Black Orchid Girls (Detective Amanda Steele)

SEVENTEEN

The door swung open, and two young women walked into the room. The air between them seemed charged. Both frowned when their eyes fell on Amanda and Trent, and one girl nudged the other. Either they suspected bad news was coming or the associate dean had told them of Chloe’s death, despite Amanda asking him not to.

Amanda gestured to chairs across the table from her and Trent. “Hi, girls. You want to take a seat?” It would be more effective presenting it as an invitation, rather than a request.

“Ah, sure.” The one who spoke had bleach-blond hair swept back in a high ponytail. The other seemed timid and withdrawn. It was hard to know if it was because of the circumstances or if it was her normal nature. But there were a few strands of her brown hair that had been colored purple, suggesting to Amanda that she wasn’t always quiet.

“I’m Detective Amanda Steele, and this is Detective Trent Stenson.”

The girls dropped down into the chairs across the table. The one with the ponytail set her messenger bag on the table, and the other one hugged her textbooks to her chest—uncomfortable and closed off. Was it the reaction of a person with something to hide or was she naturally nervous around cops?

“You’re Jayne?” Amanda took a guess and addressed the girl with the purple highlights when neither of them reciprocated Amanda’s introduction by supplying their name.

The ponytail girl shook her head, her hair swaying with the movement. “She’s Lauren. I’m Jayne.”

Amanda nodded, curious why Lauren couldn’t speak for herself. Jayne did have a way about her that sucked the air from the room, though. “We understand that Chloe Somner was your roommate?”

“Uh-huh. And a good friend.” Jayne had this confident air about her, and Amanda hated that the news she had to deliver would probably tear it apart chunk by chunk.

Lauren nodded but said nothing.

“Unfortunately, we have bad news about Chloe. She was found murdered yester—”

“No! Shut the—” Jayne jumped to her feet. “You’re shitting us. You have to be. She can’t be…” She lowered back into a chair, opting for one a bit farther down the table, though still opposite Amanda and Trent.

Lauren’s eyes filled with tears, and she stared blankly at the table.

“She was stabbed to death,” Amanda said, laying Chloe’s fate out more clearly.

“Who would—” Jayne rubbed her mouth and blinked rapidly. She shook her head. “No, I can’t accept this.”

“You were quite close, then?” Trent asked gently.

“Uh-huh.” Jayne regarded him like the question had been a stupid one.

“And you, Lauren?” Amanda leaned forward, dipping her head low enough to meet the girl’s gaze.

“She was my best friend.” Her voice was gravelly.

“Jeez, thanks,” Jayne groaned.

“Not everything is about you!” Lauren snapped, set her books on the table, and turned her body toward Jayne. “Don’t make what happened to her about you. Don’t even dare.”

The quiet girl had a temper. Those who bottled up their feelings were the most volatile. She’d come into the room almost as if she were being led to the execution chamber. Had she known what happened to Chloe before coming here? “Lauren, did you hear Chloe had been killed before we told you?”

“No.”

“She’s just a bit of a witch,” Jayne said.

“Would you shut up?” Lauren’s face contorted into a mask of anger.

“No, I won’t shut up, bitch!”

Amanda held out a hand like a referee official at a football game. “Hey, let’s stop with the name calling and the outbursts. Do you know how lucky the two of you are? Your friend, not so much.” Her redhead temper had enough of listening to these two bickering back and forth when a supposed friend of theirs was in a fridge at the morgue.

Both girls held each other’s gazes and grimaced.

“You two are friends, as well as roommates, are you not?” Amanda suspected she might have made a false assumption before the girls had entered the room, but it was possible they were just in a tiff at the moment.

“No way,” Jayne pushed out. “And she gets these woo-woo feelings.” She wriggled her fingers. “Thinks she’s psychic or something.”

Lauren shuffled farther down in her chair and crossed her arms. “I get feelings,” she mumbled. “Something you wouldn’t understand.”

“Lauren, you got a feeling that something had happened to Chloe?” Amanda would roll with this and see where it got them.

“Yeah. I mean she didn’t come home last night, and she wasn’t answering her phone all day.”

“She could have hooked up with a guy, you know. You mother us and smother us.” Jayne curled her upper lip in a repulsive expression that certainly wiped away any natural good looks she had.

“Enough,” Amanda snapped, and Trent wheeled his chair back a few inches. She kept her gaze on the girls. “Your friend is dead. Murdered. We’re here talking to you to see if we can figure out who did this and why. Do you want to see justice for her, or is it more important that you continue to argue? Honestly, we have all day, but the longer this takes, the longer her killer is out there free.”

Deafening silence.

“Good. Now, let’s continue.” Amanda coached her breathing to slow and continued. “Jayne, you mentioned Chloe hooking up with someone. Her boyfriend or someone else?” There was no evidence Chloe had sex recently, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t seeing anyone, and they still hadn’t confirmed her breakup with Josh.

“You know about Josh?” Jayne asked.

“Yes, and we’ll get back to him. But was she seeing or sleeping with anyone else?”

“No, but she could have.” Jayne crossed her arms and pushed her chin out.

Amanda took a deep breath, trying to cool her temper. “Did either of you think to report Chloe as missing?” The answer to that question would reveal just how tight the group of girls was.

“No. Because of this one.” Lauren shot a glare at Jayne. “She thinks I make things up, but it’s not true. I sense things.”

Amanda wasn’t there to delve into the spiritual universe and its inexplicable mysteries. She didn’t even buy into them. It’s said a person can sense when a loved one is hurt, but had the two girls been that close? Then there was the one aspect of the symbolism for the black orchid: black magic. She shook aside any suspicion in that regard. There was nothing at the scene to indicate Chloe was killed as part of a magical ritual. “Do either of you know why Chloe would have been at Leesylvania State Park at three thirty yesterday morning?”

The girls looked at each other. Both shook their heads.

“Did she go to the park regularly?” Trent interjected.

“Yeah,” Lauren said. “She studied the mystery snails.”

Not news. “Would you know why she was there so early? Or was that the time she normally went?” A little fishing expedition. Line cast.

Jayne chewed on a hangnail. “Well, she hasn’t been there in weeks… not since she and Josh split.”

Amanda would get back to the subject of the breakup, but she wanted to pursue the other part of what Jayne had said. Helen McCarthy made it sound like Chloe had been a regular visitor, right up to the previous week. Had she lied intentionally, or had she been speaking in generalities as to Chloe’s schedule? “Did Chloe go to the park regularly before that?”

“Yeah,” Jayne said.