He slowed down.
“You used me,” she said. “You left us together so she would talk. You gambled that if she knew I hadn’t told you any names, she would think of a story that would let her save face. That was deliberate, wasn’t it?”
He squealed around a curve and slowed down again. “You’ll probably lose your job, won’t you? What next?”
That was the only answer she would ever get, she knew. “I’ll have to stay until the end of the school year. It’s going to be a real mess. Then, I don’t know.”
She realized that she was now at the same place she had been two years ago when she had come home defeated. She hadn’t been able to keep a husband, to keep a job, to find a new job, and she had run home. After that the decisions had been made for her. She hadn’t resisted because she hadn’t realized how adrift she was. Even Jordan, she thought with a twinge of guilt; even with him she had let herself drift with the flow, accepting easy choices, pretending no decision had to be made as long as nothing was stated overtly. Now she had to deal with that. And Patty, she added. Something had ended there, too. How far those six people would have gone to avoid embarrassment she couldn’t guess, but they had turned their backs on murder, however they justified it. She thought of Hilde, who believed she finally had worked her way out of the shadows, only to be dragged back in. And of the other women Philip had swallowed whole, diminished. They passed the college, the president’s mansion, the beautifully maintained gardens, and she thought clearly, whatever she did after June, it would not be here.
Haliday kept driving through Crystal Falls at the posted limit of twenty miles an hour. “Where are you going?” she demanded.
“I have to check in at Salem,” he said. “Didn’t I mention that?”
“Do you own a car, Haliday?”
“You know, if you ever decided to go in for a little more schooling, criminology, something like that, you probably could get a recommendation or two to make the special investigation unit. If that would interest you.”
“Forget it, Haliday,” she snapped.
“Yeah, Blair, I will. For one thing, you’d have to call me Lieutenant, or even sir. Protocol. Show a little respect for authority.”
“So already I’m disqualified,” she said coldly.
He laughed. When he stopped the car at the courthouse in Salem, he got out and waited until she walked around to get behind the wheel, and then held out his hand. “You’re pretty good, Blair.”
They shook hands. “Thanks, Haliday. For a lot.”
He nodded. She got in the car and fastened her seat belt.
“Be seeing you, Blair.”
She waved and started to drive. In the rearview mirror she could see him watching her until she turned the corner.
