Good Girls Lie(75)

She calls Tony from the car, fills him in. Debates whether to head straight home or drive another hour into town. She hasn’t been to DC in a while. She could grab a hotel and a show. Chances are there’s a band she’ll like at one of the venues. Maybe a cute guy.

In the end, though, she heads back to Marchburg. She’s curious enough about whatever Oliver has sent her that she wants a glass of wine and her laptop. See if there’s anything else to be gleaned from this case, see if she can answer her instincts, explain to them that they aren’t getting the whole picture.

* * *

It is late when she gets back. Tony is gone, off handling a car accident down the mountain. She finds an anemic red wine in the back of his pantry, puts it back, and pours herself three thick fingers from his bottle of Lagavulin.

Tony’s place is comfortable, simple. A bachelor pad. He needs a girlfriend, the woman’s touch to make it a bit homier.

She curls up on the sofa with her laptop and the scotch, opens the email from Oliver, laughs at the dirty limerick he’s written—so sly, Oliver is—then clicks open the file.

It is on the third page that she finds the photo. It’s part of the crime scene shots from the day of Damien Carr’s death. It is a reproduction of a painting, a classic family portrait. The label says Sylvia and Damien Carr with their daughter, Ashlyn.

Goose bumps parade down her arm.

She looks closer.

Sits back and lets her mental imagery go to work, decides she’s going mad. Looks again. No, it’s there. The shoulders aren’t as wide. The nose is a little longer. The chin is a different shape.

The Ash Carlisle she met could be this girl’s sister. Her cousin.

But she’ll bet good money that it’s not the same girl.



56

THE EMAIL

Ford’s morning is a blur of meetings, phone calls, consultations, advice, all of which have gone surprisingly well, considering.

The board assures her they will stand behind her and the school should a wrongful death lawsuit appear, and help fight against any moves by the alumni association to accept the endowment gift and force the school to go coed. She fields plenty of phone calls from concerned parents, but none of them seem to blame her.

A fresh press release is drafted by the lawyers, the school’s wrongful death policy revisited.

The students see the counselors, and Ford walks among them, visiting the dormitories and chatting with anyone who wishes to talk.

Ford has to wait until after lunch to speak with Vanessa and Piper. She decides to go to them. It might make them more comfortable to have this interview in their rooms.

Standing at the entrance to their suite, Ford has to admit the renovation, while lovely, has taken a good deal of the character away from the dorms. She liked the dingy rooms she’d lived in, the dark wood walls and multipaned windows. As bright and airy as things are now, she can’t help but wonder if the girls feel the improvements have ruined the school’s personality.

Vanessa and Piper are on their couch, conversing in low tones. They jump to their feet when they see Ford in the door.

“Sit, sit. I only came to check on you.”

“We’re okay, Dean,” Vanessa says, though the swollen eyes belie her statement.

“I know you’re not, so you don’t have to pretend for me. Camille was your very good friend.”

“We don’t know why she did it,” Piper says, curling herself back onto the sofa. “I mean, she was pissed off about the whole thing with Ash using a fake name, but when Becca said it wasn’t an Honor Code violation—”

“Camille took Ash to Honor Court?” This is news.

“Only a conference with Becca. She shot it down.”

“I need to ask you something important. Do either of you know who Camille was seeing? Who might have been the father of the baby?”

A quick glance between them tells Ford all she needs to know. They do, and they’re going to lie to her.

“May I remind you, ladies, that we have an Honor Code here.”

The threat lands. “We don’t know. That’s the thing, we were just trying to figure it out. She didn’t tell us.”

“Camille didn’t strike me as the type of girl who would keep something of this magnitude to herself.”

“Her sister might know,” Piper said. “Emily took her to the clinic outside of Charlottesville for the pills. But Camille didn’t tell us who got her pregnant. On my honor, Dean.”

“All right. If you two need anything, don’t hesitate. I will reach out to Emily and see if she has any information to share. Take good care, girls.”

She doesn’t know if she believes them. Who are they protecting, and why?

Ford stops by Ash’s room but it’s empty. It has been straightened, the beds made, the clothes hung. Ford will have to clear out Camille’s things, have them sent to Deirdre. Have the bunk bed removed. Ash gets a single for the rest of the year.

If only Camille had left a note. Something definitive. All they have to go on is the reactions of the people around her, teachers and students alike, all of whom say they didn’t think Camille was anything but her normal, bubbly self, and the diary in which she spoke of death. She didn’t say she wished for her own, though.

Ford knows full well that many suicides are shocks to the closest friends and family. That people who seem happy are sometimes the ones in the most danger of succumbing.