Page 20 of See How They Hide

Respected by his colleagues and students, Crossman was described as studious and reserved. The principal, Meredith Anderson, said he was a model teacher who also tutored low-achieving students free of charge. She said he enjoyed hiking the Atalaya Mountain anytime the weather permitted.

Riley ran to the bathroom and vomited violently, until everything she’d eaten was gone. She drank water from the faucet and threw up again. Now the tears came, tears and sobs she couldn’t stop. She wanted to scream, but her throat still burned from getting sick.

When she was certain there was nothing left in her stomach, Riley lay on the cool tile floor and waited until the room stopped spinning. Waited until she could stand without falling.

Thirty minutes later, she was steady enough to return to the computer and read everything she could find on Chris’s murder.

But there was little else except that Chris was killed in the same way as Jane.

That was no coincidence.

Riley couldn’t stay here. Would the police connect the two murders? Eventually. Had the police already searched Chris’s house? His body had only been identified this morning, but they’d come here soon, looking for evidence, wouldn’t they?

Like Jane, someone had lured Chris out of his house, into the woods, and killed him.

If the police had searched the place, they hadn’t made a mess. What would they think of Chris? Of his simple life? Would they even care about his death?

They’d never solve it. Even if Riley told them what she thought happened, who she thought had killed him, she had no proof, no evidence.

She knew next to nothing about how the police did anything. They had no television, no access to news in Havenwood. Everything she knew she’d learned in the last three years—or from years of her mother telling her that the police and everyone else in authority “Outside,” meaning beyond Havenwood, weren’t to be trusted.

But if she couldn’t stay here, wherecouldshe go? She needed to find Thalia, tell her what was happening.

She froze as a terrifying thought hit her.

Her mother had found Jane and Chris. Did her mother also know that Riley was alive?

Riley had an overwhelming urge to run, go back to France, hide for the rest of her life.

But if she was right and her mother was responsible for Jane’s and Chris’s murders, that meant others were in danger. Could she leave when everyone she had rescued was in jeopardy?

The only way to stop Calliope was to expose Havenwood. But if she exposed Havenwood, innocent people would die. It was a no-win situation and Riley wanted to scream.

Shecouldwarn those who she and Thalia had already rescued, but she had to first find Thalia.

She hadn’t spoken to her aunt in three and a half years.

Riley stared at the computer screen, willing answers to come to her.

To find Thalia meant reaching out to someone who hated her.

But Andrew owed her his life. He would help her because he was honorable.

Honor trumped hate.

She cleaned up her mess, cleared the browser history, then filled her backpack with necessities. She knew where Chris kept cash, so she grabbed a couple thousand dollars.

Riley took one long, final look around Chris’s house, remembering his life, trying to honor him and all that he’d done to help the people of Havenwood. Fruitlessly, she wished he were alive, that he would walk through the door and say it had all been a misunderstanding, tell her this entire nightmare was in her head.

But he didn’t and it wasn’t. So she left.

TUESDAY

8

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Sloane Wagner and Jim Esteban flew to Santa Fe first thing Tuesday morning, picked up a rental car, and drove straight to Chris Crossman’s remote home in the hills east of St. John’s College.

---