Veronica frowned. Plenty of Neptune’s wealthier families had security precautions—cameras, alarms, the works—and it made sense for someone planning a Gatsby-esque blowout involving crowds of unknown people to hire some extra guards. But what kind of person required a pat down for a party?
“Did you meet the host?” Veronica asked.
“Well, no one ever came up to us and introduced themselves.” Melanie shook her head. “It wasn’t that kind of party. The place was packed. I mean, there were bartenders and waiters going around with drinks, and more security guards inside, but no one who was, like, obviously in charge or anything.”
“From what we heard, there’s a party at the house every night during spring break,” Bri said. “A couple kids we talked to had been a few times already.”
“Okay. So what did you do once you got there?”
“We … I mean, we partied.” Melanie’s eyes, so eager and so intense just a moment ago, darted away toward the window. “I danced for a while. There was a bonfire on the beach. I played a little pool. You know. Party stuff.”
Veronica glanced from one to the other, then set down her notebook on her thigh. “Okay, I get that some of the ‘party stuff’ might not be the kind of thing you want to write Grandma about. But the more I know about what happened that night, the better my chances of finding Hayley. I promise, I’m not here to bust you. I just want to help your friend.”
Bri’s cheeks were an even deeper pink than before, clashing horribly with her hair. She stared at the ground, eyelashes drooping with shame. But Melanie turned her gaze suddenly and firmly back to Veronica. She was blushing too, but her expression was steady, determined.
“Look,” she said. “The thing is, neither one of us remembers a whole lot about that night. We were both pretty wasted. We don’t even remember how the hell we got home. And before you tell us it was stupid and selfish to get that fucked up, trust us. We already fucking know.”
“Sheriff Lamb didn’t believe that Hayley was missing,” Bri said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “We thought if we admitted we were drunk and high it’d be worse.”
Veronica crossed her legs. “Okay. Why don’t we focus on what you do remember. What was Hayley like that night? Was she as drunk as you guys were? Was she talking to anyone specific?”
Bri grabbed a rhinestone-encrusted iPhone from the top of the dresser and started swiping her thumb over the screen. After a moment, she held the phone out to Veronica.
“She spent a lot of time with this guy,” she said.
The picture on the phone was of a buxom, scantily clad brunette draped across a boy’s lap—a far cry from the clean-cut photo of Hayley on the missing person flyers.
Veronica held it up to see it more clearly. Hayley was in a short white dress with a plunging neckline, one spaghetti strap sliding down her shoulder. Her eyes were heavily made up, making her look older than she had in her senior portrait, and a delicate pendant in the shape of a birdcage hung in the shadow of her cleavage. She looked up at the boy through heavy lashes, a small, sensual smile turning up the corners of her lips.
The boy was college age, dark haired, his posture the image of casual grace. His angular, sculpted face ended in a gently cleft chin, a lazy smile hovering around his mouth. One hand rested lightly on Hayley’s hip, and he watched her with undisguised hunger.
“You get a name?” Veronica looked up at Hayley’s friends. Both of them shook their heads.
“No. But Hayley spent the whole night all over him. There are more pictures,” Bri said.
Veronica scrolled through. One showed the two of them pressed tight together on the dance floor, Hayley’s legs between the unknown boy’s. Another showed her whispering in his ear, one hand on his chest.
“You took these?” she asked Bri. Bri’s already pink cheeks darkened.
“She asked me to,” she said, shrugging. “I took them with her phone, actually. You’re looking at her Facebook page. She put them up that night.” Bri fidgeted with a gold bangle bracelet at her wrist. “I mean, she seemed to be having a really good time. We were happy she was on the rebound.”
“On the rebound?”
“Yeah,” Melanie broke in. “She and her boyfriend, Chad, broke up the week before spring break. She almost didn’t come with us. She’d been in her room crying her eyes out for a couple days.”
Veronica sat up a little straighter, the words jabbing sharp and sudden into her brain. “Why’d they break up?”
“They got in a huge fight over the phone when she told him she was coming to Neptune for spring break,” Melanie explained. “He goes to Stanford and his spring break is two weeks past ours—he didn’t want her running off to Neptune unsupervised. Whatever, they’ve broken up about five times this year. We were all hoping it’d take this time, but none of us had much faith.”
“Not a fan of Chad?” Veronica raised an eyebrow. Melanie just rolled her eyes.
“We told her time and time again she should get rid of the guy. He’s a creep. Controlling, patronizing. He’d tell her what classes to take and didn’t want her to party without him. He didn’t like her hanging out with us. He thinks we’re trashy,” Melanie said.
“We are kind of trashy,” Bri cut in. Melanie flipped her off. A beat later, both girls laughed. It sounded too high pitched, right on the edge of hysteria, but when they’d settled down they both looked a little calmer.
“Anyway,” Melanie said, taking a deep breath. “We were all kind of rooting for this guy at the party. He was the anti-Chad.”
“But if he had something to do with her going missing …” Bri’s voice trembled. “I mean, if he was the one who … who took her, or whatever …”
“Did you see them leave together at any point?” Veronica asked. Both girls shook their heads.
“But like I told you,” Melanie said, “that night is pretty hazy.”
Veronica looked at the phone again. The photos had been uploaded to Hayley’s Facebook at 11:57 p.m. on the night of the party. If what Ella said was true and Hayley and Chad’s relationship had been mercurial at the best of times, it seemed likely that in the wake of their breakup Hayley was making damn sure Chad saw just how much fun she was having.
Veronica pulled up an e-mail Mac had sent her an hour ago with Hayley’s phone records. Throughout the day there were a bunch of texts to her friends and one to her sister. Then at 12:13 a.m., she’d received a phone call from a number registered to Chad Cohan that lasted exactly fifty-three seconds. There was no activity after that.
“Has anyone spoken to Chad since Hayley went missing? Did anyone call him to let him know?”
Melanie gave a humorless bark of laughter. “Oh, he called me. Told me it was my fault Hayley was missing because I was the one who lured her down to Neptune. I told him if he was so worried he should come down, help us look. You know what he said?” She adopted a lilting, smug voice. “ ‘She’s not my responsibility anymore, Melanie. She made that abundantly clear.’ ” For a moment, she looked angry; then all at once her face crumpled. Her eyes went shiny with tears, and her lower lip started to shudder. “But he’s kind of right. I mean, we were supposed to look out for each other. We talked about checking in twice a day on the way down. And we just … lost her.”
Bri hurried to the bed, sliding an arm around the other girl’s shoulders. Melanie twitched beneath shallow sobs.