You Owe Me a Murder(33)

Goose bumps prickled over my skin, and they had nothing to do with the blasting air conditioner. In fact, Connor had begged me to let him take pictures. It was only my own insecurity that had kept me from saying yes.

“I decided to get him back,” Miriam said, her voice soft and low.

I sucked in a breath. “You killed him?”

Her eyes went wide. “What? No! I let him think I liked him. I kept stringing him along, telling him I didn’t feel ‘safe’ for us to be intimate but that he could show me he was someone I could trust. If he let me get pictures of him first.”

“And he fell for that?”

Miriam shrugged. “I’m an actress.” Then her tough-guy stance broke and she started to cry. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I just wanted to teach him a lesson. I told him that morning that this time he was the one who got played. I might have made it sound like I would post his naked pictures.” She paused, biting her lip. “I wouldn’t really have done it. It was just a threat, something that could keep him from doing this to anyone else, to make him scared for a change.”

“He really treated all the girls he dated that badly?” Her whole scheme—?pretending to like him, getting pictures, then blackmailing him—?I don’t know, it seemed so over-the-top. But then, Miriam was over-the-top. This was so perfectly something she would do.

“He broke my friend’s heart. Humiliated her. I did it for her. I thought she’d find this funny when I told her, you know? Something we could laugh about. I had no idea he’d jump in front of a train.” Her lip shook.

“There’s a chance Connor was pushed,” I said slowly. I didn’t like to see Miriam blaming herself when I knew deep down his death had nothing to do with her.

She stared at me, astonished. “Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure of anything, but there was mention of it in the paper. Camera footage or something that makes it seem like a possibility.”

“I wonder if he did something shitty to someone over here?” Miriam asked herself. She peered out into the hallway as if she thought we might have been followed. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have been sneaking around on me with some British girl. Maybe she took things into her own hands.” Miriam’s eyes were wide.

Ideas tumbled around in my head. Connor was a player, but we hadn’t been in England that long when he died. Would he have had time to meet and seduce some British girl? But on the other hand, Nicki had been visiting Vancouver. Miriam thought there was a chance Connor had met a British girl here, but maybe he’d met her back home before he ever left the country. It was possible Nicki had picked me out at the airport because she already knew who I was and my connection to Connor. She’d acted as if she was mad at Connor because of what he’d done to me, but it might be that it was about how he’d treated her. She might have had her own motive to murder.

If he had treated Nicki badly, then perhaps she sent me the note as a confession. I’d taken it as some kind of threat, but maybe she was reaching out for help. She thought I would understand after what he’d done to me. If she was desperate, then I couldn’t just leave her. Maybe I could convince her to go to the police. If he’d threatened to show pictures of her, then there would be extenuating circumstances. She needed to know that we weren’t the only two he’d treated like dirt.

“I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls right away. I was trying to figure out what to do,” Miriam said, breaking into my thoughts. “The police want to meet with me one more time tomorrow and then my parents and I are flying home. I’m going to tell them the truth about what I did. Faking it to Connor, I mean. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to come with me and say what happened to you. If you don’t, that’s okay too.” She’d wrapped her arms around herself, and she looked so small, like a lost elementary school student.

“No. I think it’s a bad idea. Listen, just keep to the story that you told the police, that you decided to break up because you wanted to be friends or whatever. There’s nothing to be gained by telling them the truth—?it just confuses things. You didn’t do anything,” I reminded her. “You were way back on the platform. Sophie will back you up. Stick with your story and let me handle it.”

“But what if there is some British girl that pushed him? It doesn’t seem fair to leave this all on you.”

“I don’t think Connor had time to meet some British girl. You were always together.”

Miriam chewed on her lower lip. “I guess.”

I had no idea how long Nicki had been in Vancouver before I met her at the airport. They could have met, could have had plenty of time to have a relationship. “You know if you talk to the police it’s just going to complicate things, and you don’t need that.”

“Still. I feel like I should.”

The desire to tell her what was going on was like an explosive pressure inside of me. Miriam was smart—?maybe she could help me figure it out, but I always did that, let other people take charge. “I’ll be fine. I’m almost sure it was an accident. What you did had nothing to do with what happened.”

“Are you sure?”

I channeled what my mom would say. “You did something where you have regrets, but that means it’s a learning opportunity.”