Say You're Sorry

“You spent the night out in the woods alone?”

“Yes.” Morgan set off toward the clearing. “I’ve never had much love for the woods or the dark since.”

“And I’m sure finding Tessa’s body didn’t improve your opinion of either.”

They walked up the dirt tract and paused at the edge of the clearing. In the daylight, the spot should have been pretty. But instead of seeing the play of sunlight on coppery foliage, Morgan’s eyes focused only on the shadows.

Except for the charred wood in the bonfire pit, the clearing was bare. The forensic team had collected the litter as evidence.

Lance moved closer, and the tension in his body told her he felt it too. As much as she hated to admit it, his presence was the only reason she could stand to be in the clearing.

“I’ll start at the clearing, and we’ll work our way to the place where we found the body.” Lance began to shoot photos.

Morgan took a notepad out of her bag and started drawing a sketch. She studied the clearing and surrounding forest. “Her car was parked over there.”

The Accord now sat in the police impound garage. Tessa’s purse had been found on the passenger seat.

She added details to her sketch. “Nick said when he left, Tessa was sitting in her car.”

Morgan went to the spot where the Honda had been parked. A sense of dread slithered through her belly, leaving it cold and empty, as she envisioned Tessa’s last moments. “She’s sitting in her car, crying. She sends the text to Felicity, telling her BFF about her breakup with Nick. Then she calls the Emerson house to talk with Jacob.”

“But Mr. Emerson answered the call.” Lance lowered the camera.

“That’s what he says. What if he didn’t? What if Jacob answered?”

“What if Tessa told Jacob she was pregnant?” Lance said. “And he drove out to the clearing.”

“The police didn’t ask for a DNA sample from Jacob. They were focused on Nick from the very beginning. When the police interviewed Jacob, they didn’t know Nick wasn’t the father of Tessa’s baby. They assumed it was Nick. They didn’t know they were looking for two different men. Plus, Jacob’s father is an attorney. He would never have allowed it. He would have known the implications and demanded a warrant.”

“What are the chances of forcing Jacob to submit to DNA testing?” Lance asked.

“Without new evidence? Slim. Mr. Emerson would fight it for sure. Plus, Jacob and Tessa dated five months ago. She was only eight weeks pregnant. There’s no basis.”

“I watched that fight between Jacob and Nick,” Lance said. “Jacob was angry to see Tessa with Nick. Who’s to say they didn’t have a brief reconciliation over the summer?”

Morgan hated to think of Tessa going out with Nick and cheating on him with Jacob, but Lance’s theory was possible. She couldn’t let her personal relationship with Tessa or Nick get in the way of her investigation. Tessa had cheated on Nick. But with whom?

“We won’t get a court order based on a hunch. We’d have to get some evidence that Jacob and Tessa had had contact . . .” Morgan counted backward. “Mid to end of July.”

“Or evidence she was seeing someone else back in July,” Lance added.

She made a note in her phone. “I’ll need to pick through Tessa’s cell phone records from the whole summer.”

The police had focused on the last few weeks of Tessa’s life. Even after learning of her pregnancy, Horner hadn’t done much to look for the father of Tessa’s baby.

Lance frowned at the lake. “So everyone else leaves. Tessa is alone in her car. Why would she get out of her car?”

“I can think of a couple of reasons.” Turning in a circle, Morgan scanned the forest. “She was mad at her grandparents. She didn’t want to go home. She took a walk to clear her head.”

“Or someone arrived.”

“Someone she knew. Jacob, if we’re thinking he was the father of her baby and that Mr. Emerson lied about handling the call, and that she actually talked to Jacob.” Morgan wouldn’t have gotten out of the car alone in the dark, but she wasn’t a frightened, pregnant teenager.

“Would he really have to kill her if he’d knocked her up? His family has plenty of money. This isn’t 1950.”

“In some ways, social pressure hasn’t changed as much as you might think. I’m sure Tessa was feeling pretty desperate. She hadn’t even graduated high school. Her grandparents are old-fashioned. The stigma of being a teen mom would alienate her from everyone.” Morgan thought of the girls who had gotten pregnant back in her high school days. They’d all dropped out of school, unable to handle being ostracized.

“It was early enough for her to get an abortion, or she could have given the child up for adoption,” Lance said.

“True. But I’m sure she was still panicked about the pregnancy.” Morgan’s heart ached when she thought about Tessa going through her personal crisis alone. Her grandmother was too out of touch to be a confidant.

“Could she have threatened the father?” Lance said.

“If a paternity test proved Jacob was the father, how would that have affected his plans for law school?”

“Doesn’t seem like enough motivation to kill her,” Lance said. “Legally, the most Jacob could have been forced to provide is financial support. No one could force him to raise the child. His family could afford to pay Tessa.”

“That’s how you and I would approach a critical decision, but we’re talking about two teenagers. Tessa clearly engaged in risky behavior.”

“Like unprotected sex,” Lance said. “She was sleeping with Nick and at least one other boy.”

“Exactly. Plus, they all admitted to drinking beer. Jacob said he drank a couple of beers. Maybe it was much more,” Morgan added.

“That all said, we don’t know for sure that Tessa was killed because she was pregnant. We have no evidence that she told anyone.” Lance took a few shots of the opposite side of the clearing. “The police have held that piece of information back from the press. No one has mentioned it, not even the Emersons.”

“If she told the father and he killed her because of it, it’s not knowledge he would admit to having.” Morgan walked across the clearing to the entrance of the game trail. “She got out of her car. They argued. She ran, and he chased her.”

What had it been like for Tessa that night? Alone in the dark.

Lance snapped a few pictures of the area where the Honda had been parked. Then he followed Morgan down the game trail to the edge of the lake. Trampled cattails and torn pieces of crime scene tape marked the location where Tessa’s body had been found.

Other than the limp, dirty yellow tape, the only other sign that a young woman had been killed there was a small memorial of teddy bears, notes, and flowers at the water’s edge.

A chill swept over Morgan as she stared at the patch of thick reeds that Tessa had lain in. Standing in the safety of daylight and Lance’s company, she could barely restrain the urge to run. “The mud here is too wet for footprints. Any imprints would have filled in.”

“The police didn’t find any on the bank either. Too much sand in the soil, and there were so many tire tracks and footprints at the clearing.”