May 5
5:35 p.m.
Ami just called. She said there was another guy in the car with Ron, but Ron dropped him off at a parking lot in Bangor. That’s odd. I asked if she could tell who the guy was, but she said he was already in the car when she fell in behind them. And then when the guy got out of the car in town, Ami said it was raining too hard to see clearly. Plus the guy had his hood up.
Yeah, I just looked out the window and it’s pouring. The sky is so dark it looks like night.
I can’t help but keep wondering who the guy with Ron was? True, kids here on campus are always bumming rides down to Bangor, but it seems unlikely Ron would give anyone a ride. It doesn’t matter, I just need to keep thinking…and keep writing. Or I may start screaming.
May 5
6:15 p.m.
Nate called. He and Adam will be here in fifteen minutes. I fessed up and told him Ami was out following Ron. He cursed for a full minute. He knows as well as methe danger she’s putting herself in. I asked to talk to Adam, who is driving after all. Nate put me on speaker, and I said two words, “Drive faster!”
May 5
6:30 p.m.
Ami called again. She followed Ron to Fowler’s, so he’s definitely staying there. She told me she waited a few minutes and then pulled into the lot herself. I told her she is nuts and to get the hell out of there. We can meet her halfway, go confront him together. Or just let the guys handle the asshole. But Ami laughed. I swear she loves the drama. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she followed Ron around the back on foot so she could see which room he’s staying in. I yelled at her, only because I’m scared to death he’ll catch her. But she insisted that with the rain he didn’t notice anything. “It only took a minute, but I’m soaking wet now,” she said, laughing again.
I demanded she get out of there now! I told her this isn’t a game.
“I’m just going to run the heater and warm up,” she said. She’s so cool under pressure. “I’ll wait here in the car until you get here. I’ll be fine. He’s not coming back out in this weather. He’s in room number eleven, by the way.”
But I know Ami, and I worry she’ll get some crazy idea to confront him alone. Please stay in the car, please stay in the car. I’m trying to send my reckless roommate mental messages. But now someone is knocking. It’s Nate and Adam. Leaving now… And praying Ami remains unnoticed by the monster who is my stepdad.
I set the diary pages down. It was all coming together. If these pages were to be believed, then Ron Mifflin had been staying at Fowler’s—room number eleven—that night in May. Ami had followed him there. And then Adam, Nate, and Helena had left the school grounds to meet her. It sounded as if they all had planned to confront him together, but something had gone awry. Of that I was sure.
What about the student Ron dropped off in town? It bothered me that no one had seen his face. Had he even been a student…or someone else? Why would Ron give some random stranger a ride into town? It didn’t fit with his character, especially after he’d just been on campus terrorizing his stepdaughter. I couldn’t see Ron Mifflin doling out favors to university students. Whoever the guy was, though, had he followed Ron to Fowler’s? Maybe he tailed Ami? But most troubling to me were Helena’s words from the other night: What if he saw what we did?
Whether the student saw what they did or not, my question was this: What did these people I cared for do that rainy night in May all those years ago? Whatever it was, it was at the core of the secret Adam was keeping. That all of them were keeping. And it was what Chelsea had been blackmailing Adam with. But I had one other question: if these people had held a secret that no one else knew, then how in the hell did Chelsea Hannigan find out?
Chapter Fifteen
Because Ami was unstable—and she’d obviously doctored pages before—I wanted to be sure Ron Mifflin had really checked into Fowler’s Motel on May fifth, nine years earlier. If he’d truly stayed there, then I could be sure Helena’s diary pages were legit.
I needed to move quickly, though, before Adam returned from his business trip. Especially since I still planned to tell him all I knew. He was scheduled to return tomorrow, so today was the last day I could go to Fowler’s and “check” on things.
Adam was
