Before the deputies escort me from the courtroom, my lawyer asks for a moment.
“We’re lucky to get bond at all,” he says. “Whoever that guy is in the front row, if he’s offering to pay it, you should say yes.”
“But I have to wear an electronic ankle monitor? And home confinement?”
“It’s pretty standard these days,” he says.
I know—but then I can’t do what I need to do. I’ll be trapped.
“And Jenna,” he says. “I called that facility, that off-site storage place I use. Dunbar Professional Storage?”
“Yes?” I perk up.
“I know someone there. I’m a longtime client. Anyway—Holden’s lawyer, Finn Rucker? His firm does use that facility.”
I nod. “Okay, good.”
“But you should know something. Someone broke into their facility last night.”
“What?” I draw back from him.
“Yeah. Broke through a window. Removed the iron bars. Had the run of the place. So just in case you were getting a dumb idea like breaking into that warehouse—which we both know you were thinking—you should know that they’ve doubled down on security. They’re posting guards around the clock now.”
“What—what was taken?” I ask.
“They don’t know. Practically impossible to tell. I think they’re doing an inventory, but it’s so hard to know. There are literally millions of files there.” He looks at me, cocks his head. “Why? You think this is related to your—”
“Of course it’s related,” I whisper harshly. “Whoever broke in there—he did it so I wouldn’t find those files.”
“Jenna.” He squeezes my arm. “You’re watching too many conspiracy shows.”
“He took it so I wouldn’t find it,” I say. Realizing that I probably sound paranoid to him, just another irrational client.
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?
No, and no.
It’s Isaac, staring at me, looking…not so happy. I mean, he’s not Mr. Sunshine on a good day, but…why shouldn’t he be happy? He should be dancing a jig, the way things are going.
He produces a key from behind his back and opens the door. He walks in and sizes me up. I try to put on a brave front, to look like I’m holding up much better than I really am. But I can’t hide the dark circles under my eyes, and I haven’t showered in two days; my hair is flat and oily. My clothes look exactly as they should—like I’ve slept in them for two nights.
He doesn’t just look unhappy. He looks like he just swallowed a bug.
Why the long face, Isaac?
“You have the right to remain silent,” he says to me. And then he runs through the rest of the Miranda warnings. I could say them backward by now.
“Why are you Mirandizing me?” I ask.
“I want you to acknowledge I’ve made you aware of your rights,” he says.
“Fine. Done.”
But fresh Miranda warnings? Only one reason for that.
He wants to question me on a new topic.
“What happened in 1994?” he asks.
I draw back. Why is he
asking me about 1994? When I was just a kid. The year that thing happened, when I disappeared, only to be found on the beach by 7 Ocean Drive. The day my parents whisked me away from the Hamptons, never to return during my childhood.
Seven hours of hell, Aunt Chloe called it.
“There was a missing-persons report that summer,” he says. “It lasted less than a day. I saw it myself. July—”
“I have nothing to say to you, Isaac. Zilch.”
Isaac steps back. He can’t be surprised that I’d clam up. His face turns tomato red.
“I just want you to know,” he says, “that I know you’re behind this. I don’t know what kind of crap you’re pulling here, but I’m going to figure it out. You may have won this battle, but you won’t win the war.”
What the hell is he talking about? What battle did I win? As far as I can tell, right now I’m getting the royal crap beaten out of me.
He opens his hand. “You’re free to leave,” he says.
Oh. Justin came through with the money that quickly? Quicker than he thought he could.
But this doesn’t seem right. Isaac doesn’t have any handcuffs.
There’s a protocol when you bond out. You’re transported to the sheriff, who makes arrangements for your home confinement, gets a list of addresses for doctors and lawyers and grocery stores so they can input the coordinates into the GPS. Then someone fits the ankle bracelet on you.
But until then, you’re still locked up. You’re handcuffed and transported.
“I said you’re free to leave,” he says. “You’re being released.”
“I don’t understand.”
Isaac shoots me a look. He thinks I do understand. He thinks I’ve pulled some kind of fast one, that I’m just playing dumb.
“You’re no longer under arrest for the murders of Dede Paris and Annie Church,” he says.
My head spins, some strange version of hope floating through me.
“The DNA came back on the murder weapon,” he says. “None of the blood on the knife matches those girls. Their stab wounds don’t match up with the knife blade, either. That knife wasn’t used to kill Dede and Annie.”
I stand up for the first time, unsteady, certain I’m not hearing this correctly. A bloody knife, with both Aiden’s and my fingerprints on it, but…
“We did get matches on the blood, though,” says Isaac. “Not Dede or Annie, but two matches. One of the matches was you, Murphy.”
Like the floor has dropped out from beneath me, like I’m spinning, falling…
“My…blood?”
My blood on the knife? My prints and my blood?
“And…who else’s blood?” I manage. “You said…two matches.”
“You know,” says Isaac, fuming. “You damn well know. Tell me, Murphy. Tell me everything.”
But I can’t. I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell is going on.
“That knife wasn’t used to kill Annie and Dede,” says Isaac. “It was the knife used to kill Holden Dahlquist the Sixth, on July 13, 1994. The same day that you went missing for seven hours.”
105
I STUMBLE out of the police station with a bag holding my cell phone, wallet, keys.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know where to go.
I look at my hand, at the inch-long scar across my palm. The only injury they found on me, Aunt Chloe said, after I went missing for seven hours and then was found on the beach, otherwise unharmed.
That scar must have come from the knife. The knife that had my fingerprints on it. It cut my hand. I must have touched it, too.
My prints, my blood.
On the knife that Holden VI used to kill himself.
On July 13, 1994.
I was there. I was there when it happened.
What the hell happened that day?
Aiden, I think. I need to find Aiden.
But how? And whom can I trust at this point? Not Noah. Not Ricketts, not anymore.
Only one person I can think of.
I make the call, and not fifteen minutes later, Justin’s Jaguar pulls up in front of the substation.
He pops out. “What happened? How did you get out?”
I shake my head. It’s a long story. A story I don’t even understand.
“Justin,” I say, “I need someone I can trust. That’s a rapidly dwindling population, I’m afraid.”
Justin nods, a look of concern on his face.
“Can I trust you?” I ask.
“Only one way to find out.” He smiles, then realizes the comment fell flat. He touches my arm. “Hey, listen. You know how I feel about you. I haven’t made a secret of that. And I know…I know you don’t feel quite the same way about me. I know I’m not your type.”
“No, it’s not—”
“I’m not dumb, Jenna. And I’m not blind, either. But I’m here for you if you need me. Maybe—maybe I’ll grow on you. Maybe not. But either way, if you need something, you know all you have to do is ask.”
I hate this. I hate having to rely on someone else. Especially for this.
“Aiden already tried to kill me once,” I say. “He’d do it again. And someone’s working with him. There are people in this town who don’t want me to figure this out, and they’ll kill to stop me.”
Justin takes a deep breath, then nods.
“I’m in,” he says. “Let’s do it.”
106
JUSTIN DRIVES his Jaguar toward his house, having just gotten an earful from me.
“Okay,” he says, glancing at me. “So something happened to you here in July of 1994, and you think Aiden had something to do with it.”
“Yes. And someone else did, too.”
“Okay,” he says. “And you think this ‘someone else’ is Aiden’s younger half brother.”
“Yes. And his father is Holden Dahlquist the Sixth.”
Justin takes a deep breath. “You think Holden the Sixth, and his newfound son, and Aiden, tried to kill you when you were a little girl.”
“Something like that,” I say. “I don’t have it all figured out. Maybe—maybe I was their first. Maybe I was a dry run, a test, to see if they could pull it off. Whatever it was, something must have gone wrong, because Holden ended up dead, not me.”
“Wow. And now the son is carrying on the legacy.”
“I think so,” I say. “So the key is, who is Holden’s son? Who is the baby abandoned at the police station? Isaac? Noah?”
Justin shrugs. “Can you ask them?”
“They wouldn’t admit it. I asked Noah if he was adopted and he said no. But that doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth.”
“Or maybe he doesn’t know,” says Justin. “Maybe his parents never told him.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No, seriously, Jenna—how do any of us know that our parents are our biological parents? We take our parents’ word for it, right?”
“There are birth certificates,” I say.
“Those are just records. They can be doctored.”
“Or there’s a strong physical resemblance.”
Justin makes a face. “Maybe. But not always. I’m not adopted, but I don’t look a whole lot like either of my parents. I’m kind of a blend of them. Do you look like your parents?”
I think about that. “Actually, I got my looks and red hair from my Irish great-grandmother.” I turn to Justin. “Okay, point taken. So you think there might be someone running around with Holden the Sixth’s genes, and he doesn’t even know it?”
“Possibly. Do you think there’s some kind of serial-killer gene that can be passed down from generation to generation? Even without your knowledge?”
That one is definitely above my pay grade.
“We have to find Aiden,” I say. “Aiden’s the key to all of this.”
“Okay, so how do we do that?”
“I have no idea.”
Justin touches my arm. “Don’t say that. Think.”
Think. He’
s right, think.
“If I’m Aiden,” I say, “I don’t have much money. I don’t have a car. I can’t go to airports or train or bus stations. I can’t use a credit card for a rental car or a hotel. How do I run? I could hitchhike.”
“Have you gotten a good look at Aiden?” Justin asks. “Would you pick him up?”
“Stranger things have happened. But okay. What else? He could boost a car, I suppose. But I don’t have access to that kind of information right now, recent auto thefts or anything else. I don’t have any resources at all.”
“I’ll try not to take that as an insult,” says Justin.
“You know what I mean.”
If I’m Aiden, what do I do? If I’m Aiden…
If I’m Aiden…
Wait.
“Maybe he didn’t run at all,” I say. I turn to Justin. “Maybe he’s right here in town. He’s lived here his whole life, right? If he could find a place to hide for a while, it would beat the hell out of traveling somewhere with no money, no resources.”
Justin shakes his head.
I slap my hand on the dashboard. Could it be that simple?
“I can’t believe this,” I say, “but I think I might know where he is.”
107
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.”