Detective Oslo played dumb. Ms. Grey, is it? How can I help you? Yes, your name has come up in the investigation. I can’t say much more. Should I know who you are? Why don’t you tell me?
Oslo had looked her up as soon as he saw her name in the text messages on the victim’s phone. He contacted the president of Markham U. Apparently, Luna’s birth name was on record because she’d had to explain her two years of homeschooling. But when the girl showed up alone at the station, Oslo wanted to hear the story straight from the source. He took Luna into an interview room and offered her a cup of coffee.
It had been seven years since Luna had set foot inside a police station. She was unprepared for the feelings it would evoke. At first it was mostly nausea, accompanied by a cold sweat. She understood that she was having a panic attack, but that awareness didn’t help. She knew that the detective would look at her state and think, Guilt, guilt, guilt.
Oslo fetched a cup of water for the pallid girl.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Grey?” Detective Oslo asked.
“Were you the detective who was talking to Owen?”
“I was.”
“Did you ask him about the texts on his phone?”
“Can you be more specific?” Oslo asked.
“Scarlet sent texts to Owen before she died,” Luna said.
“Where did you get that information?”
Luna nodded and gulped water. She wondered if the detective had given her the cup to get her DNA. It didn’t matter. She was thirsty. She could have drunk another gallon of water and still felt unquenched.
“I had Owen’s phone. Did he tell you that?”
Oslo preferred to guide the conversation. He rarely answered questions that witnesses or persons of interest asked him. “Why don’t you tell me what happened Friday night. Start at the beginning.”
Luna told Oslo the whole story, how she had Owen’s phone the entire night and was texting Scarlet as Owen. The detective eventually asked the question Owen could not seem to answer.
“So, Luna, what is your secret?”
Luna was ready to come clean. “My brother, my half brother, is John Allen Brown. You know, the guy who killed two girls in Colorado. Are you familiar with that case?”
He was.
“Would you mind refreshing my memory?” Oslo asked.
“When John was eighteen, he had a girlfriend. Her name was Susan James. She was seventeen. She disappeared on April 1, 1995. Her body was found in a shallow grave in a nature preserve near Denver. The police thought he did it, but the evidence was circumstantial. A few witnesses thought they saw a guy who matched his description nearby. My mother and father were out of town that weekend. A friend had let them use their condo in Aspen. John was watching me. He did that a lot back then. After John was arrested, he told the police that I was with him. The police brought me in and questioned me. I gave John an alibi for the whole weekend. They didn’t believe me. They charged John with murder. There was a trial. I testified on closed-circuit TV. I told everyone that John didn’t do it. That he couldn’t have killed her. He was with me the entire weekend. My parents were out of town, so they didn’t know one way or the other.
“I didn’t want to believe he was a killer. I didn’t want him to go to jail. So I gave him an alibi, even though I didn’t remember seeing him that night. John coached me, told me what we did, what food we ate, what movies we watched. I think I started to believe his version. I had seizures sometimes and I wouldn’t remember things. I thought that’s what might have happened. I wanted to believe him more than anything. His story became my story. You know the rest, right?”
“He was found not guilty,” Oslo said. “How long was it until he killed again?”
“Eighteen months. Her name was Lila Wells. She was also seventeen. She’d be twenty-four now if not for me. He thought he was being smart, picking a girl he didn’t know. No one could put them together. But they found her body really fast. She was buried not far from Susan. I remember he cleaned his car. They found a movie ticket stub in her jacket pocket, and John worked at Sunset Cinemas in Cherry Creek. They brought him in. While John was talking to the cops, I told my mom that I thought that maybe he did it. I told her that I’d lied the first time—that I couldn’t really remember anything. My mom got me a lawyer and they made a deal—I think that’s what happened. He was sentenced to life without parole. My dad, who was John’s dad, had died about a month after the Susan James trial. That’s when my mom and I went back to using her maiden name. The point is, Owen didn’t know any of it.”
“You sure about that?”
“I didn’t tell him until just now,” said Luna. “Even if he knew, why would he hurt Scarlet?”
“To stop her from telling everyone. To protect you. Maybe you’re protecting him now,” Oslo said.
“Look, I was with him earlier that night, with other people around. I can’t remember exactly when he showed up. I made everyone leave around eight or nine. I know where Scarlet’s body was found. I can’t imagine why he would go there or how she would have gotten in touch with him when I had his phone. Also, people kill for a reason, right? Unless they’re like my brother and they kill because they enjoy it. I can’t think of a logical reason why Owen would kill Scarlet. She was after him. He was trying to get away. He didn’t go about it the right way, but just to get a girl to stop calling you—have you ever seen someone kill for that?”
“It would be unusual,” Oslo said. “You’re confident that he had no idea where Scarlet was Friday night?”
Luna wanted to swear on her life that Owen didn’t kill Scarlet. She didn’t think he did. But she’d learned the difference between what you want to be true and what is true.
“I don’t know how he could have,” she said.
“What about your brother? Did Owen know about him?”
“I never told him. He would have said something if he knew.”