"Did Brooke think your brother was killed?"
"No. She thought he might have gotten talked into drinking too much, because it was the week of his twenty-first birthday and everyone wanted to party with him."
"Was she at the party that night?"
"No. She was away that weekend." She drew in a breath. "I'm sure you can pull the files on the investigation from the LAPD if you want to know all the details. You might find out more than I did. I drove everyone there crazy with my questions. They got irritated and stopped talking to me. There was one sympathetic detective, but she never came up with anything, either, and the investigation ended very quickly."
"Maybe it was just an accident," he suggested.
"I've tried to make peace with that idea," she replied. "But when Sabrina reached out yesterday, she reignited my suspicions. Her call—her death—they have to be tied to Landon."
"Possibly," he conceded.
"If you can open her phone, then the person who texted her won't be difficult to find. It was probably a friend, maybe someone she worked with."
"Now you're going to tell me how to do my job?"
"In my experience, sometimes law enforcement needs a little help," she said, a bitter note in her voice. "I was deeply disappointed by the investigation into my brother's death. The police deferred to the university security team. It didn't feel like they wanted to find anything. Westbridge is filled with rich kids with powerful parents, and I always wondered if they were pressured not to come up with anything."
"That might be true, but from my experience, victims' families usually don't feel the police have done enough. That's often based on emotion more than facts. And it's completely understandable when you've lost someone young and healthy in a shocking and unexpected way."
Angry sparks ran through her eyes. "I've heard that comment before. If that's all you have to say, then you should go."
"I'll go, but we're not done talking." He pulled a card from his wallet. "Do you have a pen?"
She handed him one from the kitchen drawer, and he scribbled a number on the back of the card. "This is my personal number," he said, handing her the card. "I know you're going to do your own investigation, because you've clearly already started. I won't waste my breath telling you to stay out of this, but I would ask you to share what you find. I would rather work with you than against you."
"Really? You feel more like an adversary than anything else. I just offered to help, and you shut me down."
"No. You asked questions I couldn't answer, and that will probably continue."
"So, it's a one-way street. I give you information. You give me nothing. Sounds like a bad deal."
"I could make it worse. Let's not forget you stole the victim's phone and ran away from the scene of a crime."
"Are you going to turn me in?" she challenged.
"No, I'm going to hold it over your head," he returned. "If you find out something, you tell me. Otherwise, I will charge you for obstructing a federal investigation."
"Got it." She walked to the door and pointedly opened it.
He moved into the hall, then paused to look back at her. "Whoever killed Sabrina won't hesitate to kill again, Haley. Whatever you do, don't forget that."
Haley locked and bolted the door after he left, then walked over to the table and sat down, her legs shaky after her disturbing conversation with Agent Lawson. She was lucky he hadn't arrested her, but that could still change if she didn't cooperate. She didn't have a problem with sharing information, but she preferred that information go both ways, and she wasn't going to wait for him to find answers that he might or might not share with her. She needed to talk to someone she could trust, someone who had wanted to help her six years ago, but back then, her hands had been tied. Maybe now she could do more.
She sent a text to the old number she had, giving her name and asking if they could meet this morning to talk about Landon, that she might have new information. She wasn't sure the number was good anymore as she hadn't talked to former Detective Julia Harper in five years. But she got an answer back several minutes later that Julia would love to see her and could meet her at eleven, if that worked for her.
She set up the meeting at her favorite coffee place, then called her editor at theSentinelto let her know she'd be in around noon. Luckily, she'd just completed a series of articles that had required long hours of work, the last of which would be published tomorrow, so she could take a few hours off without feeling guilty.
After changing her clothes, she headed to Culver City, where her favorite café, Grounds Coffee, was located, three blocks away from her office. She'd just gotten coffees for both of them when Julia Harper arrived.
Julia, a tall, fit, dark-haired fifty-year-old, scanned the café with the eagle-eyed efficiency of someone who'd spent twenty years as a homicide detective before retiring five and a half years ago. Dressed in black slacks and a short-sleeved white sweater, Julia possessed an innate energy and drive that didn't appear to have gone away since she'd left the force and opened her own private investigation firm.
Julia caught her eye, gave her a nod, and sat down across from her.
"I got you a coffee," Haley said. "Strong and black, just the way you used to like it, unless that's changed?"
"It hasn't," Julia said. "It's good to see you, Haley."
