Jessie didn’t plan to let him off that easy.
“So you’re telling me that as a competent attorney with a thriving career, you didn’t do your due diligence before getting involved with this girl?”
Rose seemed unbothered by the question.
“Do you ask to check the licenses of your dates for their birthdays, Ms. Hunt? Come on now, what is this really about? I know you didn’t come all the way here and bust into my office to give me a hard time over unprovable charges.”
Jessie glanced at Ryan, letting him know she thought the time had come. His half-nod indicated he agreed.
“Missy’s dead,” he said.
Aaron Rose’s already pale face turned ashen. When he finally regained the ability to speak, he croaked a question.
“What happened?”
“She was murdered, Mr. Rose,” Ryan said. “Are you asserting that you know nothing about this?”
“No,” he said, the attitude gone. “I mean, we have a standing date every other Thursday, including tomorrow. She usually calls the day of to reconfirm. When did this happen?”
“Monday night. And her real name is Michaela Penn, by the way.”
“She never told me that,” he whispered, more to himself than to them.
“Where were you two evenings ago, Mr. Rose?” Jessie asked brusquely, refusing to give him time to organize his thoughts.
“What?” he asked distractedly. “Oh, right, of course.”
He sat back down and moved his computer mouse around. After several seconds, he looked up, both relieved and distraught.
“Monday night, right? I was at a bar association banquet. It ran until ten thirty. Then my wife and I went home to relieve the babysitter. I was in bed by midnight.”
Jessie felt like a deflated balloon but tried to hide her disappointment. Ryan, more experienced with this sort of thing, did a better job of it.
“We’ll need the babysitter’s number,” he said matter-of-factly, “as well as contact information for the bar event.”
“Not a problem,” Rose said, writing down the numbers as he spoke. He was sounding increasingly confident. “I can also give you access to the security camera footage at my house. It will show our return home and when I left the next morning.”
“We’ll need it,” Ryan said. “And until we can verify your alibi, I wouldn’t recommend any travel, Mr. Rose.”
“Of course not,” the lawyer replied, not yet back to full smarm but getting there quickly.
“We’ll be in touch,” Ryan said.
They were almost out the door when Rose called out to them.
“Do you know where the funeral is being held?” he asked. “I obviously can’t go. But I’d like to send flowers.”
“We don’t have that information,” Ryan said. “But I’ll let you know when I find out.”
As they walked out, Jessie felt a pang in her chest. What kind of funeral would Michaela get? Could her father even afford one? The fact that none of these things had occurred to her until just now filled her with guilt.
And the realization that Aaron Rose had thought of it before her filled her with shame.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
He wasn’t that bad for an old guy.
Hannah would never admit it out loud. But she actually got a kick out of Garland Moses, whom she’d taken to calling the snarky geriatric. She didn’t use the term out loud, but every time she thought of it, she couldn’t help but grin.
Though he’d told her when she and Jessie had first arrived that she should go to the den to finish her homework, he hadn’t followed up on it. After she described how she’d been dragged out of her classroom, he smiled ruefully before speaking.
“I think that gives you a free pass for at least one day. Why don’t we play Connect Four instead? It’s not calculus but it’s kind of math-y.”
So that’s what they did for the next few hours—played games and ate chocolate chip cookies. Hannah could tell the guy was smart but there wasn’t anything about him that would have led her to believe that he’d hunted down multiple serial killers. The man didn’t even seem interested in brushing his hair. When they got bored with the games, he invited her out to his backyard to help feed his koi fish. They sat on deck chairs and tossed food pellets into the small pond.
“So your sister says you just started at this—what did she call it—therapeutic school last week,” he said. “What exactly is a therapeutic high school anyway?”
Hannah laughed, mostly because she often asked herself the same question.
“Officially? It’s a special learning environment that caters to students facing extreme emotional and psychological challenges.”
“And unofficially?” Garland asked.
“It’s a way station for screw-ups.”
“Screw-ups or the screwed up?” he pressed.
She thought about it for a second. The question hinted at a distinction she’d never really considered before.
“Both, I guess. There are some kids there who were abused or victims of violent crime—rapes, beatings—stuff like that. They didn’t do anything wrong. They just have massive PTSD because of it. But most people are there because of something they did. There’s a girl who broke into a convenience store to pay for her Oxy habit. One guy beat up his teacher. This other girl with impulse control issues keeps hitting on the teachers, like all of them.”
“So which one are you?” he wondered. “Screw-up or screwed up?”
She rolled her eyes even as she smiled at him.
“Oh man, sorry. I know you’re just making conversation but you sound like my therapist. And since you and I don’t have doctor/patient confidentiality, maybe I’ll pass on the oversharing. I don’t need you ratting me out to Jessie.”
“Fair enough,” Garland said. “We can just feed the fish.”
They did that for a few minutes. The silence was surprisingly comfortable. Then Garland spoke up again.
“What makes you think it would be ratting you out to tell Jessie whether you considered yourself screwed up or a screw-up? Is that some secret information?”
“No,” she admitted. “But I know she worries about me enough already. I don’t need her fixating on my sense of self-worth too.”
Garland chuckled softly to himself.
“What?” she asked, irked.
“Nothing,” he said, then changed his mind. “It’s just that, don’t you think she’s already doing that all the time? I mean, no offense but your birth father was a serial killer who tortured both his daughters. Anyone who doesn’t doubt themselves after learning that family tidbit would be…screwed up. She’s going to worry about your well-being, no matter what. My telling her you have a messed-up self-image isn’t going to come as a shock to her.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point,” he said, not looking at her but at one of the fish swimming back and forth, “is that you’re obviously screwed up. No sane person wouldn’t be after what you’ve been through. The question is: why do you consider yourself a screw-up too?”