Page 48 of See You Again

“Thirties, at least.”

Cami’s eyebrows flew up. “Really?”

Lindsay stiffened. “She wasn’t feeling good about herself. She had just heard about Janelle and Todd. I think she needed a boost. I think he was older than that, though. Maybe closer to forty.” She shrugged. “It’s hard to tell, though. After thirty, everyone kind of looks… old.”

Cami kept her smile in place suddenly feeling ancient next to these young women.

“Amy told me that she made sure he took her someplace popular in town. Amy wanted it to get back to them… She was always so nice. This was only because she was hurt,” Whitney rushed to say.

“I get it. She had a hot date with a rich older guy. It’s totally understandable that she wanted to salvage her pride. Did she say how the date went?”

Laura grimaced. “Not great. He wanted to sleep with her the first night, and that's just not Amy. She said he was kind of a jerk when she said no. He didn’t try to force her or anything, he was just snotty. He was only in town for a night or so. She chalked it up to experience.”

“And this was two nights before the bonfire?” This must be the man Mark said Amy called the night she disappeared. The one with an alibi. “Amy didn’t have any intention of seeing him again before he left?”

“Not that she said.”

But Amy had reached out to him. That brief phone call. Why?

“Do you remember his name?”

Laura’s forehead scrunched. “Something basic. Sorry, I don't remember exactly.”

Lindsay’s hands twisted in her lap. “You hear about this stuff on TV, but it never occurs to you…”

Whitney put an arm around Lindsay and squeezed. “We all grew up here. It’s a really small town. We thought nothing exciting, much less something bad, could ever happen here. Then Amy disappeared and everything changed.”

“My mom made me move home for the next semester,” Laura added. “It shook everyone.” The other women nodded, murmuring agreement. “Particularly when they didn't find her right away. It was just scary, you know.”

Lindsay visibly shuddered. “I can’t bear to think it might be somebody we know. Somebody at that party with us.” Her gaze suddenly met Cami’s with a directness that surprised her. “Do you think that's what happened? It was somebody at the party?”

“Who else could it have been? We were five miles from town,” Melanie snapped.

“She wouldn't have tried to walk that far in the dark. Not in those shoes.” Whitney added.

It was the same theory the police had. That at some point after walking away from the bonfire, Amy had accepted a ride from someone she trusted and hadn't seen the danger until too late.

“Okay,” Cami said, tapping her pen against her pad. “The night she disappeared. Whose idea was it to go to the bonfire?

The women looked at each other, and then finally shrugged.

“I'm not sure,” Melanie said. “Everyone knew about it. It was tradition. You know… the last party before break.”

“You got ready in your dorm room? Did Amy plan to meet anyone there?”

“No, it was just a normal night. I drove all of us.”

“You needed to park outside the gate to the farm, correct?”

Melanie nodded. “It was Bobby Callahan's dad's farm, and his parents were gone, so he put the word out on social media. He locked the gate because he didn’t want the guys to trench his dad’s fields with their trucks.”

“He put it out on social media?” Cami hadn’t heard this before. “So, it was a public invitation?”

The women looked confused.

“Is his page public, or did you receive a message?”

Melanie shook her head slowly. “I-I don’t know.”