Run Away(57)

“She said that it had nothing to do with any of that.”

“Did she say what it did have to do with?”

Eileen hesitated, turned away.

“Eileen? Did she say something else?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I think Paige was just trying to deflect. To get us off her back.”

“What did she say?”

“She said”—Eileen turned back, met Simon’s eyes—“that there were problems at home.”

Simon blinked and leaned back, taking the blow. He hadn’t been expecting that. “What kind of problems at home?”

“Paige wouldn’t elaborate.”

“No clue at all?”

“I thought, well, with what happened after, with Aaron and the drugs and everything, I thought maybe you and Dr. Greene were having problems.”

“We weren’t.”

“Oh.”

Simon’s mind swirled.

Problems at home?

He tried to piece it together. It wasn’t the marriage—he and Ingrid were good, better than ever, actually. It wasn’t financial—her parents were both at the height of their careers and earning power. How about Paige’s siblings? Nothing strange, nothing that he could remember. There had been a minor drama with Sam’s science teacher, but no, that had been the year before, and that wouldn’t warrant a “problems at home” comment.

Unless something had been going on that Simon didn’t know about.

But even if that were the case—even if Paige imagined or saw some real problem with something back home with her family—how had that led her to drive to Connecticut and Aaron?

He asked Eileen that.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Greene. I don’t know.”

Eileen Vaughan glanced at her mobile phone the way someone older might glance at their watch. She shifted on the couch, her body language suddenly all wrong, and Simon knew that he was losing her.

“I have a class soon,” she said.

“Eileen?”

“Yes?”

“Aaron’s been murdered.”

Her eyes widened.

“Paige has run off.”

“Run off?”

“She’s missing. And now I think whoever killed Aaron is after her too.”

“I don’t understand. Why?”

“I don’t know. But I think whatever brought them together—whatever made Paige seek Aaron out—is responsible. That’s why I need your help. I need to figure out what happened to her, on this campus, that made her borrow your car and go to Aaron.”

“I don’t know.”

“I get that. And I get that you just want me to leave. But I’m asking you for your help.”

“Help how?”

“Start from the beginning. Tell me everything that happened, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Something made her change. Something made her borrow your car and go find Aaron.”

*



Paige became a “Try Hard,” Eileen Vaughan told him.

“A what?”

“A Try Hard,” Eileen repeated. “You know how during Orientation Week they tell you that you can be all you want to be, that this is your chance to start anew and take advantage of all the opportunities?”

Simon nodded.

“Paige took that to heart.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I thought she was overdoing it. She wanted to be in a play. She tried out for two a cappella groups. There’s this club on campus of science nerds who build robots. She joined that. She ran for a freshman judiciary seat and won. She got obsessed with the Family Tree Club, which hooked up with our genetics class, to figure out where you’re from and all that. She also wanted to write a play. Looking back on it, it was all too much. She was driving herself too hard.”

“Did she have any boyfriends?”

“No one serious.”

“The guy your lacrosse roommate mentioned…”

“I don’t know anything about that. I’ll text Judy, if you like.”

“Please.”

Eileen took out her phone, her fingers dancing on the screen. She nodded when it was done.

“How about her academics?” Simon asked. “What classes was she taking?”

A father should know that, of course, but before all this, Simon had prided himself on not being one of those helicopter parents. He didn’t know her classes, even in high school. Some parents checked an online program called Skyward every day, to make sure their child did their homework or was keeping up with their grades. Simon didn’t even know how to log on. He had smugly thought back then that that made him a better father.

Stay out of the way. Trust your child.

And it had been easy with Paige. She was self-driven. She excelled. Oh, what satisfaction Simon had felt back then, what foolish superiority over those overbearing and overinvolved parents he’d felt, bragging that he didn’t even know his Skyward password like that asshole at the party who brags about not owning a television.

What arrogance before the fall.

Eileen wrote down the names of Paige’s classes and the professors who taught them. She handed him the slip of paper and said, “I really have to go now.”