What Lies in the Woods(51)

There were things Ethan didn’t need to know about me. I was more than what Alan Stahl had done, but that didn’t mean that all of the rest was free of shadows.





“So Oscar Green’s an asshole,” Ethan said as we drove. “That doesn’t say great things about Jessi.”

“He’s the mayor’s son. He’s always had plenty of friends,” I said, watching the trees slide by. “He’s charming when he wants to be. Plus, he’s good-looking.” You and me are meant to be, a voice crooned in my memory. I shoved it away.

“A fellow pretty boy?” Ethan said, trying too hard for humor.

“Too rough around the edges to be pretty,” I said. “Plus he’s big enough to break a skinny guy like you in half without trying.”

Ethan chuckled, accepting the gentle ribbing. “Unfortunately, I can’t see how to get around talking to him. If we’re going to prove that Stahl killed Jessi, we need to know when exactly she disappeared. We may be able to match it up to Stahl’s movements.”

“Even this long after the fact?” I asked.

“A lot of his trips are in the old case files. The detectives did a fairly thorough job mapping out his movements to try to connect him to the other murders.”

“Not the ‘other’ murders, just the murders. I’m an almost,” I said with a curl of a smile, no humor in it.

“There is something else we need to consider,” Ethan said, with the kind of care that suggested he wasn’t sure how I was going to react. “If Jessi isn’t one of Stahl’s victims, it might be a good idea to be careful who we talk to.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because it’s possible—maybe even probable—that her death was an accident. But if it wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t Stahl, someone else killed her. And they might not be happy about us digging around.”

I pressed my knuckles against my lips. “Liv found her, and now she’s dead. If it wasn’t suicide…”

“Someone might have killed her to keep her from revealing what she’d learned. And that means that you and I need to be careful,” Ethan said grimly.

I didn’t know which answer I needed more. If Stahl had killed Jessi, we’d been right, and it had been him out there that day. But that meant there was no reason for anyone to want to hurt Liv, except Liv herself.

If Stahl hadn’t killed Jessi, maybe whoever did had gone after Liv to silence her. She hadn’t hurt herself after all.

Or I was wrong about everything. Stahl had nothing to do with me. Jessi’s death was a random accident. And Liv’s death was exactly what it looked like.

No matter what the answer was, I had failed her. I hadn’t been able to save her.

We pulled in to the motel. Ethan got out of the car and stretched, his shirt riding up to bare a strip of skin. “Is there anyone else from that crowd who’s still around? Someone else who might have known Jessi?” he asked.

“Oscar mostly hung around with Russell Burke,” I said.

“Where’s he?”

“Dead.”

“He probably won’t be able to help us, then. Who else?” Ethan asked, squinting in the sunlight.

“Cody Benham,” I said reluctantly.

“The guy who saved you?” Ethan’s eyebrows raised.

“More than once,” I said, half to myself. “He and Oscar used to be friends.”

“But not anymore?”

“Not anymore,” I confirmed. I could pinpoint the end of that friendship to the minute. The smell of gasoline and asphalt in the air, fingertips bruising my ribs.

“Do you have his number?” Ethan asked. “Would he talk to you?”

“Yes. To both,” I said. Cody had his job. A pregnant wife. He’d gotten out of Chester in a way few of us ever managed, and I didn’t want to drag him back into this.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ethan said, seeing my expression. “You could walk away. Or tell the police what you know, and let them handle it.”

I shook my head. I had to finish the work Liv had started. “I’m not going to stop now,” I said. “I’ll call him.”



* * *



Cody picked up right away. “I was so sorry to hear about Olivia,” he said as soon as I told him who it was. “Are you back in Seattle yet?”

“No, I’m staying in Chester for a while,” I said. I sat in my motel room, alone, too conscious of Ethan’s presence two rooms away. “I’ve got to head back to Seattle for the weekend for work, but otherwise I’m planning to stick around. Until the funeral, at least.”

“Have they set a date?”

“They’re still waiting for the body to be released,” I said.

“I see.” He paused. “I didn’t know Olivia very well. She didn’t talk to me like you did.”

“I don’t remember talking to you. I remember trying to talk and stammering a lot,” I admitted. He gave a low chuckle.

“You were a sweet kid. Too smart for your own good. All three of you, really, each in your own way.”

There was an intimacy to talking like this, just Cody’s voice and mine, like the world had narrowed down to the reality we shared. Those brief moments where our lives had intersected, which it seemed like no one else would really understand.