Games We Play (Thistle Cove 2)

“Everything okay?” I ask.

She laughs and takes a sip of very black coffee. “Thanks to you and your tip about Jacqueline Cates, I’ve been up for the last thirty-six hours. Fell down a damn rabbit hole.”

“Sorry?”

“Don’t be. I had no idea this case was out there, Kenley. Whoever wanted it hidden did a damn fine job. It never came up in any of my routine searches, and no one ever mentioned it.” She reaches down to the seat next to her. A moment later, she’s lifting up a stack of files and drops them on the table with a thud.

“What are those?”

“Everything I could dig up on Jacqueline’s case.”

“Even though it was hidden?”

“It’s hard to keep information away from journalists if you know what you’re looking for. You gave me enough to pull at a few threads, and it didn’t take long for the whole thing to unravel.” She opens a folder. I got the police reports and a copy of the interviews. The case was dead from the beginning. If anyone knew anything, they weren’t talking. Jacqueline leaves the library, walks home. Vanishes. Found strangled four days later. Her body was clean, clothed. Although there are some signs that she’d been sexually active before her death.

“Assaulted?” My stomach twists uncomfortably.

“That’s inconclusive.” She flips through the papers. “There are a few reports that people had seen her walking that night and a couple of car descriptions.” She looks at me. “One was a blue VW.”

“Like Rose’s?”

“Not like. The same VW Bug has been registered to the same owner in Thistle Cove for thirty years.”

“Brice Waller.” My mind starts to connect the pieces. “He knew Jacqueline. Was friendly with her. I even asked him about her a few days ago, and he got very defensive.”

She nods, but her mouth is turned into a frown. “Brice has an alibi for that night. Iron clad.”

The surge of hope vanishes. “Who? What?”

“He was in a study group with a few other students.”

“Who? The football team? Because they’d cover for him.” Then and now.

“It wasn’t the football team. It was some young politician’s grou

p.” She takes another sip of coffee. “People notoriously get things wrong—like car style and color—when it comes to witnessing crimes.”

I sit back, feeling defeated. “If Brice isn’t involved, then why the big cover-up? Was it someone else? Jason Chandler? Ezra Baxter?”

She shakes her head. “All interviewed. Zero evidence of involvement or of having knowledge of the crime. To be fair, they did primarily focus on Brice back then. He had several interviews. It’s very clear he’s always had political aspirations and something like this—even the hint of a scandal—could be a deal-breaker. His lawyer shut it down quickly, and his family used their power to apply pressure on the police to quietly close the case once it went cold.”

“Kind of like calling a disappearance a suicide with no body and no note.”

She nods. “Pretty much.”

A black and white photo peeks from the edge of the folder. “What’s that?”

“Crime scene photos.”

“Can I see it?”

She grimaces. “You don’t want to look at them, Kenley.”

“I do,” I tell her, reaching for the thick, glossy paper. The image is haunting. Jacqueline looks like she’s asleep. Only the dark marks around her neck and the bruise just below her eye show that something’s wrong. I pull it forward and study the bruise. It’s a strange shape.

“Any idea what made that?”

“The coroner’s report speculates it could have happened during the struggle, or maybe even when she hit the water.”