“What I did”—not a lie, not exactly—“was for the truth.”
His face twisted. I imagined what he must’ve read, must’ve heard from the police contacts or dug up with his own research. The cause and effect that he must’ve been putting together, the string of events that had landed me here in the first place. “That’s not what you got at all. If you can just sit there and believe that what happened is okay—”
“Then what? I’m not the girl you thought I was? And here I assumed you thought I was a liar. Pick your frame of reference, Kyle.”
He let out a sharp exhale. “Is this what your discussions are always like? A battle of wits over a turn of phrase?”
I jerked back. “Isn’t this what you do for your job, too, Kyle? Say whatever you need to say to get a confession?”
He shook his head. “My job is to solve cases, keep the criminals off the streets, keep others safe because of it. And I can only do that by getting the truth.”
“We’re not so different, you and I.” I leaned forward. “You just haven’t been caught.” I thought of the email I’d forwarded him, wondered if he was thinking the same thing.
He shifted, leaned his elbows on his knees. “You’d do it again, is what you’re saying?”
I looked closely at him, lowered my voice so he’d have to lean even closer, our faces just inches apart. “Tell me, when an internal affairs investigation gets under way, and there’s an anonymous tip that you spent the night at a suspect’s house—because I am a suspect now, aren’t I?—tell me, what will you say?” His body stiffened in response, but I didn’t stop. “Will you say, Well, sir, it was all part of the plan to get her to confess. Or will you say, The end justifies the means. Or will you say, I’ve made a mistake, and await the punishment, and take the demotion, the unpaid leave, and sit at home and think: I ruined my career for nothing.” He was riveted, and I knew he was running the phrases through his mind, too. “Or will you think, I martyred my career in the pursuit of the truth, and I was willing to sacrifice my professional integrity for it.”
He leaned back, farther away, his face closing off, this conversation shutting down.
“Because,” I continued, raising my voice, unable to temper the anger, “your answer changes based on the outcome. Your answer changes based on everything you’ve seen that brought you to this point. On what you’re willing to do, and what you’re willing to take, and whether the idealist who landed you here still exists. Whether he’s been slaughtered in his sleep by his first case or his last. So which will it be, Detective Donovan? Explain yourself.” I was shaking, the fury fighting to the surface.
He stood, picked up his jacket, headed for the door.
“It’s too late for that choice, Kyle.”
He stopped at the door, turned to face me. “I know what I won’t do,” he said. “I won’t try to justify the fact that a man killed himself over a lie I told.”
He waited then, staring me down.
Keep your mouth shut, Leah. No argument is won with rage. No point is awarded by throwing the vase on the table beside you. There is nothing civilized about a scream.
I watched him leave. But inside, the rage burned hot, like raking coals, as it had back then.
* * *
I DID NOT PRINT Aaron Hampton’s name, but it wouldn’t be hard for anyone to work it out.
I figured the university would take care of the rest. That they would launch an investigation and get him for this, if not something bigger. That it would tip the police, who would take a closer look at the case.
I imagined Aaron seeing the opportunity. Piggybacking on the rash of suicides everyone had been talking about and adding one more. Leaving a bag full of extra pills beside Bridget’s drowned body in the tub, as if she had purchased them. Setting the scene. Her wide smile now forever immortalized in black and white, a string of interchangeable faces.
Even if I couldn’t prove that he’d had a hand in her death, I’d at least do this to him. I wanted his employer to see it, ruining his career. I wanted Paige to see it.
I wanted him to pick up the paper and read it—as I knew he would. I wanted him to see my name on the byline and know it was me.
It was a thrill that started in my spine and ran across my arms and legs as I hit send on that piece.
The day after the story ran, Aaron took a fairly straightforward approach. A wooden beam, a braided rope, a practiced knot, with a sedative to help it all go down smoothly, to steel his nerve.
On paper, the suicide of Professor Aaron Hampton became just one more hit in a string of bad press for the campus that semester. The beginning of an enormous mental health services overhaul, the start of a larger conversation. He would be forever remembered as the victim alongside those girls, and I hated him for it.
And as a result, I had been exiled from everything my life had been. As if I had tied that noose and strung him up myself.
CHAPTER 28
After Kyle left, I took a few minutes to cool off, cool down.
Then I opened my personal email to look at the message from TeachingLeahStevens, ready to respond. To speak to him as he was speaking to me, with a screen and a filter between us. I could be anyone, as could he.
But when I signed in, I had another, newer message. From Noah. Subject: Requested Info. There was no personal message inside, just copied-and-pasted information, along with a set of attachments.
Noah had come through. Because he knew he did owe me. This was an admittance of guilt on his part, too.
I quickly understood the lack of information I’d been able to find on my own. Bethany Ann Jarvitz had spent most of her twenties at a state correctional facility in Pennsylvania.
I leaned closer to the screen, taking it all in.
Bethany Ann Jarvitz was born to Jessica Jarvitz, a single mother, deceased for nearly a decade of a suspected drug overdose. No father listed. There was a string of addresses, all apartments, scattered around the tristate region, changing every year until her incarceration. She had a very short employment record, because she’d been sentenced at the age of twenty in a case of arson and involuntary manslaughter. Her next of kin, listed on an old employment insurance document, was a cousin by the name of Melissa Kellerman. There was no education listed, which meant she probably hadn’t finished high school.
I felt her story fading even more. This was not the type of person for whom the public would rally, or coordinate fund-raisers, or post signs with requests for strength and prayers. No, this girl would be on her own.