“He seduced you,” I said, my voice soft. “He’d done it many, many times before. He knew exactly what he was doing—taking advantage of girls at a vulnerable time, being what they needed.”
She nodded and pulled her hands farther into her sleeves. “So, you had questions?”
“Only one really, but it’s important. In the initial police report, you said he had a younger friend. You said—”
“I lied.”
“Okay . . .”
She looked over at me. “I was a stupid kid, like I said. I thought I was in love. I had to defend him. Protect him. So I said it was a friend of his who seduced me.” She looked away. “There was no friend. I’m sorry. I know I made things harder for everyone, and maybe if I hadn’t, he’d have been caught before he did this to more girls and—”
“Stop.”
She glanced over, looking startled.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “You were one of many girls, over many years. Some of them gave the police everything they wanted. There were lots of charges. Even a trial. The second he knew that the police were coming, he ran. He was very, very good at what he did, and nothing you could have done would have stopped him.”
It was the right thing to say, and maybe it helped, but not enough. I could see that in her eyes. Nothing would—or could—help enough, and it was hard for me to even sit there, watching her retreat deeper into that oversized sweatshirt, wondering how much different her life might have been if I’d somehow stopped Drew Aldrich twenty years ago.
“As far as we know, there weren’t any girls after you,” I said.
“As far as you know,” she repeated. “That just means no one else reported him.”
She was right. There were entries in the journal past hers. But no charges, so I was giving her that hope. I had to.
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it was just the final scare he needed.” I waited for a moment, then said, “So when you told the police his friend seduced you, was that completely out of the blue? Or was there anything he’d ever mentioned . . . About a friend who might want to meet you . . .”
She shrugged. “I made it up. I never met any of his friends. He’d talk about people but not very much and only so he’d seem ‘real,’ you know? Like he’d mention going to his mother’s for dinner, when I’m sure now she didn’t live anywhere near.” She paused, thinking. “Once, when we’d been drinking and toking up, he started going on about how people underestimated teenage girls, how they were just as smart as adult women, just as mature, and how people never saw that and so guys like him had to hide their relationships from the world. He said there were lots of good guys, decent guys who appreciated girls, and he mentioned an old friend as an example. I guess that’s what gave me the idea.”
“What did he say about this old friend?”
“Nothing really. Or nothing I remember. I was drunk and stoned. We both were. It just seemed to be some guy he met, maybe in an online chat room for people like him. I know they have stuff like that—I did a sociology project on it my senior year. They get together and talk crap and use it to justify what they’re doing. If other people do it, then it can’t be so wrong, the world is wrong. Which is bullshit.” She glanced over. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re absolutely right. He didn’t say anything more about this friend?”
She shook her head.
We talked for another ten minutes, but it was clear that if Aldrich said anything about that “old friend,” she didn’t remember it.
CHAPTER 30
We were back at the hotel two hours after we left it. Evelyn and Quinn were still in our room. Evelyn had news.
“Dee,” she said before I even got my shoes off. “You’re the literary expert here.”
“Um, no. I’ve taken a couple of courses—”
“Then let’s try a pop quiz.” She plunked a hotel notepad in front of me. “What does this mean?”
Three words were written on the paper. Inferno. Purgatorio. Paradiso.
She knew the answer. She was amusing herself. Jack would shove the paper back at her and refuse to play along.
“It’s the three books of the Divine Comedy,” I said. “Is that what IPP stands for? A little obscure for a shell company, isn’t it?”
She smiled smugly. “That depends on who sets it up. It was used to hide the rental of a vehicle involved in a murder. Given those intrusion worms, it’s a company that’s very interested in security. A company presumably involved in criminal activities and quite fond of Dante.”
I looked at her and said nothing.
“Really?” she said. “If you can’t guess, Dee—”
“Oh, I can guess. But if you’re telling me what I think you’re telling me, then I’m not sure I trust the source.”
Quinn glanced over, confused.
Jack said, “She’s right. Helluva coincidence.”
“Well, then, it’s a helluva coincidence,” she said. “Dee’s life is in danger, and I would never use that to further my own agenda.”
“No?” Jack said.
Evelyn’s eyes blazed. “No, Jack. I would not.”
“What’s going on?” Quinn said.
Evelyn opened her mouth, but I beat her to it. “She’s saying that IPP is a shell company for . . .”
I glanced at Jack. He dipped his chin, telling me to go on. There was nothing else to be done, no matter how awkward this was about to get.
“For the Contrapasso Fellowship,” I said.
“The what?”
“It’s—”
“I know what it is,” Quinn said. “But it’s not real. Believe me, I’ve gone looking, like I told you . . .” He studied my expression. “It is real. And you knew that. When I told you a few months ago that I checked into it and you said . . .”
Yep, wouldn’t it be cool if the Contrapasso Fellowship was real? Too bad it isn’t.
“Not her fault,” Jack said. “Evelyn’s.”
“Excuse me?” Evelyn said.
Jack gave her a hard look, one that said, You owe us and you’ll go along with whatever I say to fix this particular mess.
“Evelyn had a lead on it,” Jack said. “Wanted to track it down. For Dee. We didn’t believe her. Just wooing a student.”
“You mean that Evelyn offered to find the Contrapasso Fellowship for Dee. When Dee wasn’t interested, no one”—his gaze met mine—“said I might be.”
“Dee did,” Evelyn said. “And I chose not to pursue it. I won’t apologize for that, Quinn. I don’t know you as well as I know her, and you aren’t—”
“—the one who interests you,” he finished.
Which was true, but Evelyn had the grace to soften it by saying, “You aren’t in the market for a mentor and even if you were, we’d be a poor fit.”
“Dee’s not in the market, either,” Quinn said. “She’s got . . .” A thumb-hook in Jack’s direction.
“I believe I could add to her education,” Evelyn said.
Jack had a rebuttal to that, and Evelyn had one to his. They argued—diverting Quinn’s attention.
What they’d said about the Contrapasso situation was close to the truth. I had suggested she take the offer to Quinn, and she’d refused. I’d chosen not to tell Quinn because I knew it was useless—Evelyn wouldn’t help him get in the club.
“So you think IPP is a shell company for the Contrapasso Fellowship,” I said when Jack and Evelyn finished sparring.
“One of my contacts had heard the rumor, and I followed it up with my Contrapasso contact, who confirmed it. IPP is Contrapasso. The man who killed Drew Aldrich was driving a car rented by them. The hit must have been theirs.”