Page 91 of Skeletons in the Closet

And how did the world see him?

Nasty, mean, and dangerous.

Ugly.

Diem, too, preferred to fly under the radar and stay hidden.

“Fuck me,” I muttered under my breath. I saw it now. I understood.

I joined him on the loveseat, leaving several inches of space between us, knowing by this point that Diem needed extra room. I wanted to apologize, tell him I didn’t think he was hideous, tell him I wasn’t afraid to touch him, but I stayed quiet.

The damage was done.

Diem had a search engine pulled up. He’d written David Shore’s name in the bar at the top.

“What are you doing?”

“Seeing if I can figure out why they arrested him.”

“Probably because of Beth.”

“But why would he kill her?”

“She told? She exposed him? She could have been the anonymous tip-off. I don’t know.”

The search was too broad, the name too common. Diem addedYork Universityto the search terms and got better results, but still not what he was looking for.

David Shore assisted with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2016. David Shore was promoted to head of the mathematics department in 2006 and earned tenure in 2008. David Shore welcomed new exchange students to his program in 2011.

“Let me talk to Doyle and Fox. I can at least find out what he was charged with.”

“No. They won’t talk.”

“I can be persuasive.”

“No.”

“Why are you so against collaborating? I know you hate people in general, but it’s healthy to communicate with your friendly neighborhood homicide detectives. They could help. In your line of work, I would think—”

“They won’t help. This isn’t a made-for-TV special.”

“I never said it was.”

“It’s how you think. Detectives have low opinions of private investigators. We are the scum of the earth. Me especially.”

I huffed. “Seriously?”

Diem grunted.

I sighed. “Then what do we do? We were supposed to be investigating a dead guy’s infidelity. We’re getting way off base with this.”

Diem scowled at the tablet. He knew I was right. We’d followed the breadcrumb trail, but we’d taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

Diem typed into the search bar again, adding Noah’s name to the mix. Adding Beth’s, then Olivia’s, and any other combination he could think of. He used various dates, focusing on the time period when Noah, Beth, and Olivia would have been students at York, but we found nothing.

It was nearing six, and I was hungry. The soup I’d eaten at noon wasn’t holding me. Considering we’d hit a brick wall, it seemed like a good time to make my escape. “I should go.”

Diem nodded but seemed lost in thought.

---