So, yeah. Next chappie. We have some LS, some case, another revelation. Enjoy.
Thanks to anothergirl, Artificially Sweet, and Longislanditalian2 for reviewing the last chapter.
Lilly was nodding in and out of the entire three hour ride up to Penn State, but was keeping her head determinedly upright, trying not to alert Jeffries that she was less than alert herself. Five minutes here, seven minutes there, but Lilly didn't trust herself to sleep for all that long. It was a problem.
Vividly she remembered waking with a start on Scotty's shoulder on the train a few days ago. While he thought she had slept the whole six hours, she was, in fact awake less than ninety minutes in. He was knocked out, and, enjoying the heavy breaths into her blonde hair, she had thought it would be a shame to wake him. It had been companionable, nice even. A friendship gesture that she had enjoyed.
"You can stop pretending you aren't sleeping. We're here."
Lilly climbed sheepishly out the passenger seat, mussing her already mussed hair with her hand. One could tell that she had not been home for any extended period of time recently, because her hair was so wavy. She decided she liked it that way—she liked feeling womanly. Lilly realized for an instant that Chris also wore her hair that way, but for once, the thought of being like her sister didn't disgust her.
James lived in a notoriously raucous boys dorm, and that became painfully obvious as she walked the hall to his room. Invariably, she was whistled and cat-called at. The only place worse for a woman than a boys dorm hall, she decided, was a men's prison.
Jeffries knocked on door 57, and was immediately answered by a good-looking kid with Renee's gray eyes.
"Detectives Jeffries, Rush."
James stepped back to wave them into an immaculate living space. Whomever had raised James had obviously instilled in him the value of a clean house. Jeffries sat, but Rush busied herself at the medium sized book case above James's computer.
Jeffries began. "We're here about Renee Hutchinson, killed in 03."
"Who?"
Will let out a labored, annoyed breath. "You don't know her Frequented a coffee shop you worked at on 03?"
"I don't remember."
Lilly, in the meantime, was running her index finger over the large collection of books on the shelf. Mostly, there were standard guy classics, Edgar Allen Poe's best, Confessions of Nat Turner, The Catcher in the Rye, The Awakening…
Lilly got a "one of these things is not like the other" jingle in her head, and she pulled down the last book.
"Hey—put that back!"
Lilly's face was in an instant slick, charming, calm. "I seem to have touched a nerve."
"You can't just go through my stuff. She can't just…"
"I don't see anything," Jeffries informed him.
Opening the book, she noted the eraser marks where a name might previously have been written, and, in the middle of it was a picture of Renee, seemingly caught off guard, but smiling. Lilly snagged the picture, and brandished it in his face.
"You don't know her?"
James sighed, and sat down at a folding table next to his door. "I might have known her a little," he conceded, "She was just a girl I met at the shop one day, she left her book behind. That's all."
"And you kept her book for three years, her being just a girl you met at the shop? That's the story you're sticking with?"
"It's not a story."
Lilly left the bookshelf, walking circles around James, appraising him. James looked remarkable like Eli had in interrogation, as if something was on the tip of his tongue, something her was plainly dying to say.
"How could you downplay her like that?" Lilly's voice was soft, almost mothering, but she got no response.
"Well hey, she was only your sister, right? You only killed her, and why? What, were you, afraid?—jealous?—angry, that she got what you didn't?"
He didn't answer Will, either.
"You lured her to that cliff, and you killed her."
"No! No, it wasn't like that. I never hurt her, I never touched her."
"Then who did? James, if not you, then who?"
James put his eyes on his knees, determinedly silent. "I don't know."
"You were supposed to meet her that night. You telling us that's a coincidence?"
"I got a call from her cell that night, you can check. She canceled. I wish she hadn't. I wish I could have stopped it. I wish I could have stopped her."
Lilly was dawning comprehension. "You believe she killed herself."
James looked over at the clock, and rose swiftly from his chair. "She gave me the book—said she wanted to be rid of it, the 31st. Look, I've got a class in five."
The three went down into the parking lot, and James climbed into a nice, clearly new, red car, and drove off.
"So how does a college kid afford that?"
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A few minutes later, Jeffries and Lilly were walking back to the SUV. Lilly was still carrying the novel she had found in James's dorm.
"What's with the book, anyway?"
Lilly climbed back into her chair. "Its about an eighteenth century woman who has a bunch of self realizations. Ends with her jumping off a dock and killing herself."
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By the time Rush and Jeffries were back at the precinct, Vera and Valens were waist deep in Renee's cell phone records.
"November 1st, 2003. The phone veers completely off its usual course. Renee calls her mom at eight in the morning, but hangs up before any talking can get done. At one, she calls the florist. At three, she calls the church. At three fifteen, she calls her mom's office. At four, she calls Jayla at home… that's strange."
Lilly's voice rang across the precinct. "What's so strange about that?"
Scotty whipped his head around, surprised, and met Lilly's waiting blue eyes. "You should know, old head, that kids don't call each other at home any more. They use cell phones."
Lilly smiled at the term of endearment, but Scotty seemed completely unaware he had used it. He turned immediately away from her, and addressed Jeffries.
"Long ride?"
"Not so bad. Miss Rush is quite engaging company, and was filling me in on her love life."
At this point, Lilly would usually have informed Scotty that the conversation he was talking about was about how she had no love life. But with his immediate shift in attention from her, she doubted he would care much, anyway. And so she said nothing.
Scotty frowned, but Lilly would not tell whether it was because of what Jeffries had said, or because he was thinking, because the very next second, he was murmuring case details to himself.
"We're missing something—someone. The father, who's James's father?"
"We don't know," Lilly replied, stiffly.
"We do know, I can feel it. Eli, Dante, Jayla… Jayla."
"I would certainly hope Jayla isn't her father."
Scotty laughed a little, in spite of his trance. "No, no they left so soon. Why leave?"
"Because Jayla was breaking down. She couldn't take it."
"But not letting her go to the funeral? That's extreme."
Lilly began picking up the pieces of Scotty's thoughts, as she was accustomed to doing. "You think they left because they were hiding something."
"Jayla said her parents never looked back. Her parents wanted to leave. Maybe the Hutchinson's aren't the only ones with family secrets."
Scotty tugged at the skin under his chin before continuing. "Why call Jayla at home? She wouldn't have been there anyway, she would have still been on the bus going home… it's a magnet school. The only people home would be Jayla's parents."
Scotty easily ran the distance to the computer, having a thought in his head that he didn't want to drop. He looked up Jayla's dad, Randall, on the computer, and turned around waiting for the search results to come up.
"What are you thinking, Scotty?" Lilly asked. The two had temporarily forgotten they were in an argument, but they always were that way while solving cases. So in sync that there was no time for anything else. Lilly and Scotty both depended on it—it was a trait that made their partnership worth the investment.
"I'm thinking, I don't know, maybe Jayla's dad is James's dad. It's out there, but it solves three problems—Kate's career change, why they moved away, and why James's dad isn't listed."
A beep indicated the search was done. "And would you look at that. In 85, Randall Myles was Kate Hutchinson's boss when she was still in the journalism field."
"He's James's dad. And Renee knew it, that's why she called."
Stillman exited his office and spoke, surprising the four who hadn't realized he's been listening.
"She's dead by seven that night, and he hustles his family out of Philly. Valens, it looks like you and Rush are going back to Boston."
It's a bit of a leap, and a bit unbelievable. But hey, it's fanfiction. Reviews equal happiness.