The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,79
to the here and now. “So, to be clear, you were with Owen Duval from the second he dropped off the girls until he went back to the theater and found them missing.”
“Yes! I told the police, over and over again, about the time when he showed up and when he left. That hasn’t changed in twenty years.” She fingered the small gold cross that hung from a gold chain around her neck. “I’m sorry for the Duval girls and their family, really, but I can’t let what happened to them define me, now can I?”
“You were dating Owen Duval?”
“What? No, he was just a friend.”
“He said you were his girlfriend.”
“Well, he was wrong.” She rubbed her temples as if she were developing a headache. “We were friends, sorta, I guess, but we didn’t have a thing going, not even a secret one. Sorry to disappoint. He was kind of an outcast and I liked that about him. He was different. Smart. And he had a dark, almost sick sense of humor. That was it, I guess, he wasn’t Goth, but he was . . . deep? Really into Edgar Allan Poe and watched, like, old black and white movies. Like Psycho. The original one.” She paused, biting her lip. “He was just too out there, you know. One time he asked me if I ever listened to the voices in my head. I thought he was joking, but maybe he wasn’t.”
“What did you say?”
“ ‘What voices?’ And he kind of laughed, but he was serious, I think. Anyway, he didn’t have a lot of friends, so I was nice to him. I guess he thought because of it we were an item.” She shook her head. “We weren’t.”
“Who did you date?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked crossly. “A lot of guys, I guess? No one special.”
“Beaumont?”
“What? Yeah.” Her lips tightened. “It wasn’t a big deal. Tyson dated . . . so many. I was just one in the crowd.”
And obviously she didn’t like it.
“What about Jacob Channing?”
She stopped cold. Just stared at Nikki. “Old news,” she said. “Who cares who I dated in high school?”
“But you and he were involved?”
“Not involved.” She looked away, then squared her shoulders. “It was nothing. Not a big deal at all. Okay? Again, he dated a lot of girls and I dated a lot of boys. It was high school. That’s what you do!”
Nikki pressed on. “He’s still around, right?”
“I guess . . . I don’t really keep up with him. Or with any of them. No one from high school.”
“But Jacob Channing inherited Channing Vineyards.”
“Yeah, sure. I guess. Look, I don’t really know. I heard that he and his sister inherited the business, and that he bought her out. Lowballed her, the rumor goes. I guess she needed the money. It sounds like Jacob, but really, it’s all just gossip and I don’t really pay attention. Like I said, ancient history. Who cares?”
Nikki wasn’t going to be derailed. “So no one thought you and Owen Duval were a couple?”
“Other than Owen? Of course not. And if they did, they were wrong.” She shook her head.
“So what about Owen’s friends? Guys who hung out with him. You said he didn’t have a lot. But there had to be some.”
“I don’t know!” she snapped, then seemed to collect herself. “I-I can’t come up with anybody. He’s still around, right? I heard he came back to Savannah, though God knows why. Maybe you should ask him.”
“Mom!” Kelsey’s voice echoed through the house, and Ashley closed her eyes for a second, as if she were fighting a headache as little footsteps pounded down the hallway. “Zeke’s sticking his tongue out at me.”
“Just a sec!” Ashley yelled back. “See what I have to deal with?”
“But he’s also spitting!” Kelsey burst into the room, Zeke a step behind.
“School can’t come fast enough,” Ashley admitted. Then said to Nikki, “We’re done here,” and ushered her out the front door, as if glad for any excuse to get rid of the reporter and her prying questions.
Something wasn’t right there.
Didn’t make sense.
She paused at the second building and thought about checking with Ashley’s husband, but the van was no longer parked where it had been and when Nikki rapped on the entrance to the building, she got no response. Instead she saw Ashley stepping out onto the back patio.
“Do I have to call the police?” she yelled. “That would be a little awkward, don’t you think, you