Chapter Twenty-Six
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dalton walks in with a bag of breakfast sandwiches and finds me standing by the door, as if I’ve been waiting to pounce.
“That hungry, huh?” he says. Then he sees my expression.
“Marlon isn’t Marlon,” I say. “He’s his cousin.”
“I… What?”
I back onto the bed and take a moment to corral my thoughts as I pet Storm. Then I try again: “The man from those articles—the one émilie admitted to Haven’s Rock because he was in trouble—is Martin Moyer. Martin Moyer isn’t the person we know as Marlon.”
“I… What?”
I point to my laptop, with the photo of the two men on it. “The man on the left is Martin Moyer.”
Dalton looks at the image. “The left? No, Marlon’s the guy on the right.”
“That’s Martin’s cousin Jerome.”
Dalton rubs his eyes and then pulls over the desk chair and sits.
“I’m not explaining this well,” I say.
“You are. I’m just wrapping my head around it. Give me a sec.” Another rub. “Okay, so émilie recruited a guy named Martin Moyer, who is the one in those articles, the former military man who was kidnapped and nearly killed for messing with some neo-Nazi’s ex.”
“Yes. None of the articles I found had a photo. Understandably—as the victim, the last thing Martin wanted was more attention. However, after I saw the photos of Martin and Jerome, I did more digging and found social media articles on the kidnapping that did include Martin’s photo, which leave no doubt that the man we know as Marlon is not Martin Moyer.”
“The man we know is the guy on the right.” He points at the photo. “His cousin.”
“Jerome Moyer. I took that from Martin’s socials. Jerome doesn’t have a social media presence. At all. I did, however, find a couple of deep online references that seem to be him, including another photo, older but definitely our Marlon.”
Dalton takes a deep breath, then exhales a long “Fuuuck.” After a moment, he turns to me. “So Martin got accepted and let his cousin take his place? Could that work?”
I pick up my notepad from the bed. “I think so. émilie’s investigator is the one who worked with Martin. He does all the interviews and provides all the data. Then émilie needs to provide the fake passport to get Martin across the border. Did they supply Martin’s photo, hoping their superficial resemblance would get Marlon past security? Jerome grows a beard and cuts his hair to match, and that’s good enough? Or did they supply Jerome’s photo, presuming whoever’s making the passport either hasn’t seen Martin’s photo or—again—would figure it was close enough. We’d need to run that past émilie.”
“Ask her what checks and balances are in place to ensure the person admitted is the person who arrives.”
I nod.
He shakes his head. “You know what check isn’t in place? Making sure we’ve seen a photo of the person who’s supposed to be showing up. There’s a resemblance, but there’s no way we’d have mistaken Jerome for Martin. We’re more paranoid than any border guard.”
“We need to start getting photos,” I say. “Photos that have been seen all the way up the chain. But fixing that is a problem for another day. For now, it’s clear that the wrong guy is in Haven’s Rock. The question is why Martin did the switcheroo.” I pause. “And my fear is that he didn’t.”
Dalton frowns. Then he swears. “Martin did need to disappear. So why give his spot to his cousin?”
“Also, Martin has disappeared,” I say. “He posted a goodbye on his socials, just as he’d been instructed. Is it possible that coming up here wasn’t what he wanted? That émilie gave him all the resources he needed to vanish, but he didn’t actually want to come here ? So he let his cousin come up instead, while he hightails it to Mexico? Possible but convoluted.”
“There’s another reason why Martin would disappear and Jerome would show up here instead.”
“If Martin didn’t give his cousin that slot. If Jerome took it.”
“And Martin isn’t around to tell anyone.” Dalton exhales. “Fuck.”
“I’m calling émilie,” I say. “You need to get on the phone to Anders. We have to get Marlon in custody. Now.”
I don’t bother texting émilie to warn her I’m calling. She picks up, sounding groggy. I realize it’s barely seven. I know the polite thing would be to apologize for waking her, or at least ask whether I’ve woken her, but that’s wasted time, and this is urgent.
I tell her what I’ve discovered. Like Dalton, she needs to ask me to repeat myself a few times while she processes. But she’s soon up and tapping on her laptop.
“Is there any chance I could be mistaken?” I say. “Some way you can tell me that this kind of mix-up is impossible and we’ve misidentified Marlon?”
“I wish I could, Casey, but I’m looking at all the photos now, and if you say this man on the right is the man in Haven’s Rock, then there has indeed been a switch. The biggest sticking point would be the passport, as you mentioned. I’m just pulling up Marlon’s file, and the photo submitted is…” She curses.
“Jerome, not Martin.”
“Yes. I can very clearly see the difference. Jerome cut his hair and grew a beard, but he is not Martin.”
“There’s just a superficial resemblance.”
She exhales. “Yes, and I fear it’s worse than that. It’s a lack of checks and balances, as you said. Most of our interviews are conducted by encrypted video, unlike when you were admitted and Eric met you in person. Video is never ideal for lighting and image quality. We also minimize points of contact. In Marlon’s case, only the interviewer saw him, via video. The person they spoke to would have been Martin. Then the passport photo goes to the same person. Presumably they would confirm it’s the person they saw in the video interview, but that is not a clear checkpoint.”
“They aren’t asked to study the photo and confirm that it matches. It’s just presumed that they’d notice if it didn’t.”
“Yes. Also, in this case, the person who conducted the interview and received the photo is white.”
She doesn’t need to explain what that means. There’s a known predisposition for people of one race to misidentify people of another. While émilie is white herself, she has biracial grandchildren. She might not have made that mistake, but she never saw pictures of Martin. She only received the passport photo of Jerome for her files.
“Plugging these holes comes later,” I say. “For now, Eric is outside calling Will and getting Marlon quietly put into custody. The cell, not the apartment.”
“Good.”
“Eric and I will, if we can, continue on to Whitehorse later.”
“Absolutely. Will can handle this. I will send a plane to pick up Jerome as soon as possible. Whether or not he killed Lynn, this is a clear violation of the agreement, and we can remove him. I will deal with any exposure threat he might present.”
“Good. You do that, and I’ll interview him from Whitehorse. I can have Will search his apartment and look for evidence that he’s responsible for Lynn’s death. So far, I don’t really have anything except the very strong feeling he lied about seeing someone escorting Lynn.”
“Someone who happened to physically resemble the person being framed. Right down to Marlon actually saying he thought it was Sebastian, in case you failed to make the connection.”
I stretch out on the bed and rub my stomach. “I know. But that’s not evidence. Neither is the lack of an alibi—most people don’t have them with the blizzard. I’ll have Will search after Marlon’s safely in custody. He can build a timeline for Marlon from talking to others. My concern right now is why Jerome is in Haven’s Rock instead of Martin… and what happened to Martin.”
She curses softly. “Of course. Martin would have needed to disappear. We monitor residents’ social media to be sure no one asks too many questions. We’d have noticed if he resurfaced.”
“There’s no sign of that. Also, I need to know more about Jerome Moyer. I’ve started searching, but he’s a ghost online, which is… troubling.”
“It is. All right. We’ve established that Marlon is Jerome. I’m going to stifle the urge to investigate how that happened. My focus is on getting Jerome out of Haven’s Rock. I’ll dispatch a plane to retrieve him. Are you all right with me setting my investigator on Jerome’s trail?”
“Yes. Whatever happened, it wasn’t the fault of their investigation. You do that, and I’ll do my own digging until we can leave for Whitehorse.”
I’m off the phone before Dalton returns, so I put on my outerwear. If we’ll be here for a while, I need a walk before I settle into more online searching.
I don’t see Dalton and Storm until I round the corner. Then I spot them near the rear of town, where it rises into forest.
Dalton has his back to me, and the phone to his ear. Before I make it to him, he turns to head back and lowers the phone at the same time.
He spots me, lifts a hand and picks up speed. I do the same, giving my legs a welcome stretch.
“How’s Will taking it?” I say.
“I can’t get through to him.”
“What?” I peer up at the sky. It’s overcast, but nothing that suggests a storm.
“It’s not the weather. The phones are connecting. Well, one is at least. I’ve tried both numbers. One rings but no one answers, and the other goes straight to voicemail. I’ve left messages on both.”
My heart thuds, and all I can say is “Okay.” But it’s not okay. It’s very not okay.
Dalton continues, “One phone should be with Will. That’s the one that’s going straight to voicemail. The other is with either April or Yolanda—last I heard, they were bickering over who got custody of it while we were gone. That’s the one that keeps ringing.”
“If that one was going straight to voicemail, I’d say whoever has it forgot to recharge it. But Will’s wouldn’t.”
Dalton nods.
My racing heart jams into my throat, and I struggle to speak. “I told Will to keep an eye on Marlon.”
“Good,” Dalton grunts. “Maybe there really is a storm out there. Or the satellite network is…” He waves a hand. “On the fritz. I don’t know. We’ll keep trying until we get through. In the meantime, Will knows to watch Marlon.”
“No, I meant…” I take deep breaths of the icy air. “Maybe, yes. He knows to watch Marlon so it’s not as if he’ll be caught off guard, but if I told him to watch Marlon, what if…”
Silence. Then, quietly, Dalton says, “What if Marlon figured that out.”