His eyes didn’t move from Veronica’s. He hesitated for a moment, as if reading something in her face. After a moment, he nodded.
“I asked her not to go to Neptune. I tried to tell her what the scene’s like—crazy. Depraved. Dangerous. She wouldn’t listen to me.” His eyes narrowed slightly.
“I take it you’ve been there yourself?” Veronica said wryly.
He shrugged. “I’ve been. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good party as much as anyone, but that place gets wild as hell. I didn’t like the idea of her down there. And I hate to say it, but I was right. She shouldn’t have gone.”
Veronica didn’t let her expression change. She glanced down at her notebook as if reading from a list of questions, so he wouldn’t realize how his words and body language guided the conversation. “According to Hayley’s phone records, you called her the night she disappeared at twelve thirteen a.m. That was the first time you’d called her in five days, but prior to that you guys talked at least twice a day—and often as many as six times—every day for months. Can I ask what you talked about?”
His pupils flared, ever so slightly. When he spoke, his voice was even and simple.
“I wanted her back. Look, the night we fought, things got kind of … heated. I said some things I wasn’t proud of. I’m sure she did too. After that I couldn’t think about anything else for days. I was … mad, and ashamed, and just exhausted.” The intensity of his gaze was unsettling. “Have you ever had a relationship that you knew wasn’t working, couldn’t work, would never work? But you just couldn’t help yourself, because the way it didn’t work was so damn good? That was me and Hayley. That was what we had.”
Veronica looked down at her notebook to hide her uneasiness. His words needled her, working their way under her skin. Yes—she’d had that relationship. She’d had that relationship over and over and over. She’d broken a lot of things for that relationship—and now here she was, back in it again.
Chad paused for half a beat, then continued.
“Anyway, I’m assuming you’ve seen what she posted on Facebook that night. I freaked out when I saw the pictures of her with that other guy. So I called her. We talked for a few minutes. I told her I was sorry, that I’d do better. I asked her for another chance. She told me in no uncertain terms she wasn’t interested.” He raked his hand through his hair, the front pieces standing up in short spikes.
Veronica frowned. “You didn’t happen to get a name, did you? Did she tell you who the guy was?”
He looked away. “She didn’t say. She was more interested in telling me what a great kisser he was,” he said bitterly.
Veronica sat for a moment, her mind sifting through the information, moving it from one column to the next. Sure—Chad Cohan might be a run-of-the-mill disgruntled ex, still reeling from the Sturm und Drang of a complicated relationship. Maybe it was worse than that—maybe he was as controlling and demanding as Bri and Melanie claimed. As controlling and demanding as Veronica read him to be now. That didn’t necessarily mean he was involved in whatever had happened to Hayley. But something about him raised the hair on the back of Veronica’s neck. She asked her next question in a carefully neutral voice.
“Where were you the night you talked to Hayley?”
He looked up quickly. She kept her expression unreadable. “It was midterms so I was in the library, working on a paper, until around twelve thirty. Then I went home.”
“Did anyone see you there?”
A sudden cold smile broke across his face. It changed his looks with the rapidity of a flash flood—the blandly helpful demeanor vanished, replaced with an air of contempt.
“After ten p.m. you have to use your student ID to get in and out of the library. You can probably get those records from the school. I don’t remember seeing anyone in the dorm when I got home—I went straight to bed. But I was in an eleven a.m. class the next morning. Plenty of people saw me there.” His words were matter-of-fact, derisive. “So unless you think I can teleport—no. I didn’t drive overnight to Neptune to abduct Hayley. Sorry, this time the boyfriend didn’t do it.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Veronica said pleasantly. “Right?”
His smile didn’t falter. “If I were you, I’d focus on tracking down the guy in the picture. Plenty of people saw him with Hayley. The whole Internet saw him with Hayley.”
“That must have really made you mad, Chad,” she said, trying one last time to goad him.
He leaned forward, his eyes boring into hers.
“No,” he said simply. “It broke my fucking heart.”