Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(10)
Chapter Five
Kate Sorino hadn’t stopped crying since they’d started the interview and Zach was thankful for the presence of the school counselor, Marla Davis. Zach probably had more experience comforting a teenage girl than Ronan did, and maybe even Shauna, because he’d helped raise Naomi, but still. Somehow, when it was a stranger, he didn’t quite know what to say. Ronan and Shauna seemed just as happy to let the counselor do the hand holding and tissue offering as he was.
“I just can’t believe it,” Kate said for what Zach was pretty sure was the tenth time. He felt for the girl. It had to be an enormous shock to find out one of your best friends had been murdered. All the same, he was fairly sure they wouldn’t get much from her that was helpful.
He glanced at Shauna before jumping in. “Kate, can you tell me if there was anyone new in Adrienne’s life? A new friend? Boyfriend? Anyone she met online?”
The weeping girl shook her head and a jagged “no-o-o” came out before the counselor handed her another tissue. Initially, Zach had thought her tears were genuine, but he was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t enjoying the attention she was getting a bit too much.
“So, she didn’t have a boyfriend?” Zach had the sense so far that this group of girls was the popular group in school. They seemed to be a clique. When they’d gone to meet with Kate, she’d been surrounded by friends comforting her in the rec room of her dorm building. There’d been a makeshift shrine to Adrienne and Carrie outside the building, with pictures of the two girls and flowers, notes, and candles piled beneath them. Everything about Kate’s clothes and hair screamed that she was one of the in crowd. So, it surprised him to hear Adrienne didn’t have a boyfriend.
“No one steady. Honestly, she was under so much pressure from her parents to get into a good college.” As she spoke, her face crumpled again and fresh tears came. Maybe it had dawned on Kate that Adrienne wasn’t going to be going to college any longer.
“Was she doing anything new? Any new sports? New classes outside of school? A new hobby?”
A head shake was all she managed this time.
Zach glanced at Shauna. She’d been happy to jump in with questions back in Carville’s office. Now, when he wanted her to, she seemed to be happy to let him take care of the questions.
“And what about Carrie? Was she doing anything new that you know of? Did she have any new friends?”
The broken no came again. This time, Mrs. Davis pulled Kate into her, one arm circling her shoulders. “I think we’d better pick this up later, officers.”
Zach nodded but he caught the frustration and tightness in Shauna’s face. Still, he knew the counselor was right. They needed to talk to Kate when she’d calmed down. The three followed the counselor after she’d gotten a few other girls to come sit with Kate. It seemed no one was attending many classes today, but that made sense given the circumstances.
They left the dorm building to track down Liz Gordon, but didn’t make it far before yelling from the makeshift shrine drew their attention. A younger boy, probably a freshman or smaller sophomore tore down Carrie Athill’s photo before turning to the group of students looking on.
“She’s not dead. You can’t put her picture up there like she’s dead or something.” He launched himself at another student as he yelled. “She’s not dead!”
Two older boys pulled him back, one of them talking with his mouth close to the boy’s ear as he led him away from the group.
“Excuse me for a minute, officers,” the counselor said as she walked toward them. She spoke quietly to the boy then waved over another teacher. The two conferred for a minute before the counselor came back and the other teacher walked away, the boy jerking out of her grip but moving in the direction she’d led him in.
“I’m sorry. That’s Carrie Athill’s brother, Drew. He’s been insistent on coming to school throughout all of this, but I’m going to have one of the teachers contact his parents. He needs to be away from this right now,” she said, shaking her head and looking around at the campus.
It occurred to Zach she had her hands full with helping the students today. The last thing she needed was to be accompanying them to do interviews. Unfortunately, they needed to get the job done. Every second that ticked by without them finding Carrie brought the girl closer to the possibility of death. If she wasn’t already dead.
Chapter Six
Zach kept his eyes on the students around them as they followed Mrs. Davis across what they’d since discovered was the main part of the campus with classrooms, dorms, and administration buildings. She’d explained a few minutes back that there was a small private road that led to a secondary campus where additional sports fields and two hockey arenas were housed.
He still couldn’t believe they had an Olympic sized hockey rink and an NHL regulation sized one as well. He wondered just how deep the pockets of their supporters were.
“I thought classes had been cancelled for the day?” Ronan asked, nodding to a group of boys hauling hockey pads and gear over their shoulders as they headed across one field and out toward the road leading to the hockey arenas. “They didn’t cancel practice for the teams?”
Mrs. Davis smiled the kind of smile that said she didn’t expect them to understand. “Hockey is a very important sport here. We have both girls and boys varsity teams that hold one of the most competitive schedules in New England. There are also a host of scholarships and awards connected to the teams.”