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“Well, if there’s no motive for her… that leaves Tate,” Paxton replied, giving me a hard look.
I groaned and rubbed my forehead. “God, I feel so fucking awful for even talking about this stuff. Tate has been nothing but amazing to me. Michaela too, apart from our little fight recently.”
Paxton’s jaw tightened. “I hate to say it, because I know he’s been such a good friend to you, but I’ve always wondered why he was the only one left unharmed that night,” he said. “I mean, that basement bedroom isn’t that hard to find. It doesn’t even have a door on it. Also, how did he sleep through the entire attack?”
“In Tate’s defense, he’s always been a very deep sleeper. I know because we used to have sleepovers all the time when we were kids. But I guess it is pretty suspicious now that we know the killer could’ve been one of the other three survivors,” I said softly, guts still twisting with guilt and shame.
“His parents owned the cabin, too,” Paxton said. “So he knew his way around very well. He would’ve found it easier than most to sneak around in the middle of the night.”
“That’s true, but to be fair, I knew my way around as well, and so did Michaela, because we’d been there with the Cavanaghs so many times before.”
“But what’s the motive?” I shook my head. “Why would Tate ever do something like that? Especially to his own brother?”
“I can think of a possible motive,” Paxton said. “Please don’t get mad at me for saying this, but I always got the impression that Tate was jealous of his brother and all of the other hockey guys at school.”
I nodded slowly. “He was. He always wanted to play, because he loves hockey so much, but because the school had the NTDP, he couldn’t get onto the team. He just couldn’t match up to the skills of all the guys the program recruited. But Dane could. He was very talented.”
“Do you think that jealousy could’ve been a factor?”
“I really don’t know,” I admitted. “I know it made him sad sometimes, but he was always so calm, sweet, and rational about it. So he seemed to handle it well. Also, I’m not sure jealousy over hockey-playing is a good motive to carry out a massacre. Not that there’s ever a good reason. But you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Paxton’s brows furrowed. “Have you ever noticed anything strange about him at all? His behavior or attitude toward certain things or people?”
I bit my bottom lip. “Actually… yeah. Lately, he’s been slightly off.”
“How so?”
“He’s just been acting a little strange. Nothing major. Michaela pointed it out one day, and then I finally noticed it too.”
“What exactly do you mean?”
I wrinkled my nose. “It’s hard to explain, because you haven’t known him your entire life like I have. But it’s just things like… little facial expressions here and there. For example, when I went clubbing the other night with him and Michaela, I caught him staring at her in a weird way. Like he was angry. But she wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“And that’s weird for him?”
“Yes. He’s usually nice all the time. But like I said… lately, something’s been off. But only the tiniest bit.” I let out a groan. “God, I really feel like shit saying all this stuff about my friends.”
“It’s okay.” Paxton soothingly stroked my back with one hand. “Have you noticed anything else weird happening lately?”
“Well, yeah, but that was all because of you,” I replied. “The stalking and so on.”
He frowned. “Maybe not all of it. At the club last week, you were listing off shit you thought I did to you. Most of it was me. But some of it wasn’t.”
My brows rose. “Like what?”
“You said something about plagiarism. I had no idea what you were talking about.”
“Someone submitted a fake essay under my name,” I explained. “I almost got expelled over it. Luckily for me, my professor was very understanding.”
Paxton shook his head. “That wasn’t me.”
“Well, if it wasn’t you…” I trailed off and swallowed hard. “Professor Chan did say it was most likely someone who had access to my student ID and password. And when I moved into my dorm, Tate helped me unpack.”
“So he could’ve seen your ID and password written down somewhere.”
“Yeah. Definitely.”
