Caught

"Could you patch me through to a guest named Wheeler, please?"

She figured that they wouldn't think to check in under a pseudonym.

The operator asked for a spelling. Wendy gave it.

"We have no guest by that name."

She hung up and tried Paramus next. Again she asked for a guest named Wheeler. Three seconds later, the operator said, "Please hold while I co

Bingo.

The phone was picked up on the third ring. Je

Wendy hung up and headed to her car. The Marriott Courtyard in Paramus was only ten minutes away. Better to do this in person. When Wendy was only two minutes away she called the room again.

Je

"It's Wendy Tynes."

"What do you want?"

"To meet."

"I don't want to meet."

"I'm not looking to hurt you or your family, Je

"Then leave us alone."

Wendy pulled the car into the Courtyard's parking lot. "No can do."

"I've got nothing to say to you."

She found a spot, pulled in, turned off the engine. "Too bad. Come down. I'm in the lobby. I'm not leaving until you do."

Wendy hung up. The Paramus Marriott Courtyard was scenically located on both Route 17 and the Garden State Parkway. Room views featured either a P. C. Richard electronics store or a window-less warehouse store called Syms, with a quasi-bragging sign that read: AN EDUCATED CONSUMER IS OUR BEST CUSTOMER.

A vacation spot this was not.

Wendy entered the hotel. She waited in a lobby of beige-a sea of beige walls really, countered by a dull forest green carpet, a room enmeshed in the blandest of bland colors, hues so plain they screamed that the hotel was competent and fine, but expect absolutely no frills. Issues of USA Today were scattered about the coffee table. Wendy glanced at the headline and checked out a reader survey.

Je

"Did you come here to gloat?" Je

"Yes, Je

Je

Wendy thought about last night, about something as inane as Project Graduation, and how Je

Je

"I do."

Silence.

"I heard you're moving," Wendy said.

"Who did you hear that from?"

"It's a small town."

Je

"That was quick."

"He's very much in demand. But the truth is, we started pla

"When you first started defending Dan?"

Again she tried to smile. "Let's just say that didn't help our standing in the community," she said. "We hoped to stay until the end of the school year-so Amanda could graduate with her class. But I guess that's not meant to be."

"I'm sorry."

"Again, Ted and Marcia. This isn't that big of a deal."

Wendy guessed not.

"So why are you here, Wendy?"

"You defended Dan."

"Yep."

"I mean, from start to end. When the show first aired. You seemed so sure that he was i

"So what do you want me to say-my bad? I was wrong, you were right?"

"Were you?"

"Was I what?"

"Were you wrong?"

Je

"Do you think Dan killed Haley?"

The lobby fell silent. Je

"I don't understand. You think he's i

Wendy wasn't sure how to reply to that one. "I think there are still some pieces missing."

"Like what?"

"That's what I'm here to find out."

Je

"I'm going to confess something to you, okay?"

Je

"I work with facts, not intuition. Intuition usually just screws me up. Do you know what I mean?"

"More than you can imagine."

There were tears in Je

"Factually I knew that I had Dan nailed. He tried to seduce my imaginary thirteen-year-old girl online. He showed up at the house. There was all that stuff in his house and on his computer. Even his job-I can't tell you how many of these creeps work with teenagers, supposedly helping them. It all added up. And yet my intuition kept screaming that something was wrong."

"You sounded pretty certain when we spoke."

"Almost too certain, don't you think?"

Je

"Yes."

"Maybe you were right about why. He kept something from me. I knew that. We all do that, don't we? No one knows us entirely. In the end, it's kind of a cliche, but maybe you never really know a person."

"So you were wrong this whole time?"

Je

"Wonder what?"

A tear rolled down her cheek. "I wonder if it was more, if something bad happened to him. I wonder if there was a darkness there, inside of him."

Je

"When we met last time, you said something about Princeton. That something happened to him when he was there."

"Right, so?"

"So I'd like to look into that."

Je

Wendy really didn't want to get into it. "I'm just following up."

"I don't understand. What could his college years have to do with anything?"

"It's just an aspect of the case I need to know about."

"Why?"

"Can you just trust me on this one, Je

She didn't answer for a few moments. Then: "I don't know. That was part of the secretiveness-maybe the biggest part, now that I think about it. That's why I mentioned it to you."

"And you have no idea what it was?"

"Not really. I mean, it ended up not making much sense."

"Could you at least tell me about it?"

"I don't see the point."

"Humor me, okay?"