The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(36)

Hunter was looking at his aunt’s coffee cup. He picked it up, as if in an idle gesture, but it was too casual to be really casual. Something flitted across his expression and he set it down.

“What do you study?” she asked.

“Ecology,” he replied. “Environmental studies. Going to try to save the world from global warming.”

“Is that going to work?” she said.

“We have to try.”

She nodded. She got that. You have to try. Trying is the first step to whatever comes next.

“I read about what you did,” he said. “It was cool. You actually solved a crime.”

“I didn’t solve it,” she said. “I . . . figured some stuff out.”

“That girl, she’s still missing, right?”

“Ellie. Yeah.”

“I don’t know where you go if you run from Ellingham,” he said. “It’s brutal up here. I’m from Florida. I never know how to cope with this place. . . .”

He trailed off, as if embarrassed by speaking. Then he nodded at the legal pad.

“What’s my aunt got you doing?”

“Fact-checking some stuff,” she said. “I think.”

“Looks like a lot.”

Stevie could hear the clomp of Fenton’s clogs on the floor and she was back.

“All right,” she said. “Get started on this. I’ll see you midweek.”

“There’s no coach midweek,” Stevie said.

“Then I’ll see you when?”

“Saturday?” Stevie said.

“I’ll see you Saturday. Come to my house. That’s where my office is. I live on campus. Here.”

She scrawled down an address and passed it over.

“Can I email you updates, or . . .”

“Nothing electronic, ever,” she said. “Ever.”

“Okay,” Stevie said. “Nothing electronic. Okay.”

“Let’s get moving. Where’s the car?”

“This way,” Hunter said. He reached over for his crutch. “I’ll see you around?”

Did she imagine a lilt of hope in his voice? Stevie was not the kind of person who imagined that people wanted to flock to her side. She felt she looked good in her red vinyl coat, her short blond hair squashed under a black knit hat, plain black jeans. She was wearing lip balm, so that was something, and an eyebrow goo that Janelle had lent her and said would work well. Janelle knew makeup and was always trying to get Stevie interested in a color palette or a highlighter. Mostly, Stevie forgot she had a body, and when someone else noticed her body, it made her look down and go, huh. Would you look at that. How long has that been there?

There had only been David for her, like that.

She had probably imagined it anyway. Hunter got his crutch and watched as his aunt gathered her things. As they said their good-byes and went off, she noticed two things. One, Fenton was not so old as to need assistance, and yet it certainly looked like Hunter had come to pick her up and escort her.

The second was that he turned and looked over his shoulder at Stevie, and he smiled.





10


WHO BECOMES A MURDERER?

Stevie considered this word as the coach headed back to Ellingham that afternoon. Her reading and viewing and studying had taught her several things.

There’s the horror-movie version: a shadow with a knife, the one who escaped from the hospital on the hill during that storm. It’s the person living in the walls.

In mystery novels, it might be the smiling stranger, the one with the passing knowledge of poisons. It’s the relative left out of the will, or the one recently added to it. It’s the jealous colleague at the museum who wants to be the first to announce the new archeological discovery. It’s the overly helpful person who follows the detective around.

On the all-murder, true-crime channel, it’s the new neighbor with the boat, the one in his midforties to midfifties with the tan who has no past and who recently purchased a human-sized cooler. It’s the person who lives in the shack in the woods. It’s the unseen figure on the corner of the street.

On all crime shows, it’s usually the third person the cops interview. It’s the one you sort of think it is.

In life, the murderer is anyone. The reasons, the methods, the circumstances—the paths to becoming a murderer are as numerous as the stars. Understanding this is the first step to finding a murderer. You have to shut down the voices in your mind that say, “It has to be this person.” Murderers aren’t a type. They’re anyone.

Stevie put her head against the cool of the window and watched the moose sign go by.

“No moose,” she whispered.

Element Walker. Stevie could see her now, almost physically. Artist. Try-too-hard. Friendly. The girl with the bruises on her shins from climbing, with the holes in the toes of her cheap satin slipper shoes. The girl with the baby socks tied in her hair and the old cheerleader skirt. Ellie, who had a saxophone as a best friend even though she couldn’t play. The girl with the bottle of warm champagne she brought from France that she shared with two people she had just met.

Ellie, did you kill someone?

Did you mean to do it?

Stevie tried to propel her thoughts into the mountain air, as if texting Ellie with her mind. Tell me. I can help you. I’m sorry.