I Know What You Did

by N L Hinkens

  Jo swallowed, her voice scratching at the back of her throat. “You don’t think she knows anything about Noah’s disappearance, do you?”

  Detective Saunders grimaced. “I’m not ruling out the possibility. She’s hiding something, and I intend to find out what it is.”

  10

  The rest of Friday passed in a blur of activity as Jo divided her time between consoling sobbing Noah Tomaselli groupies, and urging his stunned teammates to tell the police anything about his activities, even potentially illegal ones, that might be helpful. In the rare moments between appointments, she found herself fielding a bevy of phone calls from frantic parents demanding everything from increased security for their kids, to answers on whether or not a kidnapping ring was targeting the school, neither of which Jo was in a position to deliver on.

  When she finally put her key in the front door of her house that evening, she barely had the strength to propel herself to the couch and collapse. It was all such an unbelievable nightmare. Why hadn’t Sarah or any trace of her car shown up yet? Jo was beginning to resign herself to the idea that Sarah must have had a car accident. There was no other explanation for her disappearance. It was beyond frustrating that the police weren’t sending out search parties to comb highways and climb down embankments to search for her vehicle. She couldn’t survive more than a few days without water. Even if she had a water bottle in her car, she might not be able to reach it if she was trapped in her seat. Or she could be unconscious for all anyone knew.

  Jo pressed her fingers to her temples. Her headache was back with a vengeance. Reluctantly, she eased herself into a sitting position and made her way to the downstairs bathroom to look for some more Advil. After she’d thrown back a couple of tablets, she returned to the family room and switched on the television. She turned the volume down low and then lay back down on the couch to rest until her headache abated.

  She wakened with a start to find Liam shaking her. “Jo! Check this out!” She sat up abruptly at his urgent tone, her heart lurching painfully in her chest as everything came flooding back. “What is it? Did they find Sarah?”

  Liam pointed the remote at the television and turned up the volume. “Not yet, but it’s all over the local news.”

  “Did you go by Robbie’s?”

  “Yeah, he’s hanging in there, barely.”

  Jo shivered and hugged her knees to her chest as Liam joined her on the couch to listen to the report. The newscaster began by describing the circumstances surrounding Sarah’s disappearance as the camera zoomed in on a picture of her in the background. “In another twist to the disappearance of Emmetville High School art teacher, Sarah Gleeson,” the newscaster continued, “a seventeen-year-old male student from the same school was reported missing by his parents last night.”

  Jo swallowed hard as a picture of Noah in his football uniform came up on the screen.

  “At this time, it is not believed that the two incidents are connected, but the local community is extremely concerned that the disappearances might point to something sinister. For more on this developing story we go to Anna Kotosky.”

  The camera panned to a reporter standing outside the school, flanked by a small somber-faced crowd. “Thank you, Karen,” Anna said, holding a mic to her mouth. “Tonight, parents and locals alike are deeply concerned about the troubling events of the past few days. People in this neighborhood are locking their doors and there is talk of a possible serial killer on the loose, despite the fact that no bodies have been discovered—“

  Jo snatched the remote from Liam’s hand and switched off the television. “I can’t watch this circus. Sarah’s not dead. How can they put Robbie through this just for ratings? And the Tomaselli family too. It’s flat wrong.”

  “I know, it’s awful.” Liam sighed as he put an arm around her. “I have to admit I’m worried about you though. If someone is targeting the school, you could be next.”

  “That’s a far-fetched theory. Noah was probably mad after Mia broke up with him and took off to cool his jets.”

  Liam raised his brows. “They broke up?”

  Jo nodded. “A detective interviewed Mia in my office today. Tory wanted me to sit in on the interview as she had to work. Turns out Mia met Noah on Wednesday night at the skate park. She wanted to have it out with him. They were both drinking. He admitted to seeing someone else, but he wouldn’t tell her who. She told him she never wanted to see him again and took off in her car. That was the last anyone saw of him. I just hope he didn’t get into a wreck.”

  Liam drew his brow into a frown. “So Mia was the last person to see him?”

  “Yes.” Jo stared at him. “What are you insinuating?”

  “Nothing, it’s just … did anyone see them there? How do we know Mia’s telling the truth? Noah told you he wasn’t seeing anyone else, and she’s been acting crazy.”

  “She seemed pretty convinced he was cheating on her. But I suppose she could have been overly-emotional because of the pregnancy.“ Jo bit her lip. “What if the Tomaselli family finds out about the baby because of all this? What if they try and seek custody? They have the money to hire the best lawyers in the state if they choose to.”

  Liam shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. No sense speculating what Mia will or won’t do.”

  Jo let out a small sob. “You probably think I’m being selfish thinking about the baby now that Sarah and Noah are missing.”

  Liam kissed the top of her head gently. “It’s not selfish to care about what happens to the baby. All we can do is take one day at a time. Hopefully, Noah and Sarah will both show up unharmed over the course of the weekend and we can put all this behind us. In the meantime, we can help hand out flyers around the subdivision.”

  Saturday passed in a flurry of activity as Jo and Liam canvassed their neighborhood distributing flyers and stapling posters to power poles and community boards. Sunday morning they were reading in bed and enjoying coffee when Jo’s phone pinged. She lifted it off the bedside table and glanced at it, almost knocking over her coffee mug as she scrambled to get out of bed. “They’ve found Sarah!”

  “What?” Liam threw back the covers and jumped to his feet. “Is she … okay?”

  “I don’t know. Robbie just said they found her, and he wants us to come over.”

  Jo locked eyes with Liam for a moment searching for reassurance in his face but finding none.

  “It doesn’t sound good, does it?” she ventured. “I mean, he knows we’re worried sick. He would have said if she was all right. Maybe she’s injured.” Jo’s voice wavered. “Oh, Liam. What if something’s happened—“

  “Don’t! Let’s get dressed and go over there. I’m not going to speculate.”

  “But we need to prepare ourselves. What are we going to say if it’s bad news? Robbie will be inconsolable.”

  “You can’t prepare for something like this. You know better than that. Nothing we say will fix it. We just have to be raw and honest and comfort him as best we can.”

  Jo chewed on her lip as she messaged Robbie that they were on their way.

  They finished dressing in silence and hurried out to the car. As they drove, Jo’s stomach roiled with a carousel of emotions ranging from hope that Sarah had been found alive—at worst, injured—to fear that the police had discovered her body in her wrecked car. And she couldn’t entirely rid her mind of the reporter’s words on the news last night. What if something horrific had happened? What if Sarah had been killed by a serial murderer?

  Twenty minutes later, they pulled up along the curb near to Robbie’s house. Five squad cars were parked along the road, in addition to several other unidentified vehicles. The front door was ajar, and Jo could see a police officer inside talking on her radio. She climbed out with a quaking heart, praying she would find Sarah sitting wrapped in a heat blanket on the couch next to Robbie, safe and sound, if a little shaken by her ordeal.

  Liam reached for her hand and together they walked alon
g the sidewalk and up the path to Robbie’s front door. The red-haired police officer who had escorted her in on her last visit blocked the entry.

  “Robbie texted us and asked us to come over,” Jo explained.

  The officer gestured for them to go inside, an impassive expression on her face. “He’s in the kitchen.”

  Pulse throbbing erratically, Jo led the way down the hallway to the sleek, modern kitchen Sarah and Robbie had remodeled only the previous summer. Two officers stood next to the window engaged in a muted conversation. Robbie sat alone at the table, dry-eyed but with a dazed look on his face. A flicker of hope darted through Jo. He hadn’t fallen apart completely, surely that was a good sign. She slid into the seat next to him and gazed at him earnestly. “Robbie, we got your text. Where’s Sarah?”

  He blinked as if reorienting himself. “She’s … they found her … in her car.”

  The blood in Jo’s veins chilled. She threw Liam an anguished look as he pulled out another chair and sat down next to her, waiting on Robbie to continue.

  Instead, he let out a long shuddering sigh and buried his face in his hands.

  Tears welled up in Jo’s eyes. She clapped a hand over her mouth to trap the scream halfway up her throat. It was just as she’d feared. She knew what Robbie was going to say the minute he removed his hands from his face. She could feel it in her bones—in the tension in the air. Why else were the police standing around with no sense of urgency and deadpan expressions on their faces? Sarah was dead. Her friend was gone. A sob escaped her despite her best efforts and she bowed her head, her shoulders shaking as Liam laid a soothing hand on her back.

  After a lengthy silence, Liam cleared his throat. “Robbie, is she dead?”

  “Yes.” His voice was thick, a dense ball of wound-up emotions he was fighting to keep under control.

  “Oh Robbie, I’m so sorry,” Jo choked out in a faint whisper. She wiped the tears off her cheeks with her hands. “I … I just can’t believe it! She was so full of life.”

  Robbie scratched at his cheek, peering at her as if evaluating the comment. “Yes,” he said flatly. “She certainly was.”

  Jo pulled a puzzled frown, thrown off by the odd tone in his voice. It wasn’t fitting. It seemed … almost resentful. Although it was hardly surprising he might feel that way. After all, his beautiful, vibrant wife was dead. He was in shock—they all were.

  “Where did it happen—the crash?” Liam asked.

  Robbie shook his head slowly. He took a few short breaths and opened his mouth but then closed it again.

  “It’s all right, man. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Just know, we’re here for you.”

  Robbie smoothed a shaking hand over his hair. “There was … there was someone else … ”

  A cold fear sliced through Jo. Someone else. Had Sarah killed another driver?

  “You mean, she hit another car?” Liam prompted.

  “No.” Robbie’s eyes were wide and frantic. “There was someone else in the car with her!”

  Jo gasped, her mind reeling. A passenger had died along with Sarah. No wonder Robbie looked so shell-shocked.

  He ran a hand through his hair, staring down at the table. When he lifted his head again, his expression was tortured. “She was with Noah Tomaselli.”

  11

  Shock decimated Jo’s mind. Her thoughts ran helter-skelter as she tried to make sense of Robbie’s words. Noah Tomaselli was in the car—with Sarah. How had he ended up there? Had he been driving around attempting to come to terms with the breakup with Mia and run out of gas or something? Maybe Sarah saw him walking in the early hours of the morning and offered him a ride. How horribly ironic that in trying to help him out, she had inadvertently been responsible for his death.

  “Robbie, it was an accident,” Jo began. “You mustn’t blame her. Sarah would never do—“

  He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “It wasn’t an accident, Jo. That’s the worst part about it.” His eyes roved over her face and then he turned to Liam, his throat bobbing as he swallowed.

  Liam frowned. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

  “It was deliberate. They … they killed themselves.”

  Liam recoiled, shock spreading across his face. “How do you know that?”

  “Sarah left a suicide note,” Robbie rasped, gesturing with his chin to the police officers. “They’re doing some kind of handwriting analysis on it.” He rubbed a hand over his stubble. “They showed it to me. It looks like her writing, as far as I can tell.”

  Jo shook her head. “No, that can’t be right. It doesn’t make any sense. Sarah wasn’t even remotely suicidal. I would have noticed something.”

  Robbie shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to tell you. That’s what the police are saying.”

  “What did the note say?” Liam asked.

  “Not much. Something about regret and shame, and never looking back.”

  “Regret about what?” Jo asked quietly. A foreboding feeling crept through her as she recalled Mia’s accusation that Noah had been seeing someone. Surely it couldn’t have been Sarah.

  Robbie heaved an uneven breath before responding. “I don’t know.” His voice broke. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “What about Noah?” Liam asked. “Did he leave a note?”

  “Not that I know of,” Robbie responded.

  “I just don’t believe it.” Jo said. “How do they know for sure the crash was deliberate?”

  “There was no crash,” Robbie wheezed. “It was carbon monoxide poisoning. The car was parked in an empty garage. The homeowners are on vacation. Their gardener found the bodies.”

  Jo clapped a hand to her mouth and scrunched her eyes shut, pain ripping through her. No! No! No! None of this was making any sense. Sarah wouldn’t kill herself. And Noah Tomaselli wouldn’t have ended his life over a breakup either. Granted, he was a teenager with raging hormones, but he seemed like a level-headed young man with everything going for him, from a well-to-do family, with college prospects. Robbie seemed to be insinuating they’d been having an affair, but that was ridiculous. Sarah would never betray a student’s trust like that. Granted, she was only a decade older than Noah, but he could have had his pick of any girl in the school.

  “The suicide note sounds pretty vague,” Liam said. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

  Robbie sighed, a detached look in his eyes. “The police are still gathering evidence, but they said so far everything points to some kind of double suicide pact.” His voice wavered as he continued, “They ran a hose pipe from the exhaust in through the car window, and Sarah stuffed her sweater in the crack. They’re going to do autopsies, but as it stands, they’re treating it as suicide.”

  “It’s just unbelievable,” Liam said in a hushed voice.

  “Things weren’t perfect between us,” Robbie added, so softly that Jo had to lean in to hear him, “But, I never imagined Sarah would do something like this.” He rested his face in his hands again. “How can I ever look the Tomaselli family in the face again?”

  “Whatever happened, this wasn’t your fault, Robbie,” Jo assured him.” You’re just as much a victim as Noah’s family. You can’t blame yourself.”

  “The Tomasellis aren’t going to see it that way. Sarah was a teacher at Noah’s school—he was her student, a minor. They’re going to say I must have known about it. How can I go back to school after this? I might even lose my job.”

  “You can’t think about stuff like that right now,” Liam said. “You haven’t had time to take in the shock or grieve your loss.”

  Robbie pressed his fingertips to his scalp. “I don’t know how to grieve. I don’t know how I feel. Angry and confused, for sure.”

  One of the officers walked up to the table before Jo or Liam could respond. “Mr. Gleeson, we’re going to need you to come with us to identify your wife’s body. The crime scene has been processed and we’re moving her to the morgue.”<
br />
  Robbie gave a hesitant nod and struggled to his feet, his face paler than Jo had ever seen it before.

  “Want me to come with you?” Liam asked.

  Robbie shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do. I’ll keep you posted on the … the funeral arrangements and stuff.”

  Jo and Liam hugged Robbie good-bye and made their way back outside. They walked in silence to their car, and then waited until the squad car with Robbie aboard pulled away.

  Liam started up the engine and let out a heavy breath. “Poor guy. This is gonna be a huge news story. If it turns out Sarah and Noah were having an affair, Robbie will be hounded by the media. I don’t envy him finding out all at once that his wife is dead and that she was carrying on with a student.”

  “How can you say that?” Jo retorted. “None of it’s been proven yet.”

  “I don’t want to believe it either, Jo, but the evidence speaks for itself.”

  She turned away and leaned her head against the car door, watching the houses zoom by. She’d been afraid all along that Sarah had died in a car wreck. But this was so much worse. If it was true what the police were saying, this was a betrayal of Robbie, her friends, her school, her students, her whole community. Was it possible the Sarah she’d known was not the real Sarah at all?

  When they pulled into their driveway, Liam pointed out a police cruiser parked along the curb a little farther down the street. As soon as they stepped out of their car, two police officers approached them.

  Jo gritted her teeth. It was the red-haired officer again and her partner.

  “I’m Officer Bowman,” the red-haired woman said by way of introduction. “This is my partner, Officer Ferguson. Do you mind if we come in for a few minutes?”

  “Uh, sure,” Jo mumbled, shooting Liam an apprehensive look. She led the officers up the pathway to the front door. As she turned the key in the lock, her hand trembled a little—partly from shock, partly because she was afraid the officers had found out about Mia’s and Noah’s baby. Maybe she was in trouble for not disclosing it. She tried to keep her breathing even. The last thing she wanted to do was get dragged into this whole mess. But she wasn’t about to give up on her dream if she didn’t have to. She’d have to be careful not to say too much until she found out exactly what the police knew.