Page 50 of Dead Man's Hollow
Maisy cocks her head. “You don’t think anyone ever has pure intentions?”
That slows him down but doesn’t shut him up. “Sometimes, sure. But why assume the best of this guy you don’t even know?”
“Why assume the worst?” Kristy counters in her soft voice.
Maisy points at her. “Exactly!” She turns to Rich, “You’re free to assume that Bastian Tremblay is a maniacal monster. I’m gonna assume he’s a well-intentioned man. And even then, he might be wrong. This might not be Heather’s pager. But it might be. And if it is, it’s another piece of information we can use. It brings us one step closer to finding out what happened to her.”
Kristy glances down at the picture in her hands one more time. “It’s hers. I’m sure of it.”
Tears shine in Amy’s eyes. “So what do we do now?”
“We go to Canada,” Diana interjects. Then she looks at Maisy. “I mean right?”
“Igo to Canada,” Maisy corrects her. “While I don’t think Rich’s worldview is necessarily the right one, I don’t want to expose you to the Tremblays until I’ve sized them up myself. I’m going to fly to Quebec City tomorrow and meet with them. Jordana will stay here and continue on with the interviews.”
“She’s interviewing me?” Amy asks.
Jordana shakes her head. “No. I’m focusing on Andre Newport. We’re still not certain there’s a connection, but I’ll run it down.”
“Who?” Diana asks.
Maisy turns her head and gives Amy a long look. “You haven’t told your sisters?”
Amy lowers her head and bites down on her lip. Maisy realizes she’s never mentioned the guy that Heather was dancing with to anybody, including Kristy and Diana. Well, it’s long past time to let that wriggling kitty out of the bag.
“They need to hear it from you before they hear it on the air.”
Amy clears her throat. The sound seems unreasonably loud in the suddenly silent room. “Heather was flirting with a boy from another school that night. I didn’t think anything of it. But, I guess Maisy got a tip. And maybe it’s important, after all.”
She throws Maisy a pleading look as if to say please take it from here.
Maisy obliges. As she recounts the email about the fight and the boy, she watches their faces. Rich is staring out the window at the street traffic below, but then he’s already heard this story, or at least part of it. Amy’s returned her gaze to the table. Maisy notes that Diana and Kristy both cast sidelong glances, first at their sister, and then at Rich. Diana’s mouth is a thin, flat line of disapproval. Kristy’s expression is sad, but unsurprised.
“When I mentioned the tip to Amy, she remembered the boy. Of course, she didn’t know who he was. But since the tip specified that the fight was with Allderdice students, we started there.”
“There were kids from Allderdice there that night?” Diana asks.
“Yes, although that fact didn’t make it into the police report. We knew there were kids from other schools in the woods, but everyone interviewed claimed not know who they were or where they came from.”
“How is that possible?” Kristy wonders.
Maisy pauses to give Rich a look. He doesn’t speak up, so she continues, “Jordana is an Allderdice alum, so she reached out to some contacts and got her hands on a copy of the 1994 yearbook. She showed it to Amy, who identified the boy Heather was talking to as Andre Newport.”
Jordana pulls up some photographs of Andre on her laptop screen, and the sisters lean in for a closer look.
“Have you found him?” Diana asks. “Does he know anything about what happened that night?”
“No,” Maisy tells them. “Andre went missing that same weekend.”
This news lands with a punch. Diana gasps, and Kristy’s eyes go wide.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” Kristy says.
“Itcouldbe a coincidence,” Maisy pushes back, “but it would be a very strange one. While I’m in Canada, Jordana’s going to continue to run down information about Andre Newport’s disappearance. But now that you all know students from Allderdice were there, is there anything that didn’t seem important back then, that you want to tell me now?”
Kristy says, “I told you everything I know when you interviewed me.”
Amy shakes her head, still not looking up from the table.
