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Chapter Five
After parting ways with Spencer,I head back to the Hideaway to do some research before I have to meet up with him and Mia for dinner. Between the files the chief let me borrow currently sitting in my passenger seat and old newspaper articles that covered Sam’s death, I should be able to get a good start on my profile.
I need to know how much information was disclosed.
How much the police shared with the town.
What details they kept to themselves; details only the person responsible would know.
I don’t remember much of what I was told at the time. My sole focus was blaming myself. I shut myself in my apartment. Stopped taking phone calls after her funeral. Threw myself into the last few weeks of school, and once I graduated, I left. It didn’t matter who or how, the outcome was still the same. Sam was gone and I was to blame.
Had I not missed my flight, she wouldn’t have been working my shift that night. She wouldn’t have been walking home through the park. A place that we’d walked together at night before and never thought twice about our safety.
Had I not gone on spring break she might still be here. We would still be friends. I may never have left Great Falls.
There are a million what-if’s I could debate but none of them change the outcome. No amount of rationalization or beating myself up will bring her back. Because she’s gone. Someone murdered her that night, as I was driving home.
I have to focus on the facts of the case.
The evidence.
Leave my personal feelings out of it. Right now, Sam is a victim. Not my best friend. Not the petite girl with the large personality that forced her way into my life after only working one shift together. The girl who loved to dye her hair crazy colors and write with fuzzy-topped pens. Who smelled like coffee all the time and acted like it was pumping through her veins all hours of the day.
Nope.
Right now, she’s just a victim.
After setting myself up at the tiny desk in my room, I shoot my personal assistant an email asking for profiles on similar cases. Small town murders. It doesn’t take her long to reply, and soon I’m reviewing three cases that are identical to each other. All the suspects were upstanding community members. All caught because they slipped up and left DNA behind.
The one thing I do find helpful is that in all three of those cases, the murderer was organized. He planned and executed practically flawlessly. They were familiar with the area, their victim. Then, when in the act, they got sloppy. They left behind a piece of themselves because they were excited.
After setting those cases aside, I scour through all the articles published on Sam’s death, jotting down details and making notes for myself. Questions I need to find answers to. Missing information to look for.
Two hours later, I’m about to open the first of a dozen police files when the alarm on my cell phones startles me, causing me to drop the folder, the contents spilling everywhere. Quickly gathering all the papers, I’m shoving them back in the file when a picture that slid beneath the desk catches my attention.
Slowly reaching for it, my hand begins to shake as I read what’s written on the back.
Samantha Bridges
Crime scene photo #2
I stare at the words scrawled in messy black sharpie for a few minutes before I shove the photo in the folder without looking at it. Quickly grabbing my phone, I shut off the alarm, toss it in my purse, and head out for dinner. My hands are still shaking as I slowly descend the staircase. Brandon Royal and his wife, Ruth, are standing at the front desk, chatting when I walk by. They both smile and wave as I pass, but I can’t bring myself to return their greeting. Instead, I rush out the front door, letting it slam behind me.
Once I’m safely behind the wheel of my rental car, I suck in a deep breath and let it out slowly, attempting to calm my racing heart. I knew this was going to be hard. Seeing pictures of Sam. Reliving her murder. I need to turn my emotions off and focus but I can’t treat this like any other case. It’s not. Not even close.
The drive to the diner feels like hours when it actually takes me less than five minutes. As soon as I walk in, I spot Mia sitting at a booth in the back. Her ginger curls bounce around as she waves at me over her head like it’s the first time she’s seen me in years instead of hours. She appears just as excited as she did earlier at the salon. The look of sorrow on her face before Spence and I headed to the police station is long gone, replaced with a huge smile and a sparkle in her eye.
Mia’s always been brave. Braver than I am. She was the one who tried to help me through the grief when it should have been the other way around. She knew Sam longer. They grew up together and were as close as Sam and I were.
The thought makes me realize what a shitty friend I was after everything happened. Not just to Mia but to Spencer as well. They lost Sam, and then I left them with no concern for their well-being. My sole focus was getting as far away from here as possible in hopes of alleviating the pain.
Not that my plan worked. The pain was just as intense from three-thousand miles away, and instead of being surrounded by people who understood what I was going through, people who were also grieving, I was alone.
“Hey, sorry I’m late. I got caught up in research,” I explain as I sit across from her, shaking away the memories of Mia holding me while I cried. “Where’s Spencer?”
“He’ll be here shortly.” Her demeanor shifts suddenly, her response clipped as she averts her eyes, studying the menu in her hand. A menu she more than likely has memorized considering there are only two restaurants in town.
“Something you want to share with me?” I press, nudging her with the toe of my boot under the table.
