“Weren’t you one of ’em? You should probably know better than Deke.” She tilted her head. “Do I get my drink now?” She lifted her empty glass and wiggled it.
Cooper tried to ask a couple more questions, but Hillary Campion was tapped out. He bought her another drink, dropped a tip for the bartender, and left her sipping away as he headed out to his SUV and started writing down his notes. He put in a call to William Ryerson but had to leave his name on the man’s voice message. He had a lot of new questions for him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cooper called Jamie on his way back from the Logger Room. “Where are you?” he asked her, hearing unidentifiable noise in the background.
“The grocery store. I’m making cheese manicotti for dinner. You’re invited. Six-thirty.”
She sounded subdued. Assuming it was about Gwen, he assured her, “I’m going to make sure the lab gets me the results on the spilled tea.”
“Will there be an autopsy?”
“Yes. There needs to be. Her parents are on their way to River Glen.”
“Do you think it was suicide?” she asked hesitantly.
“I don’t know. She didn’t seem the type.”
“She isn’t . . . wasn’t. . . .” She sighed and then told him that she’d tried to ask Emma about the ski mask, ending with, “I think all I did was upset her.”
“I just finished interviewing Hillary Campion, Deke Girard’s girlfriend. Deke’s the man who would come into the Thrift Shop to see Emma and recently died.”
“Who scared her,” Jamie clarified.
“Yes, but I think he really was trying to protect her, in his way.” He went on to explain everything he’d learned from Campion. He finished with, “I’m sure it was Dug he saw fighting with her.”
“Dug.” Jamie swept in a breath.
“I’m going over to his place now. I’m going to see him, or wait till he shows. Whatever it takes.”
“Be careful,” she said immediately. “Gwen warned us.”
“I’ve got another call in to William Ryerson,” he said,
“but Mike Corliss might have been right about it being one of us boys.”
“Maybe someone should go with you to Dug’s.”
“I’ve got this. Don’t worry. I’ll see you at dinner, if I can. I’ll call you either way.”
“Cooper . . .”
He could tell she was choking up. “It’s okay. We’re finally going to learn something about what happened to Emma.”
“I was going to say, stay safe.”
“I will.”
* * *
Dug Douglas . . . Patrick “Dug” Douglas . . . Greer Douglas’s father.
Jamie clicked off her cell and finished buying her groceries, barely able to concentrate on the list. Had Dug stabbed Emma? Why? Why?
And how in God’s name was she going to tell Harley?
Her phone rang and she saw it was Camryn. She immediately felt a welling up in her chest because she knew she was calling about Gwen. It reminded Jamie of how unfair to Gwen she’d been growing up and when Camryn said, “I just heard about Gwen. Oh, God, Jamie. I’m just sick.” It was all she could do to keep from bawling.
* * *
Cooper drove to Dug’s home with barely leashed fury. The Douglas’s two-story house was white with black shutters, a modern version of a Colonial, and it sat on the edge of Staffordshire Estates. The yard was trimmed and there was a basketball hoop over the garage, a reminder that Dug and Teri had a son, Greer, a senior at River Glen High.
Cooper pressed his finger to the bell, reminding himself to stay cool. After all these years . . . after all these years . . .
Dug himself answered the door. He had a sour look on his face. He didn’t say “You again,” but he might as well have.
Cooper didn’t waste time. “You had a face-to-face with Emma after the rest of us left the night she was attacked. You had a fight with her. And you never told the police. Did you tell Race? Have you both kept that back all these years?”
Dug looked like he was going to deny it. He clearly wanted to. But he took a second glance at Cooper and shook his head.
“What did you do, Dug?” Cooper asked coldly.
“Goddammit.” He looked past Cooper, checking both ways, then waved him in. “Teri and Greer aren’t here. Greer’s hot for your daughter’s friend. He’s over at Emma’s now.”
For a moment, Cooper was distracted, but he pushed that news aside as he stepped across the threshold. Dug closed the door behind him and led him into his den, a place where every square inch of counter space and shelving held stacks of paper.
“Sit down,” he invited with a vague wave. Cooper looked around. There was no place to sit that wasn’t covered with paper. “I can stand.”
“Oh, sit down.” Dug made a disgusted sound and grabbed a sheaf of papers from a client seat that looked uncomfortable and, as Cooper learned when he sat, was.
Dug seated himself behind his desk, which faced out toward the room at large.
“What happened that night?” Cooper asked.
“Okay, look. I know you’re pissed. Fine. You have a right to be.”
“What did you fight about with Emma?” He practically bit off every word.
“Her boyfriend. Not Race. The college boy, or whatever he was. Older. I gave her hell for leading Race on.”
“She didn’t lead him—”
“I’m telling you what I saw, okay? And she led him the fuck on for most of high school. I told Race once I thought she was a lesbian, but he thought it was an older guy, and he was right. She admitted it that night.”
He glanced at Cooper who held back a list of angry epithets with an effort. Eventually Dug sighed. “I went back there and the back door was unlocked and yeah, I walked right in. I scared her and she blasted me, actually shoved me out of the main house into that anteroom. I told her to get rid of whoever she was seeing and get with Race. You know what she did? She
