Stevie shook her head. ‘No. But he’d already figured it out. He asked if the boy was in any danger, and we told him honestly that we didn’t know.’
‘But that if he were our son, we’d be worried,’ Paige finished. ‘We asked if he could help us find Tristan, and he did one better. He went with us to the kid’s house, but Tristan wasn’t home. A neighbor told the coach that the family had gone on vacation but Tristan had stayed behind to feed the cat and bring in the mail. They hadn’t seen him for a few days and the mailbox was stuffed.’
‘We gave the coach and the neighbor our cards and asked them to call if they saw him.’ Stevie handed over the yearbook to Paige. ‘I need to go. Bye.’ Leaning heavily on her cane, she made her way to the elevator.
‘I’ll make a copy of that yearbook page,’ Alec offered. ‘I’ll enlarge Tristan’s photo so Clay can put it on the board.’
‘Can I see the yearbook first?’ Thorne asked, and Paige passed it over.
‘Tristan is the blond on the far left,’ she said. ‘He’s standing right next to Patricia’s son, Blake Segal.’
Thorne took the yearbook and Gwyn leaned closer to see. Then she gasped. ‘Oh my God.’ She grabbed the book and pulled it closer. ‘Oh. My. God.’
‘What?’ Lucy demanded.
Gwyn looked up at Thorne. ‘Look at him, Thorne. Blake Segal. Look at him.’
‘I see,’ Thorne said, his voice strangled.
‘See what?’ Lucy all but shouted.
Gwyn looked up to meet the alarmed gazes of their friends. ‘Blake Segal could be Liam’s twin.’
Alec’s mouth fell open. ‘What?’
She turned the yearbook around so they could see, then brought up the photo she’d taken on her phone in Angie’s shop, enlarging it until Liam’s face was visible.
‘Oh my God,’ Jamie echoed quietly. ‘You’re right. Is that possible? That Richard is the father of Patricia’s son? That he raped his own sister?’
Hunt Valley, Maryland,
Tuesday 14 June, 10.15 P.M.
Swallowing back bile at the notion that Richard had sexually assaulted his own sister, Thorne expelled his breath in a harsh whoosh. ‘But it might not mean anything. He was her brother. I mean, they carried the same genes. It makes sense that his nephew might look like him.’
‘No.’ Gwyn shook her head hard. ‘No. Remember I told you I was looking into Patricia’s background? I found out that she left school after Richard was killed and didn’t come back until after the trial. She went to Europe, supposedly. She was gone for over a year.’
‘It still may not mean anything,’ Thorne insisted.
Gwyn was undeterred. ‘Richard and Patricia weren’t blood siblings. Wait. Let me find it . . .’ She was rapidly punching keys on her phone. ‘Richard Linden’s obituary. Here it is. “Richard is survived by his father, Richard Linden Senior, his mother, Elizabeth Hale Linden, his stepmother, Judith Linden, and his stepsister, Patricia.” She looked up at him. ‘Judith was the one who was married to Richard Senior at the time of the murder, and she remains the current Mrs Linden.’
‘I’ve got Patricia’s obituary,’ Alec said. ‘It was printed in this morning’s Washington Post. “Patricia is survived by her mother, Judith Linden, her father, Harold Martelli, and her stepfather, Richard Linden Senior.” You’re right, Gwyn. There was no shared blood between Richard and Patricia. Totally different genes.’
Thorne leaned forward again and buried his face in his hands. ‘God.’ It was almost a moan, but he didn’t care.
Gwyn rubbed his back soothingly. ‘What’s wrong, Thorne?’ she murmured.
‘How could he do that?’ And how could none of us have seen it? First Angie, now Patricia. How could we have just gone on every day with a rapist in our midst and not known? But those words wouldn’t come, so he repeated the ones he’d already used. ‘How could he do that?’
‘You know the answer to that,’ Jamie said softly. ‘Richard was simply bad. And this could have been why Linden Senior was so keen to have you take the fall for Richard’s murder. He knew that someone else had a motive to kill Richard. Hell, Richard could have raped more girls than just Angie and Patricia. If his crimes had become public, it would bring scandal on their precious family name.’
‘And on Patricia too,’ Gwyn murmured. ‘My God. She raised a child of rape.’
Thorne shuddered out a sigh, wondering what Gwyn was seeing in her mind. Wondering what Evan had done to her. ‘I keep wanting to believe it was consensual,’ he said hoarsely, mostly because he wanted to believe that the physical relationship Gwyn had had with Evan had also been consensual. ‘But I know that’s not true.’ He knew that neither was true. And he thought he was going to be sick.
Hold it together. For her. Her hand was rubbing slow circles on his back and Lucy was stroking his hair, both comforting, but both utterly different touches.
‘The key ring,’ he said finally, needing something else to latch onto. ‘If Richard was murdered because of someone he’d raped – either Angie or Patricia or, God forbid, somebody else . . . The key ring means something. It always comes back to that damn key ring.’
‘Or maybe just the key,’ Gwyn said thoughtfully. ‘It’s possible that the soccer medal had nothing to do with it. I wonder what the key fit. I wonder what Linden Senior knew about it, because somebody made it disappear.’
‘And that usually means a money trail,’ Lucy said.
Alec nodded, typing. ‘We need to get more information about the widow of that ME tech,’ he said. ‘We need to find out where her money is coming from. Adding it to the to-do list.’
Thorne focused on Alec so that he didn’t have to keep thinking about what had happened to Gwyn. Or to Patricia. ‘How did you get to Angie’s finances so quickly?’
Alec glanced up at JD as if to ask if he was going to turn him in.
JD rolled his eyes. ‘Tell him. I’m kind of curious too.’
Alec shrugged. ‘I basically did a Hail Mary and sent a Trojan in an email to the salon’s email account. One of those “invoice attached” emails that you’re supposed to delete. Whoever was manning the computer clicked right on it, and bingo, I was in their system. They’ve kept meticulous records. Every bank statement had been downloaded in a PDF and stored, labeled just as meticulously. It was just a matter of sifting through documents until I found what I needed.’
‘I’m glad you’re on our side,’ JD muttered.
Alec grinned at him. ‘I use my skills for good, not evil.’ He sobered then. ‘If the ME tech’s widow is as careless, I could get lucky. If I am, I’ll set the Trojan to self-destruct so that when Joseph’s guys finally get there, they won’t know I’ve been there already. If I’m not lucky, it could take a little longer to get into her system.’
‘Do what you need to,’ Clay directed. ‘Just, you know, the usual.’
Alec looked amused. ‘Don’t get caught. Got it. But poor JD looks like he’s got a stomach ache.’
JD grimaced. ‘Yeah, but not because of you. I’m wondering now just how they lured Patricia to wherever she was abducted from. I mean, she was carefully chosen for her link to Thorne, but how? And why? Why now? How does Tavilla connect to her? He either lured her out or had her followed and snatched. Was it through this kid? The lacrosse player? Or did her husband find out about her . . . God, I don’t even want to call it an affair. Did Judge Segal find out? I mean, he might not have cared about an ordinary affair, but his wife pursuing a barely legal kid who was her son’s friend? That won’t look good for him.’