Page 79 of The Other Side
“You remember the police report we snagged from Winston’s office?”
I nodded.
“I’ve been hounding Wayne Davies for weeks, begging him to talk to me about the old case. And I woke up this morning to an email saying if we can make it down today, he’ll give us twenty minutes.” Chance beamed.
I wasn’t sure what exactly I had expected all of this to be about, but that hadn’t been it.
Chance mistook my silence for acceptance, rather than confusion. “He’s a few hours away, so that’s why we had to leave so early. Plus, I didn’t want to risk him changing his mind. But I promise we’ll be back in time to fit in your traditions.” He glanced at me, suddenly unsure of my silence.
“But we’re still stopping for coffee, right?” I leaned my head against the chilly windowpane, realizing the last time I’d been in Chance’s car had been the night he had driven me home from the bar…the first night we’d met.
“Yeah, I’ll get you coffee.” He reached out over the console and grabbed my hand, squeezing it lightly. “You can go back to sleep if you want.”
I nodded, my eyes already drooping.
“Chance!” I squealed. “Can we get a puppy!?”
“Where would you keep it?” He laughed, shaking his head.
“In the lounge, obviously.” I beamed jokingly.
There was a kennel in front of the Davies’ home with half a dozen golden retriever puppies yipping at Chance and me the second we got out of his car.
“I hope you’re not here for one of the dogs—they’re all spoken for.” A man, easily in his seventies, came around the side of the house, shovel in hand, trying to clear the driveway of the couple of inches that had fallen in the last hour or so of our trip. I was sure it was Wayne from his military crew cut and how his gait looked almost like a march.
“I’m Chance Harper, sir.” Chance outstretched his hand to shake Wayne’s. “This is Violet Price. We’re both teachers at Montgomery.”
Wayne shook my hand next.
The wary look in his eyes was hard to miss.
“We really appreciate you making time to meet with us,” Chance added, following Wayne as he turned without a word to head back into the house.
“Not like you or my wife gave me much of a choice,” Wayne huffed, holding the door open for both of us as we entered his home, whereupon we were immediately accosted by three gregarious full-sized retrievers, all fighting for our attention.
When Wayne bent to remove his boots in the entryway, we followed suit. He ushered us into a formal front living room, complete with floral frilled couches and matching honey-colored wood furniture pieces.
“The case hasn’t been formally closed, so there isn’t much I should be discussing,” Wayne said stiffly.
Chance politely restated an abbreviated version of his connection to the case. He didn’t reveal that he was related to Daniel, only that he and I had become interested in the case, and when we’d discovered the older missing students, we thought there might be a connection.
“All of this is off the record?” Wayne questioned.
“Of course,” Chance replied.
“You’re not recording some true crime podcast? Because you wouldn’t be the first to come sniffing around this case for media coverage and lie about it.”
Chance pulled out his wallet and handed Wayne his Montgomery faculty ID badge, giving me a look requesting that I do the same, which I did.
The confirmation seemed to finally satisfy Wayne. “What exactly do you want to know?”
“I was curious as to your lead suspects or theories on the case. I’m trying to rule out the potential for the same person to have been involved in all three disappearances. There are many tenured staff at Montgomery who were present during both incidents,” Chance dove right in.
“The commonly accepted theory about the Marshall girls was that it was a kidnapping gone wrong,” Wayne stated, but the tone of his voice indicated he wasn’t so sure.
“Surely it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibilities for children from wealthy families to be targets for ransom,” Chance argued, likely to goad him into revealing his actual thoughts.
I had to wonder if Chance, being from a wealthy family himself, had ever had experience with something similar. Maybe I’d ask him about it later.
