NOAH WATCHES. AND waits. Two hours pass, while the midnight air moves from brisk to cold. He’s underdressed in his black sweatshirt and black baseball cap and black jeans. They may not keep him warm, but they serve another purpose.
Nobody can see him in the dark.
He hears a noise—probably just the wind—and scrapes his cheek against one of the shrubs. He’s been crouched low for a long time, so he stretches out, kicking out one leg at a time, like a sprinter preparing for a race, so he’ll be loose when the time comes.
No police, no security.
Probably a burglar alarm on the outside door. But on the window?
Well, let’s find out.
He steps out into the clearing, a small expanse of grass behind the building, but still outside the reach of the overhanging lights. Still in the dark. Still invisible.
The window has iron bars over it. He’ll deal with the bars if necessary, but first he wants to see if the window has an alarm.
He raises his tire iron to eye level, angles it through the bars, and jams it against the glass. The glass shatters, an unmistakable sound, but not a very loud one, especially with a light wind. And really, nobody should be around right now, past midnight in an empty industrial park.
After shattering the glass, Noah steps back, ready to retreat into the darkness.
He hears no glass-shatter alarm. No police sirens.
But there could be an alarm on the window itself, triggered when it’s opened.
So he tries that next, slipping his hand between the iron bars, carefully through the half-shattered window, until he finds the interior latch. He unlocks the window. Then, with both hands, he pushes it up from the bottom frame.
A few more shards of glass fall onto the floor inside.
But no alarm sounds. The window is not armed.
They must have figured the iron bars were enough.
They figured wrong.
Noah shines his flashlight on the screws. They are deeply embedded, some of them rusted. They won’t be easy to unscrew. But his cordless drill will get the job done, sooner or later.
It will make some noise, but nothing too loud, and he’s out here alone.
He just needs to hurry.
Noah puts on his rubber gloves. Then he fits the drill bit into the first screw and gets to work.
98
“HEY THERE.”
I’m sitting upright, against the wall in a holding cell beneath the substation, on a mattress about as thick and comfortable as a piece of paper, my thoughts scattering about.
My head turns toward the cell bars, toward the voice.
Lauren Ricketts, in uniform, giving me a sympathetic smile.
“Had to wait until the chief went home,” she says. “He didn’t want anyone visiting you. Least of all me.”
I push myself off the wall, pain running down my neck and back.
“What the hell’s going on, Murphy?” she asks. “How can this be right?”
That’s all I’ve been thinking about.
“No clue,” I say. “No freakin’ clue. These girls were murdered in 2007. I wasn’t even here in 2007. I didn’t come here until last year—four years later.”
“But you can’t prove that,” she says.
“How can I prove I never came here?” I throw up my hands. “Like Isaac said, nobody knows when, specifically, those two girls were murdered. June? July? August? There’s no specific day or even month that the murders happened. So how can I produce an alibi? Am I supposed to have an alibi for every single day of the entire summer of 2007? It’s impossible.”
“Oh, Murphy. What a clusterfuck.”
“And this hunting knife they found, the murder weapon? I haven’t so much as touched a hunting knife since I came back here. I’m not sure I’ve ever held one in my life. I mean, it’s not physically possible.”
Ricketts doesn’t have an answer for that. Neither of us does.
“What about Aiden?” I ask. “They’re looking for him?”
“Oh, yeah. His prints on the weapon, the bodies behind his property—and we heard from East Hampton PD about what happened at Justin’s house last night, the attack. There’s a manhunt.”
“We have to find him, Lauren,” I say.
“We have to find Aiden.”
“Believe me, we’re trying—”
“No, I mean, we have to find him. Isaac doesn’t want Aiden found. He’s the one who told Aiden to leave. And if he does find Aiden, he’ll kill him. Y’know, make it look like a shootout with a suspect or something. He wants Aiden gone or dead. So Aiden will take the fall all by himself.”
Ricketts looks at me, doubt creeping into her eyes. “Jenna …”
“You think I’m wrong?”
She lifts her shoulders. “I’m not sure. Are you? Are you so sure it’s Isaac? That Isaac’s a killer? That he framed you for this?”