“Can I get your phone number, ma’am, please?” he says, and I give it to him, Dr. Duval’s words still in my mind. You’re one of them.
“Wait,” Officer Dunne says. He peers at my face. “Camille Gardener?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“You’re . . . um . . . I know you. I mean, I don’t know you, but—”
“You saw the video.”
“Yeah. And . . . uh . . . I’m sure you know that the guy . . .”
“Harris Blanchard. He’s dead. Yes. It’s . . . a lot to process.” I clear my throat. “It’s actually why I was looking for a support group.”
“Sorry you weren’t able to make it.”
“Oh . . . I’ll find another one.”
He says, “Interesting you came all the way down here for a support group. I mean . . . isn’t this town far from where you live?”
“It’s about two hours.”
“But instead of going to a local church or whatever, you drove two hours to Tarry Ridge. And then you got lost. . . .”
My face flushes. I hope he doesn’t notice. “Someone was talking about this particular group in an online forum I’m in. Plus, I didn’t want to go where people might know me.” I give him what I think is a pointed glare. “I’m not sure what it is that you’re implying.”
“I’m just saying it’s weird, you coming down here and seeing what you did.”
“Why?”
“Dr. Duval lost his child too. It was three years ago, when I was graduating high school—big local news story. A hit-and-run.”
I stare at him. “Oh my God. Did they ever catch the driver?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Turned out to be some billionaire’s teenage daughter. Wound up with a suspended sentence. Community service or something, I don’t know.”
My jaw tightens. “Not fair.”
“Not fair at all,” he says. “Anyway, their kid is buried in that cemetery. The Duvals moved to Croton, and I heard his wife died last week. So, it makes sense in a super-sad way . . . him walking into traffic.”
My ears start to ring. You’re one of them. “How did she die?”
“Suicide,” he says. “Like I said, it’s super sad.”
Seventeen
It’s past midnight by the time I get home, but I can’t sleep. I spend more than an hour online, finding out everything I can about Edward and Natalie Duval and their twelve-year-old daughter, who was killed walking home from school in a hit-and-run.
Their daughter’s name was Claire.
I learn about the fifteen-year-old girl who hit Claire—Berry Wright, who was truly Tarry Ridge royalty, her father tech magnate Reynolds Wright. Her uncle Roger Wright is the real estate developer who basically created Tarry Ridge—but that’s an entirely different story. （Suffice it to say, there are questionable genes in that family.） At any rate, despite the fact that the Duvals were relatively well off, the Wrights’ wealth and local celebrity more than eclipsed their own. And so, even though Berry was too young to have a license, left the scene of the accident, and waited forty-five crucial minutes before telling anyone about it—during which Claire Duval’s life might have been saved—she received that infuriating plea deal.
Edward and Natalie did win a sizable wrongful death suit against the family. But, while it surely enabled Edward to buy that big fuck-you of a shiny Porsche he was driving around, money is no substitute for justice.