“You’ve worked for years at 7 Ocean Drive,” I say.
He shakes his head, bemused. “That house again? Yeah, I think everyone in the world knows by now that I did work on that house.”
“Those two girls,” I say, “were staying in that house in 2007. They went missing afterward. They were Yale undergrads who came to the Hamptons and were never seen again. Nobody was even looking for them in Bridgehampton, and definitely not in that house. But now we know they were there. So that’s two couples who stayed in that house, two couples dead—”
“So now you’re accusing me of that, too?” He gets up from his chair, kicking it back violently. “You know something, Detective? I can’t figure you out, either. First you ruin my life by lying on the witness stand and sending me to prison. Then you tell the judge I was framed, and I start to think you might be a human being. And now you’re back accusing me of everything that’s ever happened in this town. I mean, I can’t even have dinner …”
I narrow my eyes, appraising him. The same read as always—I’m not getting killer from his vibe. I’m not sure what I’m getting.
He keeps his eyes on me, challenging me, a twinkle of a dare in his eyes. The smell of his sweat coming off him.
“There’s a lot of coincidences involving you, Noah.” I back away from the table. “But for now, I’ll leave you to your dinner.”
The other diners in the restaurant, getting a good eyeful, return to their meals as I pass them. I wave to Justin on my way out.
“Hey,” Noah says as I’m ready to push through the door.
I turn, and he’s walking up to me.
He looks me over, works his unshaven jaw.
Heat across my chest.
“Lemme ask you something,” he says. “You’re an experienced cop, right? You’ve stared down all sorts of bad people, coldblooded killers?”
“I’ve seen my share.”
“Do I really seem like a killer to you?” He opens his arms, as if to give me a clear view. The thick scarring on his palms, from the crucifixion at Sing Sing.
That’s been my problem all along. Even when certain evidence points to him, when the facts line up against him—every time I look him in the eye, I just don’t see it. There is anger behind his eyes, and he’s lived rough, no doubt. But is there rage? The capacity for horrific sadism? That mental switch that flips on and allows him to turn into a monster?
I tell him the truth.
I say, “I’m not sure.”
58
MIDNIGHT. THE TEMPERATURE fallen to the low fifties, the wind coming hard off the ocean, less than a mile to the south, carrying some hint of the rain that just stopped an hour ago, with me unprepared in my short sleeves. I left the bar in a fog, not drunk exactly, not on alcohol at least, my emotions swirling, my thoughts consumed by the murders, by Uncle Lang, by my shipwreck of a life, and somehow instead of driving home I found myself at the cemetery on Main Street.
The lighting from the street is dim, casting the cemetery in almost complete darkness. I can’t even read the tombstone, but I know it, of course, by heart.
LANGDON TRAVIS JAMES, it reads. HE KEPT US SAFE. That’s what he told Chloe he wanted said about him, when it was all over, that he devoted his life to protecting people. And he did. Sure, he cut some corners with the Ocean Drive murders, but he thought Noah was his guy—he thought he was framing a killer whom he otherwise couldn’t catch. Wrong methods, but right reasons.
And I, of all people, exposed him. I didn’t have a choice. I hope he knows that. Aunt Chloe promised me that he does, wherever he is now. Aunt Chloe, whose blank tombstone rests next to Lang’s. He bought these tombstones early in their marriage, Chloe said, so they’d be together forever.
He was broken when she left him. She surely had her reasons, but he lost the love of his life. He was never the same person again. My mother was never the same after my father and Ryan died in that car accident, either. Losing your soul mate, by death or divorce—is it better than never having one in the first place? Better to have loved and lost, as they say, than never to have loved at all?
I drop to my haunches, suddenly exhausted. Chloe’s right. I have to leave this place. It’s doing something to me. But that means I’ll have to give up being a cop. Nobody will give me another chance. The job’s my love, probably the only one I’ll ever have. But I’ll have to leave. I don’t think I can survive many more of these night terrors, these panic attacks or whatever they are.
But first things first.
“I’m not leaving,” I say to Lang’s stone, “until I figure out who killed you.”
The winds die down.
A noise. A shuffling movement.
I get to my feet and spin around. I look south into darkness, my eyes not fully adjusted.
A beam of light, twenty yards away, a small yellow circle on the ground.
I draw my sidearm.
“Who’s there?” I call out.