“I figured it was only a matter of time. Let’s get back to the girl you were offered.”
“Jackson didn’t say anything about the girl’s age or anything, but I just got this sense that . . .” Chase looked truly ill. “I left first thing this morning. I’m going back to Brooklyn right after this. I don’t give a damn if I lose the account anymore. I don’t give a damn if I lose my job. I feel like I just had a brush with something evil. I know you have something to do with all of that stuff that happened with Spencer Harding, and I thought I should tell you. I think Jackson might be some kind of pervert, too.”
It was as close to a selfless act as Chase Osborne would ever muster. The species wasn’t entirely corrupt, Harriett observed. Once in a while, one of them would surprise you. Such actions never redeemed them completely, of course, but it did make Harriett wonder if they really deserved to be wiped off the planet.
“Thank you, Chase.”
“Do you think Jackson might do something to me? A lot of weird shit has been happening lately.”
“No,” Harriett assured him. “You have my word. Jackson can’t do anything to you.”
Chase’s phone dinged and its screen lit up. He glanced down, then his head jerked back up. “Jackson’s dead. Did you do that, Harriett?”
“Go home,” she told him. “And don’t come back to the island for a while. It might not be safe for you here.”
éminence Grise
Jo’s phone pinged just as she set it down on the front desk at Furious Fitness. A text message had arrived from Claude.
Got the surveillance video of the Harding house. I just pulled up outside the gym. Can we talk?
Jo glanced out the window. Sure enough, Claude was sitting in a car across the street, holding up what looked like a thumb drive. Jo eagerly waved her over.
“You okay?” Jo asked as Claude pushed through the door. She barely resembled the woman Jo had come to know. Her skin was sallow and her eyes swollen.
“I didn’t sleep last night,” Claude said. “You were right. Rocca was at the Harding house a few hours before Spencer crashed. Have a look at file number one.”
Jo immediately inserted the drive into her computer. It contained two video files labeled “ONE” and “TWO.” When she clicked on file ONE, she saw black-and-white footage of the street-facing side of the Harding house. Three kids sped by on bikes and a woman in a gray uniform walked through the frame in the direction of the nearest neighbor’s house. A time stamp in the lower right corner read JUNE 9 19:00.
“The files are twelve hours long. Spencer Harding’s helicopter went down just before midnight on June ninth, am I right?”
“Yes,” Jo confirmed.
“So you’re looking at seven o’clock. Fast-forward to 21:38.”
Jo slid the cursor to the right point and pressed play. A man in a polo shirt and shorts appeared on the sidewalk and turned down Harding’s drive.
“That’s Rocca, isn’t it?” Claude asked, tapping the screen.
Jo moved the cursor back a few seconds and paused on a frame where the man’s face was visible. If she’d passed him on the sidewalk, dressed casually and out of context as he was, she might not have recognized him. But the gait definitely belonged to Chief Rocca.
“So he was at Harding’s house three hours before the helicopter crash.”
“He was,” Claude said. “And did you notice which direction he came from?”
Jo studied the still image. “It looks like he was coming from the direction of Jackson Dunn’s house.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Claude said. “So I had a look at a few other files. Open the one labeled ‘TWO.’”
Jo clicked on the second file. This time, the camera was facing the Dunn home. At 21:32, Chief Rocca exited the house. He walked briskly and with purpose. Even from a distance, the scowl on his face was unmistakable.
“Do you know what happened forty-eight minutes before Rocca decided to pay Harding a visit?” Claude asked Jo. Jo thought for a moment, then shook her head. “A forty-three-minute-long special episode of the podcast They Walk Among Us was released—the same episode in which you and your friend accused Spencer Harding of murder.”
“So Rocca was with Jackson Dunn that night. As soon as the podcast was over, he headed to Spencer Harding’s house. Three hours later, Harding’s helicopter crashed in New York Harbor. An hour after that, the Mattauk police officially arrived on the Pointe.”
“Yes,” Claude said. “And now you have proof that Rocca let Spencer escape.”
“And some pretty compelling evidence that Jackson Dunn was involved, too.”
“Yes, but it’s too late to make Jackson pay for his crimes. It hasn’t made the news yet, but he died yesterday.”
“Bees?” Jo asked.
Claude nodded. “He was on his roof deck when it happened. One of the staff members witnessed the whole thing. She told me that a swarm swooped down out of nowhere. Jackson was stung hundreds of times, but she wasn’t touched. The poor woman was so traumatized that I had to give her the rest of the weekend off. She said Jackson suffered horribly.”
Jo was quiet for a moment. “Good,” she said.
“There’s something else I need to show you,” Claude said. Her hand was visibly shaking as she leaned over and replayed the second clip. Once again, Chief Rocca exited the Dunn home. Just as he reached the sidewalk, Claude hit pause. “See?” She pointed to the glass windows. A pair of silhouettes could be seen on the drawn curtains. “There are still two men inside.”
Jo leaned in. Claude was right. There were two figures standing in Dunn’s living room. A noticeable paunch identified Jackson. The second man appeared leaner.
“That can’t be Spencer,” Claude said. “And we just saw Rocca leave for the Harding house.”
“Who do you think it could be?” Jo turned to find Claude crying. “Oh my God, what’s wrong?” she asked, pulling Claude into a hug.
“I think it might be Leonard.”
“Leonard?” Jo asked as Claude sobbed. That seemed ridiculous. When Claude finally pulled back, Jo handed her a tissue. “Did the footage show Leonard entering Jackson’s house?”
“I watched hours of footage, and there was nothing on it,” Claude said, using the tissue to wipe her eyes. “But Leonard went whale watching that night. I walked down to the dock with him and left him there when it got boring. He could have entered Jackson’s house from the beach. The footage from the camera covering that entrance is missing.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect Leonard might be involved?”
“No,” Claude said. “But it wouldn’t be the first time a man hid the truth from me. If it turns out Leonard lied, after all that I’ve been through, I’m going to kill him, Jo. I’m serious. I will beat the man to death with my own two hands.”
There was no doubt she meant it. “Want to find out?” Jo asked.
Claude balled up her tissue and nodded. “Yeah.”