Page 49 of Lost and Found

“Not at all.” Jennifer directed him down the hall.

He’d give Jennifer a few more minutes of small talk while the recording device ran. The last time he and Bailey had worked together, he’d found it helped their interview subjects relax. Cameras followed him down the hall. He wasted a minute in the restroom, then returned to the living room and found their body language more relaxed. Mission accomplished.

Wes listened as Bailey expertly guided Jennifer back eighteen years. Despite her clear nerves, Jennifer smiled lightly as she recalled meeting Caitie. “We were at freshman orientation together and attached at the hip from that first day. Sophomore year, we roomed together.”

Bailey moved through their freshman year with softball questions about what they did for fun, their personalities, and study habits. Everything Jennifer offered matched what they knew of Caitie.

“Ryan and Caitie met in the library.” Jennifer laughed quietly. “Caitie always said that if she were to fall for a guy, he’d have to find her while she was studying, because she was always studying.”

“And how was their relationship?”

“Good. Cute. He was head over heels for Caitie and didn’t mind the ribbing his friends gave.”

Bailey’s loopy handwriting faltered as she took notes. What a strange dynamic she had been dealt. She couldn’t be jealous of an ex-girlfriend when it was her murdered sister. Bailey had loved Caitie and Ryan, and they’d loved each other too. Wes struggled to find that kind of space in his heart. He could never love again.

“Was she close with Ryan’s friends?” Bailey asked.

Jennifer shrugged. “Some she liked more than others. But that’s everyone at college, isn’t it? We live together. Dine together. Classes and studying and seeking our way into the world.”

“Did you spend time with Ryan’s friends?” Wes asked.

“No,” Jennifer answered quickly, then tacked on, “There were so many people who attended Caitie’s funeral. The services and memorials brought different groups together.”

“Did you ever meet Erick Cosgrove?” he asked.

Bailey’s eyes jumped to him.

“Not really.” Jennifer straightened the throw pillow beside her. “I know Caitie was with him and Ryan that night before she came home. Everyone knew that. I saw him at a memorial service, I think, standing with Ryan. That’s it. Only then. They share a similar look. It was easy to pick up when they were side by side.”

“They are visually similar,” Bailey agreed, and Wes could almost hear her thinking that the brothers were different in every other way. “Apparently Erick used Ryan’s ID more than once to buy beer during college.”

A story for a story. Wes wasn’t sure that Bailey knew why she was an excellent interviewer. He’d been trained in interview techniques and interrogation methods that came naturally to her.

“Was there anything that the police never took seriously that bothered you?” Bailey pressed. “Even if it were a feeling. An intuition. Anything?”

“There weren’t many people on campus on New Year’s, but we were because of a student government workshop later that week that pulled from several nearby colleges. No one seemed to think that was important to follow up on.”

Wes hadn’t heard that before. His interest piqued. “Were they staying in dorms?”

“They weren’t housed by Barnard or Columbia in dorms, but a lot of participants planned to crash with friends.”

Bailey paged through her notebook. “There was a review of all the key card swipes from that evening, and no one was unexpected. Two card swipes occurred in the same time frame. One was an error. The other was a woman who had recently broken her arm on a ski trip and physically wouldn’t have been able to strangle Caitie.”

“Oh, I remember her. Bad break with a cast from her wrist to her shoulder. I think her leg was in a brace as well.”

The conversation continued. Wes focused on the card swipe that had failed. What did that mean? He made a mental note to see what else Bailey knew.

An hour had ticked by. The memories had caught up with Jennifer, and she was tiring. Her cadence wasn’t as smooth. Her answers weren’t as complete. Bailey picked up on it too, silently asking with a tilt of her head if he had any other questions. Wes didn’t.

“Thanks for chatting with us,” Bailey said. “We’ll get going. I just have one more question. Eighteen years ago, the police asked you about everything you knew.”

Jennifer nodded her head, knee bouncing.

“What do you know now that you didn’t understand as a nineteen-year-old college kid?”

Good fucking question, Bailey. They waited as Jennifer worked through Bailey’s question. The seconds crept by.

Jennifer let out a long sigh. “Credence isn’t given to women when they say there’s a problem. When they say someone’s bothering them. A boy pulls a girl’s ponytail, and everyone says he likes her.”