“It does. But what’s worse is not knowing why Amber is doing this to me.”
Cole was silent for a moment before he said, “Maybe it’s like Van Dean said. Maybe she’s got a message for you, and you need to figure out what she’s trying to say.”
I looked up at him. “What could she possibly want to tell me? I mean, we already know she didn’t kill Ben. What more is there to say?”
Cole’s face became quite serious. “Maybe she wants you to know who did. Maybe she wants you to know who killed both of them.”
There was a shift in my mind, something nearly indescribable, almost like a release of pressure when I hadn’t even realized there’d been pressure there, and I also suddenly felt less anxious than I had a mere moment before. The relief was incredible.
“Ohmigod,” I whispered. “Ohmigod, Cole! That’s exactly what she’s been trying to tell me!”
His eyes widened a little. “It’s just a guess, Lily.”
I shook my head. “No! It’s true! I mean, I don’t know how I know it’s true, but the second you said that, she…pulled back a little. I can’t describe it other than…It’s like the minute you said that, she eased up on the pressure that’s been making me feel so anxious.”
Cole bit his lip and turned his head toward the hallway leading to his bedroom. I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say next.
“I have my uncle’s file,” he said. “We could dig around a little.”
“You mean, like, you and me investigate the case?”
He nodded.
I laughed. Was he serious? “Cole, shouldn’t we leave that to the police? We could go to that detective who gave you the file and tell him that we know Amber didn’t murder Ben and get him to reopen the case.”
Cole stared down at his feet. “He won’t do it, Lily,” he said. “I already told him my mom and I didn’t think Amber did it, but he said he had enough on his plate without reopening closed cases. I tried to put some pressure on him a few months ago by calling a reporter for the newspaper, and getting him to publish a story about how there were a lot of unanswered questions around my uncle’s murder, but nothing happened. It seems like nobody’s willing to investigate it.”
My limbs tingled with a shot of adrenaline. The idea of looking into Amber’s and Ben’s deaths was like doing something forbidden: tempting but irrational. And yet, deep down I just knew that it was exactly what Amber wanted.
“How would we do it?”
A smile quirked the edges of Cole’s lips. “We look at the file, at the evidence collected and the interviews the police did, and see if something in there points us in a direction. Then, we go talk to some people who knew Amber and Ben, and see if they have any theories or remember something that maybe isn’t in the file.”
A foreboding chill went up my spine. “Cole?”
“Yeah?”
“What if we find out who killed them?”
“We go to the police,” he said simply. “But, Lily, we probably won’t figure it out. We’re just gonna look through the file and talk to a few people. See if we can dig up some clues big enough to convince Fredericksburg PD it’s worth looking into.”
I swallowed hard. “What if we end up talking to the killer?”
Cole blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll talk to everybody in broad daylight,” he said. “We stick together, and we don’t make any accusations or let on that we might suspect anybody. And if somebody confesses, we get the hell out and get our asses over to the police.”
“What if they chase us?”
Cole bounced his eyebrows. “My car’s really, really fast.”
I looked at him doubtfully. “Is it faster than a bullet? I mean, Cole, what’s to stop the killer from trying to shoot us like he did Ben?”
Cole was quiet a long time. “Maybe nothing,” he said at last. “But if we never let on that we suspect anybody, then maybe it’ll be okay. Like I said, we’re just asking a few questions. We’re not detectives working the case. But if you don’t want to start poking around, it’s okay. We can leave it alone.”
I shifted in my seat. Part of me wanted nothing to do with Amber and Ben’s murder file. But part of me was a little thrilled by the prospect of looking into their deaths and discovering something the police didn’t know. I definitely didn’t want to end up like Amber and Ben, though.
And yet…
What ultimately made up my mind was that, intuitively, I didn’t think the nightmares were going to stop until Cole and I managed to get the police to reopen the case. I suspected that the reason Amber was showing up so strongly in my life was because Dr. White had made her aware, in that session with him, that she was the one everyone suspected as having murdered Spence.
Amber wanted her name cleared. I felt it somewhere deep inside me. Truthfully, if the tables had been turned, I’d want my name cleared, too.
“Okay,” I said.
“You’re in?” he asked.
“Yeah. Where do we start?”