I was already a part of this. The least I could do was educate myself.
I sat at my laptop, typed in her name. Got a bunch of social media hits but couldn’t find that image Kyle had shown me—of the gap-toothed smile with my features, staring back. I tried the online White Pages but found nothing in the area. She probably used her cell instead of a landline. I looked through the recent local papers, but there was no reference to her name or the crime itself. If she were dead, they could print her name. If next of kin gave permission, she would be in here.
I’d have to find her. I looked up the number for media relations at the nearest hospital. Tapped my finger repeatedly on the table, debating.
I dialed the number and hit call.
I knew the lines to give, and the angles to press, and I did—until I had a statement, and my heart fluttered, and the room buzzed.
CHAPTER 12
When I arrived at school the next day, I finally had a response from the phone company with my most recent bill attached. There weren’t many calls that came in on the home line other than sales calls. I recognized the middle-of-the-night hang-up, saw that it originated from a blocked number, and rolled my neck, stretching out the kink. I imagined it would be impossible to get a subpoena for a number that called once in the middle of the night and said nothing.
There were no outgoing calls in the last few weeks, and I wondered if Emmy and Jim had broken it off. There was a number that showed up in the beginning of the month, some of the few incoming calls that were not 800 numbers.
The number looked familiar in a vague sort of way, in the way names tended to blend together for me after too many deadlines in a row. But it was a local number, and I didn’t know many of those.
I pulled my cell from my purse and scrolled to the picture I’d taken at Break Mountain Inn. I zoomed in on the contact card—and the numbers matched. A lead. Something to grasp on to, to get the story moving.
I forwarded the entire bill to the email address on Kyle’s card and added a note: I think Emmy’s boyfriend, Jim, called from the highlighted number. It’s the number for Break Mountain Inn. Maybe they worked together there?
I almost dialed the number for the inn myself, had my finger over the call key of my phone, hovering, thinking. I could get the answer nice and quick. Ask for Jim, ask him about Emmy. But this wasn’t my job anymore, and Jim was too central to the case. I had to leave that first call to Kyle.
That was a move, too.
* * *
THE WHISPERS IN CLASS had started up again. The furtive glances in my direction. The shift in their approach. Izzy licked her lips when I asked them to face the board. Her hand went up. I ignored it. Someone giggled. If I hadn’t lost the class before, I certainly had now.
“Take out your homework,” I said. I scanned the room quickly for anyone who might give themselves away. Someone else preoccupied with the things only they knew, only they had seen.
I wondered if someone here knew her. Bethany Jarvitz was twenty-eight years old, had suffered a massive subdural hematoma, and was still listed in critical condition. She was an employee of the tech data center nearby, and her next of kin had not been located yet. I wondered if she’d met up with Davis Cobb in a bar, as I had. If he’d followed her home after she’d told him he had the wrong idea. If he was tired of wrong ideas and ready to act.
I asked the students to hold up their assignments so I could mark them as finished, even if they’d chosen not to sign their names.
Theo walked in five minutes late, as the homework assignments were being passed up the rows and then across until the final stack ended up with Molly Laughlin. Theo placed his paper on top and said, “Whoops, guess you’ll know which one is mine.”
“You’re late,” I said, sliding the anonymous pieces into my bag.
“I know. I was printing out the assignment in the library. Our printer wasn’t working.”
“Take your seat,” I said, but Theo had stopped in front of my desk, and everyone was watching.
He cocked his head to the side, smiled slowly. “Is that my third tardy?”
He knew it was, and so did I. “Not sure,” I said. If I said no, they would think I was cutting him a break. If I said yes, they’d know he was due for detention, which meant I’d have to stay for it, too. School policy was three tardies and then the student had to sit with you for the extra time after class, until teacher dismissal. “I’ll check later.”
I heard footsteps out in the hall growing closer, heard them pause outside my open door, and was glad for the distraction from the subject of detention—I really didn’t have the time to deal with a kid who had it in for me for no reason at all, on top of everything else. Theo went to his seat, but the smiles and whispers from the other students continued.
I turned and saw the reason: Assistant Principal Mitch Sheldon standing in the open doorway. He tipped his head toward the hall.
“Take out your journals,” I said as I moved to join him out in the hall. Somebody whistled as I shut the door behind me, and the steady hum of voices carried through the wooden door.
“I couldn’t stop it,” he said, leaning nearer to keep our voices from traveling.
“Stop what?”
“The rumors. Parents have been calling again, this time wondering about the relationship between you and Coach Cobb. Wondering if you knew he was married.”
I let out a laugh that resounded down the empty hall. I’d known the rumors would get out, but I hadn’t thought they’d be focused on me. As if I were the predator.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. He tried to speak again, but I raised my hand. “I’ve got to get to class.”
He put a hand on my upper arm and squeezed, lowered his voice even more. “We need to talk. It’s not just the rumors, Leah. It’s Davis Cobb.”
I pulled my arm back, aware of the eyes watching through the glass panel of the door, remembering what Kyle had seen in our previous exchanges. “What about Cobb?”
“He’s on leave, but without a charge, we can’t keep this up much longer.”
My mouth fell open, and I sucked in a cold breath. I hadn’t expected the tide to shift so quickly, but the student essays should’ve tipped me off. They were a window to the larger world, statements made over the dinner table, regurgitated onto the page. This was a town pro-Cobb from the ground up. I was the outsider.
Mitch stood a little too close. “Are you worried, Leah?”
I thought of what Kyle had said: that anyone could tell. I fumbled for the doorknob. “Thanks for letting me know,” I said. I slipped back inside the classroom, ignored the students who were grinning, or the girl now craning her neck to see if Assistant Principal Sheldon was still standing outside my room—and guessing at what that meant.
I wondered how hard he had tried to dispel the rumors. And then I wondered whether he was the source of the rumors. Or if that was just me expecting the worst out of everyone.
* * *