"Did you do it with your parents?"
"Not completely. I still have anger for both of them. But what I have never been able to come close to making peace with is Landon's death."
"I'm beginning to understand why you feel so frustrated. I'm sorry the police and the school let you down."
"Julia Harper said the brass forced her and the other detective to shut it down. Otherwise, she would have kept going. She was the only one who listened to me, who heard me, who wanted to explore other options, but her hands were tied."
"I saw her name in the file. I'd like to talk to her."
"You should. I contacted her earlier today after I spoke to you. I hadn't talked to her in several years, but I knew she was a private investigator now, and I thought she might be able to help me figure out what Sabrina knew."
He straightened, a frown on his face. "This is an FBI investigation, Haley. I can't have a PI getting in the middle of it."
"She could be an asset, just like me. She was there six years ago, working in the police department. She's the only one who tried to help."
"I'll talk to her. But is it possible she was part of the cover-up and just didn't play it that way in front of you?"
Now, she was the one who was frowning. "I don't believe that. She genuinely cared about me and my brother. You just said you had a case shut down by the higher-ups, so why couldn't that have happened to Julia?"
"It could have, but I would prefer to keep the circle of information tight. From here on out, don't tell her anything without speaking to me first. Someone tried to run you off the road tonight. And I don’t want to trust anyone unless I've vetted them first."
"She wouldn't have tried to run me off the road." She paused, suddenly realizing that Julia was one of the few people who had known she was at Cipher. But she still didn't believe Julia had had anything to do with that attack. She was just letting Matt's doubts get into her head. "Let's focus on my brother."
"If we're going to do that, it's time to get into his boxes. Are you ready?"
"As I'll ever be," she muttered as they got up from the table. She grabbed a pair of scissors from a drawer and then moved into the living room, kneeling next to the big box. She slit the tape and opened the box. "This has academic stuff," she said, waving her hand toward the textbooks, notebooks, and papers inside. "But there aren't any black notebooks. And definitely no computer, no phone."
"I'll start there. Maybe there's something written down about his passion project."
"Okay." As Matt looked through that box, she opened the other, finding Landon's favorite Westbridge sweatshirt on top. She picked it up and held it to her, thinking it still smelled faintly of her brother, or maybe that was just her mind wanting the connection.
"Your brother took a lot of notes in his classes," Matt said. "And old school, too, handwritten on binder paper. I bet his grades were never less than an A."
"Never," she agreed. "He would freak out if he got a B. Controlling how he did in school was his way of dealing with the unpredictability in our lives."
"Makes sense."
"Landon didn't voluntarily drink himself to death, Matt. I knew him better than anyone. I raised him. That wasn't who he was. He didn't use alcohol to drown his sorrows, not after watching my mother chase the highs only to fall even lower when they ended."
He looked up from the box and met her gaze. "I believe you, Haley."
"Really?" she asked in surprise. "You do?"
He nodded. "I do."
His words touched her deeply because no one except Julia had ever believed her, and even Julia had expressed doubts at times. She'd always felt so alone in her fierce defense of her brother. "Thank you," she said, blinking away the moisture in her eyes. "That means a lot to me."
"But we still have to prove it."
She looked back in her box and pulled out a couple of framed photos that had been in Landon's room. Her heart twisted again at the first one, which was a picture of her and Landon in Hawaii.
"What did you find?" Matt asked.
She showed him the photo. "I took Landon to Hawaii for his high school graduation. I scrimped and saved for months. It was the first time either of us had left the state. We could only afford four nights in a cheap motel, but the beach was beautiful, and we felt like we were starting a new chapter." She shook her head and let out a sigh, then picked up the next photo. "This is Landon and Brooke, his girlfriend."
"I'd like to see that." She handed him the photo of Brooke, a very pretty brunette wearing a tight mini dress, her hand on Landon's chest, as they smiled for the camera. In the background, there were Greek letters on a banister, but they weren't at the fraternity house. "I think that was taken at one of Brooke's sorority events," she said. "They look happy."
"Your brother doesn't look exactly like you, but there's definitely a resemblance," Matt commented.
