The guards intervene, place me in handcuffs, and escort me out.
I glance back at Brody, who looks like he’s never felt sorrier for anyone.
Then I glance at Justin, who looks like he’s just lost his best friend.
103
BOND WAS SET at two million dollars this morning for Jenna Murphy, the former Southampton police detective arrested for the murders of Dede Paris and Annie Church, the Yale sophomores whose disappearance in the Hamptons five years ago sparked a massive manhunt ….
Noah Walker paces back and forth in his living room as the newscast—News at Noon—talks about Murphy and the murders of the Yale sophomores.
Noah is exhausted, not having slept last night, after breaking into the storage facility and removing those files. He needs to sleep, he needs to shower—but he can’t do anything but think about his next move.
He passes the couch, the pile of documents he took from the warehouse.
The news clipping with the catchy headline, NEWBORN ABANDONED AT POLICE STATION, which tells most of the story right there.
And the letter, aged and dusty, having sat in a file inside that storage facility for the better part of twenty years now. The nice stationery, the fancy letterhead bearing the name of the private investigator hired by Holden VI, with tabs behind the letter, supporting documentation:
Mr. Dahlquist:
This private investigation was undertaken on your behalf, at the direction of Mr. Finneus Rucker, Esq., your attorney. This investigation is thus covered by the attorney-client privilege and will remain confidential.
You asked us to determine whether a woman named Gloria Willis, of Bridgehampton, mother of Aiden Willis, gave birth to a second child approximately eight years ago.
Noah looks away from the documents, thinks of the things Jenna Murphy has said to him over the last few weeks.
At the cemetery, when she told him her theory for the first time: Holden the Sixth left behind a son, she said. A son who wants to restart the family tradition.
And yesterday, in the parking lot at Tasty’s: Were you adopted, Noah?
Holden left behind a son. Were you adopted, Noah?
He looks back down at the letter:
The answer to your question is yes. Eight years ago, Ms. Willis did give birth to a second child at Southampton Hospital but left the hospital with her child only hours later, without filling out any paperwork. We believe that she abandoned this child later that evening at the Bridgehampton Police Substation (see attached news headline).
He reads through the packet of information behind the letter—the hospital records, the county adoption records, the photographs.
Noah goes upstairs to his bedroom loft, finds the handgun he hasn’t held in years. Checks it for ammunition. Stuffs it in his pants. Puts on a clean shirt, pulls it down over the gun.
He grabs his leather jacket on the way out and hops on his Harley.
Her apartment isn’t far. And she’s definitely not home. She’s in jail, stuck on a two-million-dollar bond.
He parks his Harley outside her apartment and approaches it. It’s broad daylight, and cars occasionally whisk by on Main Street. But no pedestrians approach.
His heartbeat speeds up. Should he do it?
Yes.
He slams against the door, four times, five times, violent thrusts, wood splintering, sharp pain in his shoulder, until enough of the door frame has been compromised that he can reach inside and unlock the dead bolt and open the knob from the inside.
He pushes open the battered door and he’s inside Jenna Murphy’s apartment.
A mess. A train wreck.
A timeline, on her wall, covering all of the murders. Right. He’s seen that before.
But there’s something he hasn’t seen before. On her desk, beneath the timeline. A newspaper clipping, jagged edges, still with tape attached to all four corners, as if she removed it from something:
Newborn Abandoned at Police Station
Noah’s heart skips a beat.
She knows, he thinks. She already knows.
Knowing what he has to do now. Wishing it hadn’t come to this.
He was really starting to like Jenna Murphy.
104
ANOTHER DAY IN this cramped, drafty jail cell. A special kind of torture for me, listening to the hustle and bustle one floor above me, hearing the police department at work, reminding me of how far I’ve fallen in such a short time.
Isaac wanted it that way. He normally would transfer me to the Suffolk County Jail after my bond hearing, where I’d be placed in administrative segregation because I’m a former cop, who can’t be put in with ordinary inmates. But the jail is overcrowded, which gave Isaac the excuse to keep me here, so close and yet so far from the job I once had, the job I loved.
Footsteps. Somebody approaching my cell. It’s not lunch. I ate a half hour ago. Tea and crumpets, maybe? A complimentary massage?