put pieces together. I don’t want Aaron to start to doubt my sanity here, to discount everything I just said if I take it a step too far. I want to do some research of my own first.
“No. I’m just not ready for that yet. It’s too soon.”
I stand up, pushing a wisp of hair from my forehead that the wind has loosened from my bun. I exhale, turning toward Aaron to say goodbye, when I notice him looking at me in a way I’ve never seen from him before. There’s concern in his eyes.
“Chloe,” he says. “Hang on a second.”
“Yeah?”
He hesitates, as if trying to decide if he should continue. He makes up his mind and leans toward me, his voice low and steady.
“Just promise me you’ll take care of yourself, okay?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO