“Tom’s just like them—maybe not mean, but he tries so hard to get people to like him.”
Max could work with that. “Please, Jess.” Max was out of options. If Jess didn’t agree to help, Max would have to turn over what she had to Detective Horn, and she didn’t think it was enough. Max could think of a half dozen ways the boys could explain away why they were in the hotel, and without proof that they maliciously left Scott Sheldon to die, they’d get away with it.
Just like Karen’s killer got away with murder, because her body had never been found and he had a damn good lawyer.
“You really think they left him up there? By himself?”
“I do.”
Jess looked at her feet. “All right. I’ll call Tom.”
CHAPTER NINE
Max sat with Jess in her dorm room, an awkward silence between them. “Jess, is there anything else you want to tell me?”
She’d been biting her nails ever since she got off the phone with Tom. “I shouldn’t get involved.”
“Someone has to stand up for what’s right.” In all the investigations Max had covered, too often people had turned their back on someone who needed help. Or, were blinded by the evil in another. And just as often, Max had met people who did help, who went out of their way to care for those who couldn’t care for themselves. People who recognized evil for what it was and did something to stop it. “Do you really think Art will stop being cruel? Do you think he’ll learn any lesson from this, other than he got away with it?”
“It had to be an accident.”
“That’s what you want to believe,” Max said. And maybe it was. Maybe Art didn’t want Scott dead, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t culpable in his death.
Something Tom had said when she first talked to him came back to her.
It’s not our fault he left.
The comment could be taken in two ways. Either he left because he was mad, or left the campground before they returned for him. What if Scott didn’t think they would return? What if they gave him the impression that they wouldn’t? And when the weather turned, he might have thought he had no other choice but to try to find his way out on foot.
Jess jumped when there was a knock on the door. Max got up to answer it.
It was Tom. He saw her and turned to leave.
Max grabbed his arm and pulled him into the room. “You’re not going until you tell me the truth.”
Tom looked at Jess. “What’s going on?”
“You killed Scott!”
Max winced. Going for the jugular wouldn’t get them answers.
“Is that what she told you? That’s not true!”
Max closed the door so they wouldn’t attract an audience.
“You went along with one of Art’s stupid jokes, didn’t you?” Jess said. “I thought you were better than that. I thought you were Scott’s friend. That’s what he thought.”
“I was! I liked Scott! He just wandered off. We didn’t know what to do.”
Max said, “Tom, I know what happened, and I can prove it. You, Art, and Carlos went to the campground with Scott. But you left him there. Maybe you were having a few beers, and thought it would be fun to play a joke. He goes to pee against a tree and you all leave. Or he falls asleep by the fire, and you sneak off. Whatever you did, he was alone, and you, Carlos, and Art drove thirty-seven miles to the interstate, checked into a hotel, and ordered Corona beer from room service.”
He stared at her, obviously stunned that she knew. “Then,” she said, “Art posted a photo of you, Carlos, and Scott at the campsite. Only, he didn’t realize that whenever you upload a photo through a mobile device, it logs certain information. In this case, the GPS and time where you uploaded it. Eight thirty-nine Saturday morning—through the hotel’s Wi-Fi, with the GPS putting you at the hotel that morning. The same morning you said you woke up at the campground and Scott was still not back.
“What I think—and jump in if I’m wrong—is that you went back there Saturday morning and Scott wasn’t there. You may or may not have looked for him; probably called for him a few times. But it was raining, and it was cold. You went back to the college late, then tried to find him again Sunday morning. But it was snowing and either you pretended to look, or you didn’t even go all the way to the campsite. You didn’t tell the campus police until Sunday that Scott was missing.”
Tom was so pale, Max knew she had pegged the truth. “Had you contacted search and rescue Saturday morning, when you first realized Scott wasn’t where you’d left him, Scott would have survived.”
Jess gasped.
Tom was trembling. “No. It wasn’t like that, not exactly.”
“Then how was it?”
“I can’t—”