Page 122 of The Other Side
With shaky legs, I bolted down the stairs, barricading the door to the bathroom with my desk, as the wardrobe had been too heavy for me to push by myself.
Huffing with the exertion, I tried to remember who had known about the lounge before the police. But other than Chance and Lenny, the only person I’d told was…
“Jolene…” I whispered.
And then everything began to click into place. Pieces of the puzzle that had always been there suddenly fit together where they hadn’t before.
She’d known about the lounge.
She’d known Chance was really Alexander Roberts.
She had lied to me about attending Montgomery, and given her age, she would have attended the school around the time the Marshall twins had gone missing.
I recalled our conversation after the headmaster had died. I’d thought she might have been Daniel’s source, and perhaps she had been, but she’d seen and heard everything that had goneon in the admin offices. She’d had access to everything and everyone.
She’d found both Claire and the headmaster.
She could have easily pushed Claire, and deduced she was working with Chance based on what I had told her.
As for the headmaster, she’d been perfecting his handwriting for the better part of twenty years to take care of his correspondence because he was too lazy to do all the paperwork himself. Whether she’d been the one to pull the trigger or not, I was positive she’d forged the note and left it behind to cover up everything else.
I didn’t know her motive for the twins or Daniel, but if she’d known about the bodies, she’d had to have been involved. It was all too much when you put it together.
I needed help, and I didn’t know who I could trust. A thought occurred to me then. I whipped out my laptop, remembering that Chance had emailed me before, from his personal address.
I let out a cry of relief when I located it, writing a quick reply:
I don’t care if this was all a joke to you, please come back to Montgomery to pick me up. I think Jolene killed Daniel. I don’t know who else I can trust. Help me!
