Page 85 of The Lake of Lost Girls

“Why would I hate you?” I felt a shudder of apprehension.

Daisy shook her head, but otherwise didn’t say anything. As if she couldn’t bear to put the truth into words.

“Daisy, please. Tell me about Jess. About what you and Ryan were arguing about. Why did you call him?” I took a deep breath, “tell me why you slept with my sister’s boyfriend.”

Daisy looked as if I had slapped her.

“I didn’t sleep with Ryan.” The denial was swift and absolute. “I would never have done that to Jess. Even though things were strained between us those last few weeks, she was my best friend. I loved her like a sister.”

“But you were his alibi. He said you spent the night together,” I said, confused.

She stood up and faced the window, pressing her palm to the glass. “I know how it must sound, but I never slept with Ryan. And I wasn’t with him the night Jess disappeared. I lied to the police.”

The admission sat between us like an undetonated bomb.

Daisy turned around to face me. Her eyes filled with tears and her mouth pinched in anger.

Her self-recrimination covered her like a film.

“Why?” I barely managed to say, my voice quiet and rough. “Why would you lie for him?”

“Because I was young and naive and I thought I was doing what Jess would want me to do.” She sighed. “Ryan told me he and Jess had argued. That she broke up with him, which had shocked me because I knew how much she loved him. Even though their relationship had so many ups and downs it gavemea headache.” She laughed, but it died quickly as she became serious again. “He said he went back to his dorm, got drunk, and passed out—end of story. But the next day news broke that Jess was gone. The police were questioning everyone. It looked bad. It looked—”

“Like he could be a suspect,” I finished.

“I knew Ryan pretty well by that point. He had been dating Jess for a few months and they spent so much time in our room that I joked he should move in.” Her smile was full of nostalgia. “I thought he was a good guy, even though there were rumors about him. About his temper.” I must have made a face because Daisy gave me a knowing look. “I’m getting the impression you already know that.”

“I’ve seen him lose his cool a time or two,” I admitted.

“Jess, too. But she was happy with him most of the time, and like I said, I knew how much he loved her. He would have walked over broken glass for her. So, in my mind, Iknew there was no way he could have hurt her. And I had watched enough soap operas and Lifetime movies to know he would be suspect numero uno. I thought I was being noble,” she argued.

“So you lied for him, but … I’m getting the sense that now you’re not so sure?”

Daisy put out her second cigarette and immediately fished out another one. She was obviously a stress smoker. “Even after all this time I don’t know what to believe. Not about Ryan. I guess I never fully bought his story. Something was off about what he claimed. Then again, something was off about the whole damn situation.”

I let her words sink in for a moment, horrified and yet not entirely surprised either. I had the same feelings.

“But this isn’t only about Ryan. It’s about all the ways this school failed to protect those women but bent over backward to protect Dr. Daniels and its reputation.” Daisy sat back down heavily in her chair. “Everyone has secrets. I’m no exception. Neither is Ryan. Or Jess.” She paused, as if trying to decide how to proceed. “Jess was hiding something, Lindsey, something big. I hate to say this but at the end … I didn’t trust her.”

“You didn’t trust her? Why?”

“She had changed so much. It was gradual at first, but when we came back from Christmas break it was like she was a different person. We had been close. Closer than I was with my own family. I thought we told each other everything.” She shook her head. “But she stopped talking to me. She was failing her classes because she was barely going to any of them. She was partying almost every night, drinking more than most of the frat guys I knew. She was kicked out of Pi Gamma. It looked like she was going to be thrown out of school as well, but she didn’t seem to care about any of it. Something was wrong with her. She would disappear for hours and never tell me where she went. I’d hear her sneak out of our room late at night. She was a shadow of the woman she used to be.” Daisy sounded tormented and I felt a growing sense of dread.

“What was going on with her? Did it have to do with Ryan?” I sat forward, feeling my entire body tense in anticipation.

“I don’t think so. I think it went deeper than that,” Daisy mused, staring off into space again.

“Ryan insisted it was all Dr. Daniels, and he begged me to be his alibi. He said that if the police were busy looking at him, then Dr. Daniels would get away with it. And he’s not wrong. Who would the police believe? A college kid or a respected teacher at the school?”

I frowned, frustrated because I knew she was right. Yet lying to the police about Ryan’s alibi also felt incredibly wrong.

“Ryan was no saint, and I regret lying because, looking back now, I’m not entirely sure I believe that Ryan was actually passed out in his dorm. Something about his story didn’t feel right to me,” Daisy continued, “but he was right in that Dr. Daniels had been involved with all those girls—even Jess.”

“So, it’s true, Jess and Dr. Daniels were together?” I interrupted.

Daisy shrugged. “He was definitely calling the room for her, and she was seeing him one-on-one for tutoring. Everyone knew how he was with his students. It was an open secret. A scandal to laugh and gossip about. Though it wasn’t so funny when it was someone I loved—when it was Jess.” She bit her lip as if to stop herself from crying. “I thought perhaps that was why her behavior had changed so dramatically. That Dr. Daniels was preying on her like he had preyed on Tammy, Phoebe, and Meghan. Ryan and I both believed Dr. Daniels had something to do with Jess’s disappearance. We became fixated on it. On him paying for his seemingly obvious crimes.”

“But nothing happened. He didn’t pay for anything.”

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