You Are Not Alone(99)

While I walk, I phone the Syracuse University Office of Alumni Engagement because I have no idea where the Moore sisters or Valerie attended college. “I’m just trying to track down a few of your graduates,” I say. But the woman who answers the phone tells me none of them attended Syracuse.

I finally reach the building where James stayed when he was in New York. I wait by the entrance, my duffel bag at my feet, hoping someone comes in or goes out.

But it’s the middle of the workday, and although I’m there for three hours, the only people who enter the building are a dog walker and a UPS deliveryman, both of whom look at me quizzically when I ask if they knew a James Anders who lived here.

Maybe this is the wrong approach, I think. James had only been in New York for less than a year. I can’t imagine he developed strong ties in that short time. The people who knew him best are all in Mossley.

I pull out my Data Book and look down at my scrawled list of names—but they’re first names, and other than Belinda, they’re all fairly common ones: Kevin, Sam, Robin, Kathy, Matt. If any of them are former high school classmates, maybe there’s a way I can cross-reference them by finding a Mossley Prep yearbook.

I’ve been sitting on the steps leading up to the door of James’s building. I pull myself up heavily and head down the street, stopping at the dry cleaner’s a few doors down and showing the picture of James on my tiny screen to the woman behind the desk. She doesn’t recognize him or his name, but I leave my number, and she promises she’ll have the manager call me later today. I also stop at the burger restaurant on the corner and the liquor store across the street. It’s a long shot that anyone at these places would know James, let alone have spotted him with one of the Moore sisters. But I have to try.

I resume walking toward the Apple Store. On my way, I dial Tessa, James’s ex-wife again, but she doesn’t answer. For all I know, she’s out of town. Chandler doesn’t pick up either.

The store is crowded—the new iPhone was just released—so I have to wait a few minutes to get an open computer. I keep my duffel bag clenched between my feet as I navigate to the Mossley Prep website and try to find a link to old yearbooks.

There aren’t any. But I do discover the high school newspaper, the Tattler, is archived online—and the issues go back exactly twenty years. James would have been seventeen then, probably a senior.

I begin to scan the pages, searching for names in bylines and photo captions that match those on my list. I scroll through dozens of pages before I get my first hit in the homecoming edition of the paper: A guy named Kevin O’Donnell was homecoming king. He might have been the same Kevin who wrote about epic parties at the river.

I keep scanning through the old black-and-white pages, then I see a picture of a group of guys playing soccer under the headline THE LIONS PREPARE FOR ANOTHER VICTORY!

I look at the picture of the players, but I can’t tell if James is in it. He could be the blond guy chasing the ball, but his face is in profile. And all I’ve seen is one grainy black-and-white picture of him as an adult.

I rub my burning eyes, then continue to scan the pictures and articles. I find two Kathys—one who wrote a piece about the debate team, and another who won a cross-country meet. I write down both of their last names.

“Miss? Do you need any help?” I look up to see a guy in a navy blue T-shirt with an Apple logo standing next to me. I’m suddenly aware of how I must appear: I spent the night on the subway and I didn’t brush my hair today, let alone shower. More than that, the agitation and fear roiling off me are probably palpable.

“Just looking,” I say, and return my gaze to the screen.

Five pages later, I scan a large photo of student actors rehearsing for the senior fall play. A dozen kids are onstage, but only two are named in the caption: “Lisa Scott, who plays Emily Webb, and Andy Chen, who plays George Gibbs, get ready to wow the audience on opening night!”

I jot down those names, then I scan the faces of the other teenagers, looking for James.

My tired eyes skip over a dark-haired girl sitting on the edge of the stage, her legs dangling. Then my gaze jerks back.

Straight eyebrows. Features that are unremarkable yet somehow familiar. An intense stare at the camera.

My peripheral vision turns black; I feel like I’m about to pass out. I take deep breaths, fighting off the sensation.

It looks like Valerie Ricci.

If she and James went to Mossley Prep together, I’ve found the hidden link.

Valerie was an actress, I remember as my pulse accelerates. She lived in L.A. before moving to New York. It stands to reason she’d perform in the school play.

I lean forward, my face close to the screen. This photo is twenty years old. It looks like it could be a young Valerie, but I couldn’t bet my life on it.

More than three thousand counties are in the United States. What are the odds that Valerie would just happen to have been from the one James lived in?

Essentially impossible. People also have a roughly one-in-three-thousand chance of getting struck by lightning in their lifetime, and I’ve never known anyone that has happened to.

I begin to whip through the old newspaper archives again, a fresh surge of energy fueling me as I search for any other indication of Valerie’s presence at Mossley Prep. This is what I’ve been desperate to find—it could prove my innocence and get Detective Williams to investigate the true criminals.