“Wait!” Saige sat forward. “You said that I was asked if I recognized anyone. Was I asked if I recognized my abductor? Please try and remember Detective...Coulter.”
He frowned and watched Saige, realizing that his answer mattered. “I don’t believe so. I believe your stepmother’s exact words were, ‘Look carefully, Saige, and only select the person you recognize.’ I do know that the day we had it all arranged and a video ready to film you doing the lineup, ended up being a bit of a disaster and we had to reschedule. Basically, just as we entered the room, you fell asleep and no one could wake you. Your doctor ordered us all out. But the day we got it done, you looked confused, but cohesive when looking through the images...What did I miss, Saige?” he asked softly.
She cleared her throat. “I’ve been spending time talking to Quinten’s brother, Alex.” She noticed the twitch in his jaw at the mention of Alex, but she continued, “He’s convinced that his brother is innocent. I can’t remember a lot, but yesterday, thanks to a photograph, brief memories teased my mind. What I remember is that Quinten had intricate tattoos on both arms that finished on the back of his hands with a vine twisting around both of his middle fingers.”
“He does.”
“The other memory was of the hands of my abductor with something silver in them just before I felt incredible pain...he didn’t have any tattoos. None that were visible on the back of his hands or his wrists...how can that be if Quinten is the one in prison? I’ve been told about all the evidence and DNA, but Alex said Quinten had badly cut himself, and bled everywhere.”
“That is one of the things that bothered me, and still does now and again.” He took a sip of his coffee and rubbed at his jaw. “Quinten had a nasty gash along his arm, by the time we found him with you, the blood had soaked through the material he’d used as a tourniquet.”
“The shirt from one of the murdered girls?”
He nodded. “Yes...To me that explained all the blood in the shack, he also told us what he remembered touching and everything came back positive to his prints. There wasn’t anything else with prints on though. However, the DA moved to press charges and that was that. The thing is, which I argued at the time, Quinten had stated he’d cut his arm breaking into the shack. The evidence from him breaking in was there for us to see exactly like he said. Once he’d been charged and the case was being built against him, no one wanted to know. I even mentioned it on the stand, which is why I think some of the jury voted not guilty. I’d put the same doubt in their minds.”
They sat silently for a few minutes and drank their coffee. Saige really didn’t see how everyone would think him guilty. She knew her statement hadn’t helped him, but, “Why didn’t anyone question my relationship with Quinten? I couldn’t find any reference to it.”
Coulter stilled, and leaned closer still. “What relationship?”
She couldn’t hide her surprise at his question. “Alex hinted that Quinten and I had something going on. The memory of Quinten’s hands was of them on my body.” She blushed slightly but carried on, “When my stepmother asked if I knew anyone in those photographs, of course I’d have picked Quinten. Not only that, why wasn’t it revealed that both Alex and Quinten worked at my family home? They did the wood carving on the stairs and some of the molds around the light fittings. I might have lost my memory but back then I knew them, and apparently I knew Quinten really well.”
“Shit!” Coulter cursed and sat back in his chair, shock written all over his face. “Your father swore that you had no relationship with him and that you’d never met him. I even asked him that specific question. I never even got the vibe that he lied.”
Saige frowned, wondering why he’d lied. “But, what if we kept it from my father?”
He dropped his head into his hands as he leaned over the table. “Maybe you did keep it a secret.”
“Did you ask anyone else about us?”
“I asked both Alex and Quinten and they said no. I was surprised that Alex didn’t jump on that because he was desperate to save his brother, and with how Quinten was found wrapped around you, it would have shed new light on that scene. What I don’t understand is why Alex and Quinten lied to me about you?”
Saige felt a trill of hope somewhere deep inside of her. A part of her had known that Quinten was innocent, but she couldn’t understand why they both lied about her relationship with him.
“I should have listened to my gut instead of the evidence. Something has always niggled at me about the case. It’s the only case I’ve worked on since I became a cop that I couldn’t stop thinking about. Why didn’t I listen?”
“Like you said, all the evidence pointed to him being guilty, plus, if my father and Christina lied, then you had a closed case.”