“About my daughter?”
“Yes, and no,” I said. “See, we don’t think that Amber had anything to do with Ben Spencer’s murder.” Mrs. Greeley’s gaze darted to Cole, he nodded, and she turned back to me with less suspicion and more curiosity. “We think,” I continued, “that there might have been a teacher involved.”
“What?” she said, her eyes widening. “Why do you think that?”
“Something my mom said,” Cole told her. “She remembers seeing a man on her front porch threatening my uncle a couple of weeks before he was murdered. She heard the name Bishop and says the police were told about it, but they never followed up on the lead. It turns out that a guy named David Bishop used to teach at Chamberlain High. And we know from this”—Cole paused to pull up the yearbook we’d brought with us from the car, and turn to the pages we’d marked—“that both Amber and Ben knew him.”
Gina seemed very rattled by the appearance of the yearbooks and the images captured inside. “Have you gone to the police?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
She brushed her bangs away from her eyes. “That’s probably wise,” she said, but her mouth had drawn into a thin line. “This teacher named Bishop isn’t much to go on, and I doubt those sons of bitches would reopen the case. They blamed Amber for Ben’s murder, and never once believed me when I insisted my daughter didn’t commit suicide. Still, it could just be a coincidence.”
“We don’t think it is,” I said. “We think he had something to do with both their murders. And we also think my grandmother might in some way be involved, too.”
“What?” she said, clearly shocked by my accusations. “Why?”
I looked at Cole for reassurance, and he nodded. “Because we found out where Bishop lives now.”
“Where he lives now?” she repeated. “What does that have to do with Amber’s and Spence’s murders?”
“Bishop lives in a house that used to belong to my grandmother,” I confessed. “It’s on a lake in Bumpass.”
Gina’s mouth fell open. “You’re telling me this teacher moved to that lake house?”
“You know about it?”
Gina got up and stepped a little away from us to fold her arms across her chest, as if she were suddenly very cold. “I know about the house,” she said. “I thought your grandparents sold it.”
“I asked my grandmother about it when I was looking at an old photo album of hers a few years ago. She said it’d been taken over by a friend of the family, but she’d said it in a way that made me think she wasn’t so happy about it.”
Gina was visibly trembling now, and when at last she turned back to us and moved to the table again to sit down, she was quite pale. “Who have you told about this?”
“Nobody,” Cole said.
She put a hand on Cole’s arm and squeezed it. “Don’t,” she said. “Do you hear me?”
“What?” I asked. “Gina, this man could’ve murdered your daughter. And if my grandmother was involved…I mean, she’s my grandmother, but if she had anything to do with Amber’s death, then I know my mom and I can’t live with her, or, honestly, let her get away with it.”
It dawned on me in that moment that I felt no real love for my grandmother. There’d always been something about her that was off. Her manipulations. Her conniving ways. How she bullied everyone around her. All of it left me wanting nothing to do with her. And then I had to wonder why? What would Grandmother possibly have against the teenaged daughter of her hairstylist? What had Amber or Spence done to Maureen Bennett? What was the connection between them other than Gina Greeley?
I glanced over at Gina, who I was surprised was shaking her head sadly at me, as though I wasn’t really getting it.
“Lily, I’m going to tell you something that you have to promise me you will never, ever repeat. Do you promise? Both of you?”
“I do,” I said.
“Me, too,” Cole added.
Taking a big breath, Gina said, “Your grandmother is an incredibly powerful woman. She runs this town. Always has. Always will. That has never been something anyone from here has ever questioned, but after my daughter died there were rumors that I’ve always refused to believe. People can be vicious and cruel, and I thought it was just the town gossip, but the rumor going around was that Maureen Bennett shut down the investigation into Ben Spencer’s murder the moment my daughter was found dead. The day after Amber died, one of my closest friends swore to me that she saw Maureen having a long lunch with the detective assigned to the case—”
“Detective Paparella?” Cole said.
Gina sat back in surprise. “Yes. You’ve heard his name before?”