Who could have expected this turn of events? But it’s happening.
He pushes himself off the gate and returns to his car. It’s not far from dawn, and he wants to deliver the note under the cover of darkness. He throws the car into drive and heads back toward town.
It isn’t difficult to find the car, parked on the street, and nobody is out at this hour. He tucks the note on the windshield, safely and securely beneath the wiper blade, like a flyer advertising a liquidation sale at a sporting goods store or a buy-one, get-one-free at some fast-food restaurant.
This note, of course, has a bit more gravity to it than a coupon.
This note’s going to turn everything on its head.
91
I LEAVE AIDEN’S house and get home before dawn. My apartment is a slum, papers strewn about, the bed unmade, unwashed glasses in the kitchen sink, a musty smell.
I’m exhausted but propped up by the hum of adrenaline. I look again at the newspaper photo I pilfered from Aiden’s scrapbook, with the caption NEWBORN ABANDONED AT POLICE STATION.
I must be right. It makes everything fit. Aiden’s mother, a prostitute, had a second child, one fathered by Holden VI. She gave the boy up for some reason—because she didn’t want a child fathered by Holden, or because she didn’t want Holden to have any influence over him. But in some way I can’t possibly know, father and son were reunited.
But then—why is Aiden a part of this? How does he figure in?
And more importantly—who is that second child, Aiden’s half brother?
Is it Isaac Marks? He seems to be working with Aiden against me.
Is it Noah? He’s the one who must have tipped off Aiden that I’d be with Justin last night, when Aiden came through the window and tried to kill me.
Isaac and Noah. Each of them a grade younger than Aiden.
Three kids who grew up together, who went to school together. Did they learn more than reading, writing, and ’rithmetic while they were in school together?
I’m buzzed but exhausted at first light. Everyone else is just beginning to waken, to start a new day, and I’m about to collapse. My brain is fuzzy from sleep deprivation. I have a lot to do, but I can’t function without sleep ….
Bam bam bam
Let me out
Buzz buzz buzz
Please let me out
Buzz buzz buzz
My eyes pop open, mid-dream, adrenaline swirling. My cell phone vibrating. I pat the bed until I find it, pick it up, stare at it through foggy eyes.
The caller ID says NOAH WALKER.
A flutter through my chest. I’m not ready to answer it. I wait until the buzzing ends. A NEW VOICE MAIL message pops up.
I look at the clock. It’s one in the afternoon. Wow. I slept for almost six hours. It felt like six minutes.
Then I play the voice mail.
Murphy, it’s Noah. Just want to make sure you’re okay. I have an idea I wanna run by you. Give me a call.
I punch out the phone and drop it on the bed. He has an idea he wants to run by me? Yeah, I have something to run by you, too, Noah—why don’t you explain to me who told Aiden Willis that I’d be at Justin’s house last night?
And by chance, were you adopted? Were you left abandoned at the police station as a child? Did you later discover that your biological father was part of a family line of deranged killers going back centuries?
Did you decide to pick up the mantle where they left off?
And was I, Detective Jenna Murphy, the dumb shit who sprang you from prison?
I move slowly, as if I’d been drugged last night, as if I’m recovering from a hangover. I eat some toast and drink some coffee and sit under a cascade of scalding shower water until the hot water runs out—which, in my apartment, doesn’t take very long.
My cell phone rings again. I find it in the bathroom through the steam. Noah, again. I ignore it, again.
Somehow, it’s four in the afternoon now.
I have to find Holden Dahlquist’s son. If that baby was abandoned at the police station, he would have been turned over to Child Protective Services, like the news clipping said. He would have entered the system—he would have been adopted, or placed in a foster home. Something that would have generated a paper trail.
Did the child trace that paper trail back to Holden? Or did Holden trace that paper trail back to the boy?
I don’t know. And I don’t care.
Because however it happened—a paternity suit, an adoption, whatever—Holden would have involved his attorney. And I have his lawyer’s name, thanks to Noah.
So how do I get this information from Holden’s lawyer, who will assert his attorney-client privilege?
No clue. All I know is that I’m getting closer, shaking some trees, and people are getting nervous.
Maybe all I can do is wait for their next move.
My phone rings again. It’s Lauren Ricketts.
“Hey there,” I say.
“Murphy!” Her voice excited, breathless.
“What’s going on?”
“You’re not going to believe this.”
I push my laptop computer aside. “Try me.”