“Just that…I think interviewing this guy tomorrow is going to be a waste of time.”
“But he was the last person seen with her.”
“If his alibi checked out, he’d be walking and I wouldn’t even be going,” Jeremy said. “Even so, they don’t have any hard evidence, and they can’t hold him past tomorrow, so this is the one chance we have to talk to the guy. And who knows? I don’t think he killed her, but maybe he’ll remember something that points in the right direction. The thing is…”
“What?”
“I know our killer’s local, and I can’t help feeling that there’s something I should be seeing, but I’m just not seeing it.”
“You grilled Eric today, I hear.”
“I’m not a detective,” he said, his tone dry as he gazed her way. “I don’t ‘grill’ anyone.”
She hesitated, then said, “It’s possible that the man you’re going to talk to has just studied the area. I mean, Boston is only thirty miles away. If traffic’s not bad—”
He laughed. “When is the traffic near any large city ever not bad?”
“Four in the morning?” she joked. “Seriously, maybe it is this guy.”
He mulled that over, then shook his head. “Brad is convinced it’s Damien. The guy with the crystal ball. The problem is, no one has been able to find him. He never applied for a permit, so there’s no paper trail. He came to town, he disappeared. Do you know what that means?”
“No, what?”
“That Damien isn’t really named Damien. I’d guarantee it. I was thinking about it the whole time I was playing, going over everything we know, everything we don’t know and all our dead ends. First, the guy is incredibly smart. He knows the area, knows when things will be so busy that he can put on an entire charade, complete with tent, and no one will notice. Then, he knows enough to cover his tracks. Dinah Green was sexually assaulted, but they couldn’t find DNA, they couldn’t get a scraping from beneath her nails, they couldn’t find a single fiber that told them anything. Then Mary disappears from the only deserted place in town on a massively busy day. He didn’t go underground with her—there are no secret passages to the street from the graveyard. That means he knows just how crazy Halloween is going to be, so once he gets her out of there, who’s going to notice some guy in costume with a woman over his shoulder or tucked against him like she’s drunk or whatever he did. The thing is…” He paused, took a deep breath and finished the thought. “I’m afraid that if we don’t solve this quickly, Mary will run out of time.”
They had reached the house. He looked at her and said, “You didn’t get home today, did you?”
“No—but I’ll have to at some point. I bought these clothes at Adam and Eve’s, and I got some extra underwear, so I’m covered for tomorrow, but after that, I’ll have to go home.”
He nodded. “Do you want to drive into Boston with Joe and me tomorrow?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I know you think I’m looking for something that can’t possibly exist, but I want to keep researching. There are books at the History Museum I haven’t even opened yet.”
“I wish I could send Brad with you,” he said.
“You can,” she said. She did like the guy, and sober, he was fine.
“I can try. Brad is a doer, not a reader, I’m afraid.”
“Just tell him to come get me for breakfast, because you’re worried about me, and that he has to walk me to the museum and keep an eye on me. That will make him feel like he’s doing something,” Rowenna suggested.
“I like that,” Jeremy said. “I should be back around lunchtime, anyway. And Zach will get here at some point tomorrow, too.”
“Zach?” she said. “Here?”
He nodded. “I guess I got sidetracked. After I talked to Joe, Zach called. He’s going to catch a flight up here tomorrow. Once he gets here…well, then I won’t have to worry about you so much.”
“You don’t have to worry about me now,” she said. “I don’t really need protecting during the day in my own stomping grounds.”
“Look, being careful is…just not being stupid.”
“I am not stupid.”
“I didn’t say—Look, forget it, okay? I think I’m just on edge. Zach will be here, and you like Zach,” he said.
She thought she heard a touch of bitterness in his voice.
“Of course I like your brother. He’s a nice guy,” she said coolly, wondering about the bitterness in his tone. Had he thought she didn’t like him?
He pushed the door open. She preceded him in.
As soon as they were inside, he spun her around and into his arms. At first she felt as if everything within her constricted. She was angry, and she couldn’t help it. She wanted to tell him that she liked his brother, but she had fantasized about him. It wasn’t her fault he had been so distant with her until that last night in New Orleans.
“Hey,” he said huskily when she pulled back and stared up at him. “Hey.”
It wasn’t an apology, but his eyes held the words that he couldn’t quite seem to manage to say.