I just wanted him to explain on his own. To make it all less suspicious: Oh, yes, I knew Jenna in high school and I had a crush on her and she was also seeing Thomas Price, whom I also know even though I’ve pretended not to. There was nothing good about having some kind of gotcha moment with Steve. But he was leaving me no choice.
I pulled the Ridgedale University yearbook out of my bag and opened it to the page I had flagged, the one with the basketball pictures. I spun it around and slid it in front of Steve. He stared down for a minute at the picture of Thomas Price, Simon Barton, and himself. When he met my eyes, he almost looked relieved. Like he’d been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
“I ran into Jenna about a year ago, in Philadelphia of all places, when I was at the International Chiefs of Police Conference. We only talked for a minute or two on the street, you know, a ‘how you doing’ kind of thing.” He shook his head, smiled sadly. “All those old feelings came right back—I mean, it’s different, of course. I’m a married man now. But I remembered exactly the way I’d felt. And Jenna was the same live wire she’d been all those years ago. God, was that kind of thing amazing to be around when I was seventeen. I never felt so alive.” He glanced up, looked uncomfortable. “If you’re thinking— I was glad to see her, yes, but I haven’t seen or talked to her since that day. I didn’t even know she was back in Ridgedale.” He looked straight at me, like he wanted to be sure I knew that part was the truth. Still he was leaving out something. Maybe not about where Jenna was, but something. “We’ll find Jenna now, I can promise you that. And when we do, her daughter will be the first to know.”
“There is something else,” I began. There was so much that he needed to explain, but there was even more that he needed to know. “I read Jenna’s journal. I know Thomas Price assaulted her in high school. And I think there have been other girls on campus since. Several.”
I watched Steve’s face stiffen. “No one ever reported anything like that to me.” He didn’t sound defensive, exactly, but almost. “We would have investigated, obviously. Was that what was in the files?”
“There wasn’t proof of anything. But it tells a story that fits. All of it does.”
He picked up the bracelet, smoothing his fingers over it again. “I was the one that night who told Jenna to run, as soon as I got Simon off of her. When I grabbed him, the ground was wet. We slipped, both of us. His head hitting that rock was an accident.” He paused. Stared at the table for a long minute. I wondered for a second if he thought I knew all of this already. But it seemed more like he wanted me to know. Like he needed the world to. “At least it was an accident the first time. But the second time his head came down?” Steve shook his head. “When the police showed up with the ambulance, everybody just assumed it was an accident. It was wet, we were all drunk. Stupid kids, you know. Teammates. They came back the next day to interview me, but they’d already spoken to Price, and he’d lied and told them the whole thing was an accident. He knew it wasn’t that simple. He was standing right there. He probably figured if he lied for me, I’d lie for him. By then he’d already threatened Jenna, too. She and I never talked about Simon specifically, but I’m guessing she figured out what happened between him and me after she ran. She never told me what Price said to keep her quiet, but man, was she terrified. And then she was just—gone. Left town. Went to live with her aunt, that was the rumor. She never came back, and I never heard from her. And Barbara was pregnant. She ended up losing that baby a few weeks later, but by then I—if I’d known there had been others, though . . .” He shook his head. “But I could have done something about Price, that’s the truth, isn’t it? No one was threatening me.”
Hannah still had not occurred to him.
“You know, I think Hannah might have met the father of her baby on campus,” I pressed on, because we had to finish. He had to know. “Thomas Price was in charge of the high school exchange program she was part of.”
In agonizing slow motion, I watched Steve connect Price and Hannah. When he did, he closed his eyes and hung his head. After that, he didn’t speak for such a long time. When he finally looked up, his eyes were glassy and stunned. A second later, they were filled with rage.
“Go to the state police now,” he said. “Tell them what you just told me. I don’t want any investigation of Price getting derailed because I was involved. And tell them to pick both of us up. Because if they don’t, I swear to Christ, I will find Thomas Price, and I will kill him with my bare hands.”
A young female officer with a petite curvy frame strode purposefully into the cafeteria, then headed straight for us with her hand resting on her radio as if it were a gun. She had a concerned but determined look on her face. For a second, I wondered if someone had already reported Steve. She stopped a few feet short of the table and pointed her chin in his direction.
“Excuse me one second,” he said, composing himself admirably as he stood. He walked over to the officer, and the two of them exchanged a few clipped sentences. “Thank you,” he said to her, then stepped back over to my table.
“They found Jenna’s car,” he said, sounding surprised and relieved. “Or rather, the owner of Blondie’s, Monte, spotted it way down an embankment out near the Palisades Parkway, tucked under some brush.”
“What about Jenna?”
“Don’t know yet. It was too steep for him to make his way down. Hard to say when the accident even happened. Officers and fire department are on their way.”