“No, I didn’t.”

“Is that it?” Stride asked. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“There’s nothing else.”

Stride leaned across the small table and stared at Jones until the big man blinked uncomfortably. “You’re lying,” he said. “Why bring me all the way out here if you’re not going to tell me the whole story?”

“Everything I’ve said is the truth,” Jones insisted.

“The question is what you’re leaving out.”

“What makes you think I’m leaving anything out?”

“The girl had secrets,” Stride said. “That’s what you keep saying. I think you know something else about Laura. Something specific. I want to know what it is and why you’re covering it up. Until you tell me, you’re not getting on that plane.”

Jones ran his tongue across his white teeth and smiled.

“You saw something, didn’t you?” Stride asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“What was it? What did you see when you found Laura on the beach?”

“I’m not sure it will help anyone if I tell you. Least of all the girl who was killed.”

“Let me decide that,” Stride said.

“What I saw was innocent and beautiful. There was no violence.”

“Tell me.”

Jones sighed. “Laura wasn’t alone.”

“Who was she with?”

“I don’t know. It was no one who would have killed her. They were kissing. They were in love. You can understand why I didn’t bother intervening at that point. They didn’t want me around.”

“What did he look like?” Stride asked. “Laura’s lover.”

Jones shook his head. “Laura had the kind of lover you didn’t talk about back then. It wasn’t a boy, Lieutenant. It was another girl. Laura was on the beach with a blond girl about the same age. They were holding each other as if they never wanted to let go.”

36
___________

Tish studied the framed photographs on the credenza in Jonathan Stride’s office in City Hall. She saw a photo of Stride with his arm around Serena, taken somewhere with a view across the Strip in Las Vegas. Beside it, she saw a picture of Cindy, with the Vancouver harbor behind her. Her hair was dark and straight. Her eyes teased the camera. Over time, Tish’s memories of Cindy had dimmed to the point where she couldn’t hear her voice in her head and couldn’t call up a picture of her face. Then a photo like this brought it all back.

She felt her eyes misting. Behind her, she heard the noise of someone approaching, and she quickly put the photograph down, wiped her face, and pasted a smile on her lips. Stride came into the office, and she didn’t think she had fooled him. His eyes strayed to the line of photographs, and she thought they lingered on Cindy.

He pointed at the chair in front of his desk and then took his own chair and leaned back, his jaw tight and hard. His hair was unruly, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept. Tish sat down uncomfortably. She heard the office door close and turned around to see the tiny Chinese cop, Maggie Bei, leaning against the door. She wasn’t smiling.