NOAH JUMPS ONTO his motorcycle, his heartbeat racing faster than the bike’s engine as he heads across town.
He parks his Harley and removes the gun from his pants, placing it inside the saddlebag on his bike. Cops don’t like it when you walk into a police station with a handgun.
Noah enters the police substation. Someone at the front desk, behind a plate of bulletproof glass.
“I’m here to see one of the people in the holding cell,” he says.
“Are you a lawyer?” the man asks, though he doesn’t seem to think Noah fits that bill.
“No, but this is important,” he says. “Jenna Murphy is—”
“Jenna Murphy isn’t here,” the man says.
“Oh—where are you holding her?”
“We’re not. She was released half an hour ago.”
“She was released? On bond?”
The officer on duty looks over his glasses at Noah. “Sir, whoever you are, I can’t give that information to you.”
He looks outside. She was released half an hour ago? But … he saw her car at her house just now. How did she leave? She wouldn’t have walked— Justin, he thinks. She must be with Justin.
“I need to speak with Isaac,” he says. “I need to speak with the chief.”
“Sir,” says the duty officer, “you can’t just waltz in here and demand to speak with the chief.”
“It’s important.”
“Sir, the chief isn’t—”
“Listen!” Noah slaps his hand against the plate of glass. “I need to speak with him and I need to speak with him now!”
“Hey.”
Noah turns at the sound of the voice. A uniformed officer approaching him, a young woman—Murphy’s friend, the rookie cop, Lauren Ricketts.
“What’s going on, Noah?” she says.
“I have to talk to Isaac,” he says. “Right now.”
“Why? Tell me what’s going on.”
Noah thinks it over. He doesn’t know Ricketts. He has no idea what she knows and what she doesn’t know.
“No,” he says. “I’ll only talk to Isaac.”
108
JUSTIN PULLS HIS car into his garage in East Hampton. The garage door grinds to a close behind us.
“So tell me,” he says. “Tell me where you think Aiden is.”
“Later,” I say.
“Later? Why later?”
My cell phone buzzes. Caller ID says it’s Lauren Ricketts. I don’t dare answer. I let the call go to voice mail and then play the message on my speakerphone: Murphy, it’s Ricketts. I’m not sure what’s going on, and I probably shouldn’t be calling you, but—but whatever, I’m calling you. Listen, about twenty minutes ago, Noah Walker had a private conversation with the chief, and the next thing I know, Isaac has issued an APB for you. They think you’re with Justin.
I look over at Justin, whose face has gone pale.
He mobilized the SWAT teams, Murphy. We’re coming after you with everything we have. You should surrender at the station before something bad happens. I can coordinate it with you. Please, call me before this gets out of hand.
Justin turns and looks at me, the gravity of what we’ve just heard sinking in. “He just released you, and now he’s after you again?”
After talking to Noah, apparently. And here I thought Noah didn’t get along so well with the chief.
I get out of the car, and Justin follows suit. We go into his house, his beautiful, spacious kitchen.
“You said you have a gun,” I say.
“Um—yeah, I do,” he says, still distracted. “Hang on.”
“And a flashlight,” I call out to him as he leaves the kitchen.
I take a breath. Isaac and Noah got together, had a nice little chat, and now the STPD is after me with full force.
Isaac and Noah. They’ve made a very public show of not getting along so well. An act? An act I fell for hook, line, and sinker?
“Okay.” Justin returns to the kitchen with not one gun but two, holding each of them with two fingers, the barrels dangling down.
“A regular arsenal,” I say.
But not really. One is a shiny, polished revolver, new and, from the looks of it, unused. The other is a beat-up revolver with a pearl handle, a vintage piece, a .38 special with a very short, maybe two-inch barrel that is probably thirty or forty years old.
“Take your pick,” he says, placing them gently on the kitchen table.
I laugh. “Take my pick? How old is that thirty-eight special?”
Justin shrugs. “My dad bought it years ago—probably the seventies. This new one, I bought. I assume it works.”
“You assume?”
He shakes his head. “Never used it. Bought it for home protection. Some silly notion that I’m safer with it. I have a feeling if I ever had to use it, I’d end up shooting myself in the foot or something.”
“You’re probably right.” I choose the shiny new revolver, hold the gun toward the floor, pop open the cylinder, and confirm the presence of rounds in all six chambers.