She missed it.
She climbed higher than she needed to, mostly because she could and the sensation of height was freeing. The headache that had plagued her since she’d left the Ames house had disappeared and in a moment of clarity, Max saw what she might have been doing had she said no to Ben two years ago. More undercover work. Fewer responsibilities. More freedom.
Max didn’t like supernatural anything, from movies to television to the plethora of ghost hunters and paranormal activities people claimed to have witnessed. But she’d been drawn to the television show The X-Files because of Fox Mulder’s tagline: “The truth is out there.” She didn’t believe the truth was in outer space or in some military complex doing experiments on aliens, but she did believe that the truth was knowable, that it would set those trapped by lies free.
And from her vantage point halfway up the magnolia tree, Max saw the truth.
Lindy’s clubhouse was directly behind ACP’s pool house. Behind the clubhouse, Max could see the lights from the Ames’s sprawling home. Ground lighting, lights in the trees, lights from the deck, lights from the windows.
And behind the house, a well-lit, black-bottomed swimming pool.
What if Lindy had died in her own pool and someone moved her body to the pool house? Why? Forensic tests could have proven which pool she’d drowned in. But because her death had been ruled strangulation, had either pool been tested? Television shows showed the cops and CSIs going through every possible permutation of the crime, leaving no stone unturned, but reality was much, much different.
Kevin’s attorney had said the Atherton Police Department had bungled the case and not turned it over to Menlo Park for twelve hours after the body was discovered. If there had been evidence in Lindy’s clubhouse, had it been removed or contaminated? Not by the cops specifically, but perhaps by someone who shouldn’t have had access. There was no way of knowing, short of tracking down the responding officers and asking them. And that would hardly work, considering Max’s accusations of incompetence wouldn’t make them willing to talk.
Max’s instincts twitched again. If William was telling the truth and he’d left Lindy alive at twelve fifteen the night she died, there was no reason for her to go to the high school pool. She had her own swimming pool. Her parents hadn’t been home. Her older brother was in college on the East Coast. So why would she leave her property to meet someone?
Yet, if someone had strangled Lindy to the point of unconsciousness on her own property, how would they get her body to the high school? If the killer was trying to destroy evidence, why not dump the body in her own pool? Had he or she intended to make it look like an accident?
What had seemed so clear a moment before was now murky.
Max’s vibrating phone startled her. She balanced her body against the trunk and pulled it out.
“Hello,” she answered, her voice low and quiet.
“Um, is this Maxine Revere?”
“Yes.”
“This is Dru Parker, we met this morning at Evergreen? Why did you call the police?”
Max had pegged the situation from the minute she talked to Nick Santini. She would have patted herself on the back if she wasn’t up a tree.
“I’m a reporter. I talk to a lot of people.”
“That detective was waiting at my house when I got off of work! Do you know what this means?” She sounded both angry and scared. “You’re messing with my life. I’m freaked. I told him I didn’t know what you wanted, but that you scared me because you were following me.”
“I didn’t follow you.”
“You know what I mean. If they find out the police are talking to me—oh, God, I don’t know what to do!”
“So you do you know something about Jason’s murder?”
Her voice cracked. “You gotta help me. I’m scared.” She sniffed loudly and that’s when Max realized Dru was on the verge of hysterics.
“Dru, calm down.”
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. Where do you live? I can meet you there.”
“No! I have roommates.”
“Dru, listen to me,” Max said sternly. “I’ll help you, but you have to get your act together. Calm down.”
“Okay, okay,” she repeated.
“Where’s someplace you feel safe?”
“I’ll go visit my mom—that’s it.”
“Hold it. If you have information about Jason’s murder, you need to tell someone. If his killer thinks you’re a threat, you’re in danger unless you tell someone what you know.”
“I’ll tell you—I don’t know who killed Jason, okay? But there were some weird things going on the week he died, and I think it might be connected, okay? But I don’t know how…” Her voice trailed off.
Max thought she’d hung up. “Dru?”
“My mom lives in San Francisco. I’ll meet you at the Caltrain station in Redwood City—you know where that is, right? By Sequoia High?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Good. There’s a Starbucks there. Twenty minutes.”
“Wait for me,” Max said. “It’ll take me thirty.”
She hung up and looked down. Getting down from the tree was going to be harder than climbing up.
Chapter Eleven
It took Max thirty-five minutes to get out of the tree, walk to her car, and drive to the Starbucks across from the Caltrain bus terminal in nearby Redwood City. She didn’t see Dru when she entered. She waited a few moments in case the girl was watching from outside, then Max walked to the counter and ordered a half-caff latte.
She asked the clerk, “Did you see a girl about nineteen or twenty with long, straight blond hair and brown eyes?”
He stared at her blankly. “We get a lot of people in here, ma’am.”
“She would have been here not more than twenty minutes ago.”
He shrugged.
Without looking up from the machine, the barista asked, “What was her name?”
“Dru.”
The woman nodded. “Iced white mocha with caramel. First drink I made after my break.”
“Did you see her leave?”