he added.
'Nineteen.
She's a freshman at River Falls.'
'How
about the boyfriend? Did you pick up anything about his relationship with
Glory?'
'Nothing
about Glory,' Lala said. He saw a self-satisfied smirk on her golden face. She
knew something. She'd been aching to tell him from the beginning.
'Spill
it, Mosquito,' Cab said. 'What did the boyfriend tell you?'
Lala
didn't blink at the nickname this time. 'Troy followed me so we could talk in
private. He didn't want Tresa to hear what he had to say, because she wouldn't
let him talk about it.'
'About
what?'
'Apparently
there's another couple from the same part of Wisconsin staying at the resort
this week. Their names are Mark and Hilary Bradley. I checked, and he's right.
They have a room that opens right on to the beach. It's not even two hundred
yards from where the murder took place.'
'OK,'
Cab said, waiting for more.
'Troy
told me that we needed to talk to the husband before he skipped town. He
claimed that if there's anyone in the hotel who might have done this to Glory,
it's Mark Bradley.'
Cab
raised an eyebrow. 'Yeah? Based on what? Does this guy have some kind of
connection to Glory?'
'Not
to Glory,' Lala told him, 'but to her sister. According to Troy, everyone in
Door County knows Mark Bradley. He was a teacher at the high school until he was
let go under a cloud last year. The police couldn't bring statutory rape
charges, because Tresa wouldn't say a word against him on the record. But the
story is, he was having sex with her.'
----
Chapter F our
Hilary
Bradley sat motionless on the sofa in their hotel room as Mark paced in and out
of the dusty stream of light through the patio door. They hadn't spoken. She
studied the stricken expression on her husband's face. His breathing was fast
and loud through his nose; he was scared. It was like a rerun of the previous
year, when they'd sat together in their Washington Island home and confronted
the rumors about Mark and Tresa.
Not
again.
They
didn't need to talk to each other to know what was going to happen. Hilary
could see it all too clearly. Accusations were about to rain down on Mark like
a storm. There would be a knock on the door. Questions. Suspicion. This one
would be even worse than the previous year because Mark's name was already
linked to teenage girls and sex - and because there was no doubt this time
about whether anything bad had really happened. There would be no he-said, she-
said this year.
A
girl was dead on the beach. Someone killed her.
Mark
stopped in the middle of the carpet. He'd closed the glass door to the beach,
and the air in the room was cold and sterile. Their eyes met. She saw anger and
anxiety fighting in his face. He took two steps in his long stride and knelt in
front of her. He took both of her hands and squeezed them hard. 'I need to say
something.'
Hilary
was calm. 'Go ahead.'
'I didn't
do this,' Mark said. 'I never thought I'd have to ask this again, but I need
you to have faith in me. You have to believe me.'
'I
do.'
He
stood up again, relieved, and she hoped he didn't doubt her sincerity or wonder
if she was hiding something behind her face. She wasn't lying.
A
year ago, her friends had called her naive when she told them that she didn't
think that Mark had slept with Tresa Fischer. He denied it; she believed him.
They'd both been foolish in letting Tresa get closer to them than their other
students, which was a mistake Hilary had always sworn to herself she'd avoid as
a teacher. But she and Mark were new to Door County and anxious to fit into
small-town life. Tresa was sincere, smart, quiet; she was pretty, but she wasn't
wild or sexual like her younger sister Glory. They'd paid attention to her, and
Tresa, who didn't get much attention at home, thrived on
Laurice Elehwany Molinari