"That's true. Landon had dark-blond hair like our mother, while I inherited the brown hair from my dad. But we both had the same blue eyes." She paused for a moment. "I looked at the photo a bunch of times in the first few days and told myself that I should be happy that Landon was smiling and had a girlfriend and was enjoying his life. But after talking to AJ, I wonder if this moment captured his true feelings."
"Are there any more photos?"
"Just this one," she said, picking up a loose, unframed photo. "It's a picture of all the guys in the fraternity house. I guess everyone must have gotten one. I circled the faces of the guys I talked to." She handed him the photo.
"I met Henry earlier today at Adler and Briggs."
She started at his comment. "That's right. You were going to go to Sabrina's law firm. I never asked you what happened."
"Not much. I met Henry and his father, Graham, and Sabrina's supervisor, a woman by the name of Lindsay. The company had already secured Sabrina's files and refused to discuss the clients she was working with. It wasn't a productive meeting. I did bring up Landon's death, but Graham immediately insisted it was an accident."
"I'm sure no one is going to change their story now, not unless we find evidence to prove they are lying. What did they say about Sabrina?"
"They expressed the appropriate amount of concern. They presented a theory of Sabrina being stalked or harassed by someone on a dating app, but no one had a name, just random comments Sabrina had made about someone bothering her. Her manager claimed Sabrina was a friend, then almost immediately recanted, saying they only had a professional relationship."
She met his gaze. "Interesting that they already had their own theory ready to go. They want you to start looking for Sabrina on dating apps, talk to people she might have matched with, look through her texts for men she dated."
"You're very quick, Haley. You have an investigative mind."
"Journalism requires research. It's easy to get distracted by a shiny penny when someone puts it right in front of you."
"I wasn't distracted. I immediately recognized their theory as a ploy to steer my investigation in a specific direction. I wasn't going to fall for that."
She liked that Matt was sharp, too. They needed to be at the top of their game if they were going to get justice for Landon and Sabrina. "I'm glad you saw through them."
"It wasn't difficult." He looked back at the photo. "Thanks for putting names next to faces."
"You're welcome, but as you can see, I only spoke to about eight out of forty guys in that house."
"Trent Adler has lighter hair than his cousin Henry."
"He's nicer, too, and he comes across as more genuine than Henry. But that could have been an act. Honestly, I felt like they were all acting when I met them. I couldn't tell who was genuinely sad and who was just saying the right things. I do know that Trent was not at the house that night. His alibi was confirmed. As was Brooke's. The others at the party didn't have alibis. But no one seemed interested in confirming their whereabouts through photos or eyewitness accounts."
"I noticed the timeline was vague. And there were also a lot of drunk kids at the house that night, not just the fraternity brothers. There were plenty of girls there, too."
"I'm sure it was a chaotic scene, but I still believe someone knew something or saw something. They were just afraid to come forward."
"Did you talk to Landon the day he died?"
She shook her head, more anger and guilt running through her. "No. It had been a few days since we'd spoken. We were planning to get together the following week for my birthday. I was working in Santa Barbara at the time, at a small newspaper, and I was going to drive down to have dinner with him."
"Santa Barbara, huh? Did you move to LA after his death?"
"About ten months after he died. I needed to be busier. Santa Barbara was too quiet. TheSentinelwas a better place to escape. After I got that job, I moved in here, and that's the last time I looked in these boxes." She dug through the rest of the box, but aside from some of his favorite hats and childhood mementos she hadn't been able to throw away, there was nothing of significance. "There isn't anything here," she said.
He gave her a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry I'm making you look through all this, Haley."
"As soon as Sabrina contacted me, I knew it was all going to start up again. I just thought I'd have more information to go on." She opened the last box, and her breath caught in her chest. "Oh, my God. I forgot about this."
"What is it?"
She pulled out the small white box carefully. It was tied with a blue ribbon and had a birthday card taped to the top, her name written in Landon's careful handwriting.
"Landon had gotten me a birthday present. I found it in his room when I was cleaning up. I couldn't bear to open it at the time. Or even later. I'm not sure I can do it now."
"You don't have to."
"No, I should. It's been long enough." Her hands trembled slightly as she opened the card, her eyes blurring with tears as she read his note.
