“Are you crazy? What if he’s the killer?”
“What if he is, Lily?” Cole said. “By the looks of that picture of him in the yearbook, he’ll be an old man by now. Plus, he won’t know who we are or where we live. We’ll give him fake names, and talk about Ben and Amber and see how he reacts. If he gets upset or says something suspicious, we’ll call Mike.”
“Who’s Mike?”
Cole pointed to the file. “Mike Hasslett, the detective who gave me the file.”
“Can’t we just go to him now and tell him what your mom said and have him go talk to Bishop?”
Cole gripped the back of the kitchen chair. “You gotta know Mike,” he said. “He’s a nice guy, but really lazy.”
“What about one of the other detectives?” I pressed.
Cole laughed. “One of the other…oh, yeah. You’re from Richmond, where they have a full-scale police department. There’re only four detectives on staff in Fredericksburg, and they have to cover everything from car accidents to drugs to murders. They’re way understaffed, Lily. I know from experience that they don’t like to investigate anything they don’t really have to.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of my mom’s ex-boyfriends broke in here a couple of years ago and stole a bunch of our stuff to get even with her for breaking up with him, and the detective who showed up, some old geezer named Cromely, didn’t do anything more than file a report and try to talk Mom out of pressing charges ’cause it was more work for him. He wanted to let the guy off with a warning.” When I stared at him in stunned silence, he added, “Glad you moved to such a safe community with a top-notch police force, right?”
That made me crack a smile. “They do sound pathetic,” I said.
“Yep.”
“Cole, all kidding aside, what you’re talking about is dangerous.”
“It’s only dangerous if Bishop murdered Ben and Amber. If not, then it’s just talking to a guy who used to teach at our school. Besides, we could both outrun a guy in his seventies, right?”
I wrung my hands together, undecided.
Cole bounced the keys in his hand and said, “I’m gonna go. I can drop you off at home if you want, but I’m heading over there.”
I glared at him. Why was he so stubborn? But I couldn’t very well let him go on his own. If it was a risky mission for both of us, it was definitely riskier for one of us. With a heavy sigh, I grabbed my purse and said, “Fine. I’ll go. But if he pulls a gun, I’m throwing you in front of the line of fire and running.”
“I can live with that,” he said with a grin.
“Not if he has good aim.”
But Cole’s playful grin only widened, so I rolled my eyes and headed toward the door.
We arrived in Bumpass—a gorgeous and obviously expensive community surrounding Lake Anna—in well under an hour. On our way to the address I’d found for Bishop, we drove past huge homes dotting the lakefront.
Finally, we stopped in front of a long drive, which wound up a hill to a picturesque house perched at the top. The house was like something out of a magazine, with a series of gables along the front, a huge wraparound porch, and gingerbread accents all over.
There was something very familiar about it. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I’d seen the house before.
“Wow,” Cole said as he leaned toward me to look up at the place. “That’s a big house for a former teacher.”
“It is,” I agreed. I wondered how he’d been able to afford it. “Maybe he did something else after he left Chamberlain High. Something that made him a buttload of money.”
Cole frowned skeptically, but then pointed down the road. “There’s a sign for a public boat launch,” he said. “Let’s park there and see if there’s a beach we can walk to get a better look at the house from the back.”
Cole drove to the boat launch and, sure enough, there was a small parking lot, which was nearly full of cars, but we found a slot and got out.
“There,” I said, pointing to the right, where a trail led to the beach. “That might go all the way back to Bishop’s house.”
“Let’s do this,” Cole said.
He walked around to my side, and I was surprised when he took my hand. I hadn’t thought there was any romance going on between us that afternoon, so it was a really sweet surprise.
We walked in silence, and I was glad to see the beach was mostly empty. It was also very narrow in places, and I wondered if we might’ve been trespassing at times. Although the beach was continuous, I didn’t know if the beachfronts were public or private. There weren’t any signs to indicate one way or the other, and Cole walked like he belonged there. His confidence gave me courage.
At last we made it to the beach in front of Bishop’s place. We came upon it suddenly as it was around a small peninsula, and Cole saw it first. He stopped and pointed toward the hill.
“There,” he said.