Page 105 of Dark Roads
“Should I take up knitting? Needles could be interesting.” I made a stabbing motion in the air. “Or maybe crocheting. Don’t they have hooks?”
“Enough. What’s going on?”
“Is Jonny in trouble?” When Thompson interviewed me in the hospital, I only filled him in on the basics: Vaughn threatened me when I discovered he was taking nude photos. I was scared, so I ran away, and hid my bike at the bottom of the ravine. My cell fell into the creek. I didn’t realize that it would look like I had been abducted. I was very, very sorry.
I told him that Jonny didn’t know where I was hiding, but then I couldn’t explain that I’d witnessed Vaughn planting the drugs without admitting Jonny and Ididhave contact.
“You swear he didn’t help you, and so far we haven’t found any stolen goods at your cabin, so we have no reason to believe that you are responsible for any of the local thefts.” Jonny had already gone up and cleared out everything. No one but me would ever know which items were stolen from my old house. The personal items were hidden, and Jonny recovered them all.
“What about the drugs Vaughn said he found?” I asked.
“The charges are being dropped.”
“Did you hack into Mason’s iPad and phone yet? What’s on them?”
“That’s part of the investigation. I can’t discuss it.”
“You wouldn’t even have them if I hadn’t given them to you.”
“We would have had themweeksago if you hadn’t stolen them.”
“I hadreasons.” Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to hand them over without admitting that I had helped Beth, but I told him that when I arrived at the garage, she had already killed Mason. A plan we’d agreed on, whispering together in the emergency room after I woke.
Thompson let out his breath, looked up at the ceiling like he was trying to decide if he should trust me, or was asking God to get me out of his house. He met my eyes again.
“Vaughn was letting shipments of drugs go through the truck stop—for a price. Mason found out somehow, either witnessed it or heard about it. In exchange for his silence, Mason wanted Vaughn to take photos of girls for him. Likely it was a way for him to have power over Vaughn and minimize his own risk of being caught. It doesn’t seem like Vaughn was interested in the photos himself. He just wanted to keep his job, his family, and his cushy life.”
Money. That was what it all came down to? He sold our bodies for money. He’d walked around his big house and gone on expensive vacations that he’d paid for with things that didn’t belong to him. Our privacy, ourselves.
“Did he know Mason was the killer?”
“He says he didn’t, but we’re still going over each case. I think Vaughn had his suspicions, especially after Amber was murdered.”
I thought about all the cautions Vaughn had given me about riding my bike out to the lake. He knew I was on the killer’s radar because he had been feeding him photos of me.
Thompson took a sip of his coffee, set the mug down. “There’s something else you should know. Mason kept all his security video on a cloud. Looks like your dad caught himbuilding that compartment in his camper, and there was an altercation. Your dad got away, but Mason followed. We found a damaged truck grille and front bumper in Mason’s garage. There were traces of blue paint. We think it matches your dad’s truck. We’re waiting on forensics.”
“Mason ran him off the road.” I said this slowly, absorbing the truth of it. I’d suspected that Dad had been trying to get away, but I hadn’t imagined that Mason could have actuallycausedthe accident. He’d killed my father. Any lingering guilt that I had over taking another person’s life ended instantly. I had let Mason off easy. I should have made him suffer.
“Vaughn wrote up the accident report, so we’ll open that investigation again and check that it wasn’t part of the cover-up.”
Vaughn was the one who told me about the crash. Over and over he implied that it was my dad’s fault that I was alone. He’d wanted to break our bond. Vaughn had destroyed so much, but my dad was something he could never steal from me. Dad was with me all the time. I saw him as I watched Wolf catch fish. I thought of him as I built a fire on a cool morning. Every move I made had in some way been shaped by my father. I imagined him standing on a cliff overlooking the river, his arms raised to the sky, cheering that Vaughn had been caught.
“Beth says that you need my statement. That I have to testify.”
“We need everything we can to build a solid case against Vaughn.”
“What about Emily?”
“So far she is denying everything. Your aunt wants to help but she doesn’t know much. She was horrified when we found the hidden camera in your bedroom. She wants to talk to you.”
“Yeah, so she can tell me that she hates me for ruining herlife.” How was I going to face my little cousin Cash? Would he cry or ignore me? Vaughn had been the only father figure in his life. Lana had been so happy. She’d lose everything now. She’d have to start over too.
“I don’t think you’re giving her enough credit. She’s just glad you’re alive.”
“It’s not that simple.” Lana would have questions. She’d want to understand things I didn’t even understand. I fed Wolf more crumbs, stroked his muzzle. The velvet of his ears.
“You want to run away again.” Thompson gave me a steady look. “That’s what this is about. You’re trying to tell yourself that no one cares about you, so then it’s okay.”
