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Trent parked the car in front of unit 18, and they got out.
“Here goes nothing,” Amanda said as she pocketed her phone and walked to the front door.
She knocked, rather heavy-handed, and strained to hear if anyone was inside. Silence. She was starting to second-guess her decision to come. They could head over to the campus, but that would take more time than they had right now.
She banged again. Footsteps headed toward the door. It swung open, and the young man captured in the many photos in Chloe’s childhood bedroom was standing in front of them.
Amanda held up her badge, and Trent held up his. “I’m Detective Steele, and this is Detective Stenson, from the PWCPD. Are you Josh Ryder?” Pretty much a rhetorical question.
“Yeah, that’s me.” He angled his head. “You said PWCPD? As in Prince William County police?”
He was a good-looking kid and, according to Mitch Somner, was intelligent with a bright future, but so far he wasn’t living up to the praise. “Yep. Can we come in for a minute?”
“Sure.” Josh backed up to let them inside, and Amanda rushed to hide her initial reaction. Being with her brother earlier might have stirred up an emotional hurricane, but a physical one had passed through this place. Clothes, dirty dishes, empty bottles—you name it—were scattered all over the place. She’d guess, and maybe she was stereotyping, that only college boys lived here.
“Anyone else home with you?” Amanda asked.
“No.” The way he said the single word was like he was confused why Amanda even cared.
Cute but not bright, she thought again. Though maybe she was rushing to judgment. She could have caught him at a bad time. On the flipside of a bender and hungover, or… well, there was a much worse possibility. If he had killed his girlfriend, his mind could be a mess from that. “Do you have roommates?”
“Nope. Just me.”
It must have been party central last night, then. “Is there somewhere we could sit and talk?” She peered around him and eyed a battered couch. “That would do,” she said as she pointed toward it. Though a part of her cringed at the thought of sitting on it.
Josh led the way to the couch. He turned around and said, “Oh, don’t worry about taking off your shoes.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him no worries existed as far as that went. First of all, as cops, they had to be ready to move. Second, she wouldn’t be subjecting her socks to the floor. She could imagine the fabric sticking to the laminate like shoes in a movie theater.
“Please, have a seat.” Amanda gestured to the couch, and Josh sat. She’d prefer to remain standing given the looks of that couch, but it didn’t feel right to stand over Josh while they informed him about Chloe. She took a seat, and Trent followed. “We’re here to talk to you about your girlfriend, Chloe Somner,” she said.
Josh opened his mouth like he was going to speak, but then snapped it shut. That made Amanda curious what he was going to say, but she wanted to get on with the notification portion of this visit.
“I’m sorry to tell you that Chloe was found murdered this morning in Leesylvania State Park.” Amanda wanted to witness his reaction to the news firsthand. It could be telling as to whether he was guilty and hiding something, or innocent.
Josh’s cheeks flushed red, and he wiped his brow. “What now?”
“We were hoping you could tell us.” He could genuinely be in shock, but Amanda needed to shake him a bit more to make a better judgment.
“I… I… haven’t seen Chloe in a few weeks.” He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head. “We broke up.” His eyes scanned Amanda, then Trent, back to Amanda.
Amanda adjusted her posture, squared her shoulders. The pictures of them together were still in Chloe’s bedroom, though her parents had said she hadn’t been home since school started. Did she also not communicate with them about her relationship? Her parents had given the impression Chloe and Josh were still seeing each other. “Whose idea was it to break up?”
“Honestly? It was a mutual decision. We’ve known each other forever and were just the comfortable choice. Man, I can’t believe she’s…” Josh’s face knotted in anguish, and his entire complexion reddened. “What happened to her… exactly?”
“She was stabbed numerous times.”
Sorrow played over his facial features and demonstrated in his body language. Tears pooled in his eyes, and he sank farther into the couch and rubbed his forehead. Signs that he was genuinely upset—but was it because someone he’d cared for had been murdered or because she had been killed at his hand?
“Is there anyone who can substantiate it was a mutual breakup?” Trent asked.
“Do you really think I had something to do with what happened to her?” If agony had a voice, this was it.
“I don’t know, Josh,” Amanda said softly. “Did you?”
“You can talk to her parents. They will tell you I’d never hurt Chloe. Hurting her would be like hurting myself.”
They had told them that, but that didn’t make it gospel. She also didn’t have names of anyone who could back up Josh’s claim the breakup was mutual. She’d bench that for now but would come back to it later today or in the days ahead. “Where were you this morning between three and seven?” The mystery figure had been dropped off at three thirty, but she padded it with another thirty minutes.
Josh raked a hand through his hair. “I definitely would have been sleeping. Not feeling too good this morning. Flu or something.”
Amanda was quite sure it wasn’t a flu. A hangover, if the empty bottles were to be believed. “Can anyone confirm you were here, sleeping?”
He shook his head.
“Think carefully. It would help the investigation and get us out of your way sooner,” she said.
“I didn’t kill her. That’s all I know.” Tears beaded in his eyes. “And you said she was at Leesylvania State Park? Was she there for the snails? Who did this? Why?” Pain creased his face.
“We’re trying to figure all that out,” she said. “You brought up the snails. Did you know she went to the park?”
“Not this morning, but I know that she does.” His voice cracked. “But you said three this morning? Why would she have been there then?”
“Another question that needs an answer. And did you ever go with her to the park?” She was testing what the ranger had told them.
“Sure, but not in a while. Certainly not after we broke up, and never before six in the morning. That was enough of a stretch for me. I prefer sleeping in. God, I loved her,” he said between gulps for breath. “Sure, we broke up, but that didn’t change how I felt about her. I did love her. I still do.”
Trent said, “It must have hurt to go your separate ways, then.”
“Yeah, but as I said, it was mutual. We were still good friends.”
“And the reason you broke up was because you were the comfortable choice for each other?” Amanda was having a hard time accepting that. But people could make strange decisions, and she certainly wouldn’t claim to understand all of them.
“We had to expand our horizons. Work out who we were as individuals.” His tone was flat, like he was repeating someone else’s words, not his own belief.
“We’ll need some names of friends who could testify to the breakup being mutual.” Trent handled the request like it had been made during the course of a casual conversation.
“I’ll get you their names. They’re from Dumfries, Woodbridge area.” He drew his sleepy gaze to Amanda. “Prince William County.”
“Are they students at Geoffrey Michaels?” Trent asked, his pen paused over the page of his book.
“Yeah. Heck, her roommates, Jayne and Lauren, could tell you the breakup was mutual. You have their information?”
Amanda nodded. They had their home address and knew they went to the science center. “We’ll reach out to them. What kind of car do you drive, Josh?”
“What kind of car— What does that have to do with anything?”
