Best Laid Plans(142)

“Because they lied. I don’t know why or what about, but they weren’t being completely honest about what happened on the mountain when Scott disappeared.”

“They wouldn’t hurt him,” Jess said, defiant.

Max hesitated. “That’s a bit of a leap. Did they have a reason to hurt Scott?”

“No,” she mumbled.

“Mrs. Sheldon needs to know what happened to her son. I think search and rescue has been looking in the wrong place. They would have found him by now.”

“Not if he got lost. Maybe they are looking in the wrong place, but only because Scott got lost,” she repeated.

“I won’t tell anyone you let me use your account.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know yet. Just snooping right now.” She was trying to lighten the mood, but Jess didn’t smile.

“All right. Whatever.” She stopped walking and tore a piece of paper out of one of her notebooks. She scribbled down an e-mail address and password. “I’m changing my password when I get out of my class,” she said. She was going for an angry tone, but it came out sad. “Just—if you find out what happened, what really happened, would you let me know?”

“I promise.”

Max watched Jess walk off, then turned and followed the signs to the library. The building was too warm, but right now Max needed the heat—her hair was wet, and while her coat kept her torso dry, her jeans were uncomfortably damp. She went to the restroom and brushed her hair, then pinned it up to keep the strands out of her face. Then she went out to the main room and planted herself at a table near windows that looked out at the Rocky Mountains towering high above the campus. While she loved Columbia and thrived in a city, Max also appreciated the peace that this small college enjoyed. It reminded her that maybe she needed a vacation.

Right. Because you relax so well.

Most of her vacations became working vacations.

Max pulled out her iPad and logged in to Jess’s Facebook account. Jess seemed to be pretty typical in her usage—she logged in nearly every day, posted funny pictures, photos of her friends, a lot of posts about events at the bookstore and rallies on campus. Most of the pages she followed were indie music bands, heavy on alternative music.

She clicked through to Arthur Cowan’s page. He wasn’t a social media nut like his friend Tom Keller, but he posted consistently. His interests were rather eclectic—but it was clear he spent a lot of time in the outdoors. He had pictures posted of him and friends skiing, and based on the level of difficulty of the slopes, he had experience.

She scrolled through his pictures, many of them outdoors with small groups of friends, mostly including Carlos. Few, if any, with Tom. He had a lot of people he was friends with on Facebook, but few comments on his posts—almost all from Carlos, his younger brother who was in junior high, and someone from his English class who posted odd snippets of apparent humor that Max didn’t quite understand. From the few comments over the past year along with the photos, Max put together a clear portrait of Arthur Cowan: he was a prankster, and while some people found him hilarious, most thought his jokes were in poor taste. At least a dozen posts were people telling him he did something “not cool” and Arthur would tell them to lighten up or that it was just a joke.

He was athletic, but seemed to participate only in individual sports like skiing. Carlos and Arthur had gone to high school together, and seemed to be inseparable. Three months ago, several people ragged on him for writing profanity on a kid’s face with permanent marker, because the kid was the first to pass out drinking at a party.

Max flipped over to Carlos Ibarra’s page. He hadn’t posted anything for three weeks, and his last post was a photo of him and Arthur during spring break in Los Angeles. They were on the beach. That photo had become his avatar. Carlos had even fewer friends than Arthur, and as Max looked at the history between them, it became clear that Carlos and Arthur were joined at the hip. They did everything together, they both majored in business, they shared a dorm room. Arthur was clearly the dominant personality.

She frowned. What did all this tell her? Absolutely nothing.

Not nothing, Max. There’s a pattern here. One of these things is not like the other.

Tom. He wasn’t part of Arthur and Carlos’s two-man clique. He was a year younger—Scott’s age. He tried too hard to make friends, as evidenced by his constant parties and incessant posting and poor attempts at humor. No one consistently popped up on his page. He was awkward and a bit nerdy, drank because it was social and he thought he could make friends. Max had known kids like him in college—the ones who were the life of the party, but mostly because people laughed at them.

How had Tom Keller hooked up with Arthur and Carlos? Why had the four of them gone camping?

Tom was the weak link. Carlos and Arthur were longtime friends; Tom wasn’t part of their clique. If Max could get him to talk to her about that weekend, then maybe the truth would come out.

Max was about to log out of Jess’s account when another thought occurred to her. Jess hadn’t been social with these boys since Scott disappeared, at least publicly, but it was clear she’d known them. Max clicked over to Jess’s private messages. She didn’t want to invade her privacy more than necessary, so she skimmed the names until she found one familiar.

Scott Sheldon.