Sean didn’t respond to the assertion of innocence—a proclamation he was sure had been declared an infinite number of times behind the walls of Sussex. He hunched over the table, ready to write. “Let’s just go through the names.”
Chadwick began listing all of his friends from college. His frat brothers, his classmates, Natalie’s friends. Sean wrote down each name.
“Anyone else?”
Chadwick thought some more. His eyes flashed. “One more. I can’t believe I forgot to mention him. We weren’t super close or anything, but my roommate. Mason James. You may have heard of him. He’s done really well for himself and even tried to help me out. He’s a senator now.”
CHAPTER 39
They drove with the windows open, the air humming through the SUV like a wind tunnel. Since he was a baby, the sound had always soothed Ryan. And the push of air helped keep Sean alert. It was nearly nine o’clock and they’d decided to plow through rather than stop for fast food on I-95. They’d spent the first part of the drive talking about Chadwick. It appeared that Abby had been deceiving the man as part of her effort to vet Senator James. Or maybe she really intended to help Chadwick with his quest to reopen his case. Sean had considered keeping the information to himself, but he and Ryan were in this together. And talking about it, hearing it out loud, helped Sean organize his thoughts.
Could Abby have stumbled across something that got her killed? Could he seriously think that Senator James was capable of murdering Natalie Carlisle? Or Abby? There were similarities. Both were young, beautiful women. Both suffered traumatic head injuries. The evidence was inconclusive on whether Abby had been raped, but tests showed that she’d had intercourse shortly before she was killed. But Chadwick didn’t seem to suspect Senator James. To the contrary, when Sean pressed him, Chadwick had said, “Trust me, Mason James is the last person in the world who’d rape and kill Natalie.” He didn’t explain why.
Lurking in the back of Sean’s mind: Was the pain of Abby’s murder making him search for something that just wasn’t there? The books he’d read about coping with the loss of a child all said that grief does strange things to people. There was proof in Emily’s crippling despair. And in his own hunt for Chipotle Man.
Sean gazed at Ryan, who also was lost in thought. His son’s brown hair tousled in the wind. The boy seemed older. Ryan tinkered with his iPod and Linkin Park started wailing through the SUV’s speakers.
“What are you thinking about?” Sean asked.
Ryan paused for a moment. Gaze still fixed out the window, he said, “Is it true what they say about grandpa?”
Sean turned to Ryan. It wasn’t a question he’d expected. “Who are ‘they’? Who said something about your grandfather?”
“On the news, they said that your dad—”
“I told you not to watch that crap, Ryan. I expressly said you’re not to—” Sean caught himself. Old habits. “I’m sorry. What did they say about my father?”
“They said he was a hero. That he got killed trying to save some people during an attack at a hotel in Lebanon.”
Sean nodded. “That’s true.”
“He was a soldier?”
“No, not when he died. He’d been a general in the Air Force. After he retired, he was on an anti-terrorism commission, which is why he was in Beirut.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us?”