Chapter 18
The phone woke him at six. Noah reached for it on the nightstand, knocking over the glass of water he'd left there the night before. He pressed the phone to his ear without checking the screen.
"Sutherland." His voice was gravel.
"Rise and shine." McKenzie. Too awake for this hour. "Derek Hollis showed his face last night."
Noah sat up. "You have him?"
"Nope. But Mark Spence got into it with him. Spence is at the Adirondack Medical Center. Cut on his forehead. They're keeping him for twenty-four hours to check for concussion."
"I'm on my way."
He dressed in the dark, splashed water on his face, and was in the Bronco before the sun cleared the ridge east of the lake. He'd come home late and left early and the distance between those two facts was becoming the shape of his days.
Mark Spence was sitting up in bed when Noah found him on the second floor.
Hospital gown, white bandage taped above his left eye, a bruise already spreading beneath it in shades of purple and green.
The television was on to a morning news broadcast. A tray of untouched breakfast sat on the rolling table beside him.
He looked like a man who hadn't slept and was furious about it.
"Finally. Have you caught Hollis? He nearly killed me at the house."
"Not yet."
"Did you check the deli?"
"Yes."
"And the farm?"
"Mr. Spence. What happened?"
Mark lifted himself higher against the pillows.
The movement made him wince and he pressed a hand to his ribs.
"He showed up in the middle of the night.
Three in the morning. I heard him out there clearing his belongings from the RV.
I guess he must have heard you were looking for him.
I grabbed my baseball bat and headed out.
Caught him with an armful of boxes heading for his car.
He told me I had it all wrong. That he was being set up.
That he had nothing to do with Fiona's disappearance. "
"And?"
"I told him I'd seen the photos. He denied that was him. I swung. He ducked, caught me with a right hand across the temple. I went down and he was gone before I got back on my feet."
"That'll be cleared up when we find him."
"If? You better find him before I get out of here and hunt him down myself."
"Settle down, Mr. Spence."
"Settle down?" Mark's voice rose and his face flushed beneath the bandage.
"My daughter is out there with that sicko.
Maybe locked up somewhere. I saw the news about that Danvers girl.
I heard about the other one that showed up.
The cop posted outside the room down the hall won't let me speak to her.
But she has to know something." He stared at Noah.
"Are you going to say something or what?
Do something. Instead of wasting your time here. "
"A little late, isn't it? To show concern for your kid."
Mark's expression hardened.
"You had this man on your property for God knows how long," Noah continued. "And you want us to believe you didn't know what the relationship was between your daughter and him."
"What are you talking about? There was no relationship."
"Or you were too busy to pay attention."
Mark grit his teeth. "You know, you cops are always the same. Point the finger at the family while some creep gets away free."
"To have him on your property, you must have gathered references."
"I did. They came from a previous rental and the owner of the White Stone Deli."
"Did he ever talk about his relationship with Tabitha Smith?"
"Who?"
"Anyone else he ever mention? Friends? Family?"
"No. He was private. We had a few beers together.
He always wanted me to come out to this Three Pillar Community, but I'm not into that religious stuff.
" He sighed. The anger left his face slowly, draining out like water through a crack, leaving something rawer underneath.
"You know, there was a time Fiona and I were tight.
Back when her mother was with us. You would have passed us on the street and figured us for a close family.
We went to events. Vacationed. All the things families do.
Then it all unraveled after her mother left.
She was the glue that held us together. I just..
." He trailed off and picked at the hospital blanket.
"I tried. I really did. But at some point you stop trying, because every attempt to reach them feels like touching a hot burner.
It just hurts." He looked up. "You know what I mean? "
Noah did. He thought about Ethan. How different he was from Mia.
How differently both of them had been affected by the loss of their mother.
He'd watched them unravel in their own ways over the past year.
Mia had turned to her interest in law to keep herself focused, stable, on track.
Ethan was something else entirely. Despite spending time with him over the past few months, Noah could see how every day was a quiet war.
It had only been in the last few weeks that he'd noticed a shift, a lightness that appeared whenever Ethan talked about Fiona.
She was a year above him. They'd met at a café in town where Ethan worked weekends.
Noah thought about the look on Ethan's face when he found out Fiona was missing.
The way he turned his bike and rode off without a word.
Even the conversation last night, or the attempt at one.
Ethan had told him he was too tired and gone to bed early.
The bedroom light stayed on for another two hours.
"Look," Mark said, pulling Noah back. "If Derek is behind my girl's disappearance. If he knows whether she's still alive, or any of those people over at Three Pillars do, you'll let me know. Won't you?"
"You'll be the first," Noah said.
The cafeteria at FCI Ray Brook was loud the way all prison cafeterias were loud, a constant low roar of voices and trays and the scrape of plastic utensils against plastic plates that never quite went away no matter how many times you heard it.
Guards stood at intervals along the walls with their arms crossed, watching the rows of tables.
Carter Lyle ate alone. He sat at the end of a long table with his tray in front of him, his back to the wall, his eyes moving.
The bruise on his ribs had turned yellow at the edges and the cut where the mop handle had torn the skin was scabbed over but still tender when he shifted.
He'd been looking over his shoulder since the washroom.
Checking corners. Listening for footsteps that didn't belong.
Sleep came in fragments now, twenty minutes at a time, never deeper than a doze.
A tray slid onto the table across from him. Carter looked up.
Daniel Roberts sat down. Ex-police chief. Current inmate. His hair had gone gray since the trial and he'd lost weight, but his eyes were the same, steady and calculating and permanently amused by something only he found funny.
"You look a little worse for the wear since I last saw you. Heard you got jumped in the washrooms the other day. Escaped by the skin of your teeth."
Carter glanced around the cafeteria. The nearest inmates were three seats down, focused on their trays. "Haven't slept much."
"I wouldn't either if I knew someone was trying to kill me."
"What do you know?"
"I know when a prison guard takes a walk, somebody above him gave him good reason.
" Roberts scooped food into his mouth and chewed slowly, in no rush.
"Seems someone is intent on you dying before the state gets to do it.
Must mean you've got somebody nervous. My bet is it's related to the Sutherland family. "
"How so?"
"Weren't they the ones you pointed at for setting you up? The Kara Ellison case?"
"They are."
"Rumor has it Ray Sutherland is about to make police chief of High Peaks.
Now, if I was a betting man, my money would be that his brother Noah showing up here has caused a bit of a stir.
" Roberts tore a piece of bread and put it in his mouth.
"You see, Noah and I go back. He's the reason I'm in here.
One thing about that man. He is like a dog on a bone.
Once he gets his teeth into something, he doesn't let go. "
Carter studied him. "And?"
"Now, whether or not he's come across evidence that brings your sentence into question, that's to be seen. But if he has, chances are Ray will make sure you're dead long before the execution date to prevent any blowback that could put his career at risk."
“Is that what you think?”
"Oh, I know." Roberts leaned forward. "The Sutherlands are all about reputation. Hugh would go to his grave to make sure his legacy stays clean. There are no lengths that family won't go to for their own. My advice?" He pushed back from the table and stood, picking up his tray. "Watch your back."
He walked away through the rows of tables without looking back.
Carter sat with his food going cold in front of him and the noise of the cafeteria pressing in from every direction.
He thought about the empty chair in the washroom corridor.
The guard who wasn't there. The man who came at him with a broken mop handle and the blank expression on his face.
He pushed his tray aside. He wasn't hungry anymore.
Noah arrived at High Peaks Police Department mid-morning. The office was busy, phones ringing, officers moving between desks with files and coffee. The case board had grown again overnight, new photographs, new lines of connection, the web spreading wider with every shift.
Ray was in the briefing area with Callie and McKenzie when Noah walked in. He took a seat and gave them the update.
"Hailey Benton hasn't identified Derek Hollis. We'll speak with her again later today. We know the driver was male, that's confirmed. I'm not sure if the drugs in her system have affected her memory, but she saw the guy."
"And the Three Pillar farm and the deli?" Ray asked.
McKenzie leaned forward. "We've searched them top to bottom. No victims. No human blood. That blood in the trough was confirmed to be from a pig."
Callie added, "We have border control alerted for Canada. State and local departments in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are on the lookout for Hollis."
Ray nodded slowly. He tapped his pen against the table twice, then turned to Noah. "I need to talk to you in the office."
They headed in. Callie and McKenzie watched them go, exchanging a glance but saying nothing. Ray closed the door behind them and pulled the blinds shut across the interior window. The room went private.
"You can't go speaking to Seraphine again."
Noah frowned. "Excuse me?"
"We were contacted by her therapist today. Someone she's been working with for years. They've been unraveling years of abuse and the last thing they need is you showing up and unearthing old memories."
"Her artwork helped us find those bodies.”
“No, you did, Noah,” Ray said. “This woman isn’t psychic.”
“You don’t know that. Are you aware that a woman we interviewed recently, one who escaped the community, told us Seraphine's mother is the sister of Tabitha Smith. Jessie Maddox. And that Jessie had gone missing years ago."
"The therapist told us. She also described some of the trauma Seraphine went through. Being locked in the barn. Isolation. Things I don't need to get into." Ray sat on the edge of his desk. "I told them you were doing your job and that you won't be speaking to her again."
"We might have to."
"Noah." Ray's voice dropped. "They told me that your visit to her studio has set her back months in therapy. She's sleepwalking again."
That stopped him. "Again? Are you saying she did that before?"
"Yeah. It was one of the behaviors the therapist had been working to resolve.
Night terrors, dissociative episodes, walking in her sleep to locations connected to the trauma.
And now it's back." Ray folded his arms. "Whatever she knows, whatever you think she can give us, it's not worth destroying that girl. Find another way."
Noah thought about Seraphine on the sidewalk outside her studio, the way her arms had tightened across her chest, the way she'd retreated the moment he mentioned Three Pillars. The fear in her wasn't the ordinary kind. He nodded once and walked out without another word.