The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas Page B

Maggie.
    “Tessa, there’s sandwiches in the kitchen,” she says. “You’re probably hungry.”
    Jay is watching me. He’s late forties. Clean-shaven. He sips from his mug and sets it back down. Steel-gray eyes locked onto mine. I wonder if he recognizes me as a Lowell.
    “Okay,” I say. The kitchen is a stone’s throw from the living room, which means as long as they don’t whisper, I’ll be able to hear the conversation. There’s a platter of cold cuts and rolls on the counter. I fold a slice of cheese into my mouth and stand next to the fridge, where I have a partial view of the living room.
    “How’re you holding up?” Jay asks. No response.
    “That’s Pete.” Jay again. “Hope it’s all right we’re here.”
    “If this is about Ariel, you should probably talk to her friends,” Callie says.
    “We were under the impression you two were close.” Jay takes a pen out of his shirt pocket. Clicks the top once, twice.
    Callie hesitates. “A long time ago. We hadn’t talked in a while….You’d have better luck with Emily Raymes.”
    Click, click.
“What about Nick Snyder?”
    I picture Nick, handing Callie the liquor at the vigil. His meltdown before we went inside. I can tell Callie’s thinking about it too, because she hesitates. “What about him?”
    “He and Ariel dated, right?” Jay says.
    “Yeah. For a couple months, but they broke up before graduation.”
    Click, click.
“Seems he was pretty angry at her.”
    Pete, the officer on the couch, leans forward on his knees. “You know Nick well?”
    “We hang out with the same people,” Callie says.
    “He get angry a lot?” Pete again.
    Callie is quiet. I can tell she’s unnerved by how quickly the detectives have steered the conversation toward Nick. Of course they’re asking about Ariel’s unstable ex-boyfriend.
    Callie is murmuring something, and I lean into the doorframe to hear her better.
    “You think he did this to Ari?”
    The detectives are quiet. Jay is the one who finally speaks.
    “We’re just getting a sense of who she spent time with.”
    “Well, you should start with her dad,” Callie says. “Ari was terrified of him. He ran that house like Nazi Germany, and she was desperate to get out.”
    “Callie,” Maggie says. “That’s enough.”
    There’s some indecipherable murmuring. Then everyone stands up. Jay slips his pen into his shirt pocket. “If Nick knows anything, better he comes forward now before things get messy.”
    “What are you talking about?” Callie asks.
    Jay’s face is expressionless. “He’s eighteen, Callie. If it was an accident and he admits it, things may go more smoothly for him.”
    Callie’s silent. I clutch the handle of the fridge.
    Jay’s message is clear: Nick Snyder is old enough to be executed by the state of Pennsylvania.

After the detectives leave, Maggie slips out onto the patio, house phone in hand. I can tell by her voice that she’s talking to Rick; people have different voices depending on who they’re talking to. Maggie’s Rick voice is no nonsense, even though she’s obviously rattled. I can tell because she’s smoking a cigarette—I haven’t seen her do that since we were kids.
    I slip into the living room, where Callie is texting, fingers flying across her phone screen.
    “This is such bullshit,” she says, not looking up at me. “They’re wasting their time.”
    I’d had a similar thought. The police know that Ariel was killed just how the Monster’s victims were. Do they really think Nick planned to kill Ari and stage her body to make it look like a Monster copycat, or are they trying to make an easy arrest?
    There was nothing in the news this week about a possible link between Ariel’s death and the Ohio River murders. I picture the Fayette police commissioner on the phone with the editor of the local paper, telling her not to publish anything that could reignite rumors that Wyatt Stokes is innocent.
    The Fayette area had never had as