Chapter 28
Noah was under the microscope.
Callie and McKenzie stood in the observation room at the State Police barracks in Ray Brook, watching Noah through the one-way glass.
He sat at the interview table across from two BCI detectives, one asking questions while the other took notes.
Noah's clothes had been replaced with a dry set from his locker but his hair was still damp at the edges and the skin around his eyes had that hollowed-out look that came from adrenaline leaving the body with nothing to replace it.
The door behind them opened and Ray stepped in.
"I arrived as soon as I could," he said, moving to the glass. "How's it going?"
"Noah was lucky he had the internal and external cameras running inside his vehicle," Callie said. "Samuel used Noah's own weapon to shoot himself."
McKenzie leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. “Aye, it was like it was his last screw-you to law enforcement. He must have figured Noah's Bronco wasn't set up like a regular cruiser and there'd be no way to prove Noah didn't shoot him."
"They pulled the data from the mobile data video recorder and they're going over the conversation Noah had with Samuel before he pulled the trigger," Callie continued.
"The whole drive. Audio and video from the internal camera.
You can see the gun on Noah the entire time.
" She shook her head. "What kind of guy steals a cop's gun, kidnaps him, and then kills himself? "
"The guilty kind," Ray said.
Through the glass, one of the BCI detectives slid a tablet across the table showing Noah a freeze frame from the MDVR footage. Noah studied it and answered something they couldn't hear through the soundproofed glass.
"Any luck on the processing of Samuel's home, agency, or car?" Callie asked.
Ray nodded. "He'd tried to clean up with bleach. But traces of blood were found at the agency that match Hailey Benton. And the injury on Samuel's scalp matches what his makeup artist described about him holding his head and bleeding that night."
"So we figure he managed to get Hailey Benton after she left the hospital and killed her," McKenzie said.
"Without her body it's hard to know," Ray replied.
Callie folded her arms. "And by the sounds of the confession on that footage, he doesn't admit to sexually assaulting the girl in Colorado or Hailey. His version is that Hailey attacked him when she got the wrong idea."
"And we can't confirm that because she's missing," McKenzie said.
"Convenient," Callie added, watching Noah through the glass.
Ray was quiet for a moment. "I don't think it was him."
Callie cast a sideways glance. "What?"
"Responsible for the murders of those girls found in the bog. He was in Colorado at the time."
"And Brooke Danvers? Fiona Spence?"
"Fiona Spence hasn't been found, so no idea on that. But Samuel's DNA was not found on Brooke Danvers. As for Hailey Benton and the girl from Colorado, I think he was a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Twice?" Callie asked.
"Without proof, it's all circumstantial.
" Ray looked through the glass at his brother again.
Noah was talking now, his hands flat on the table, his expression steady.
Whatever he was telling the BCI detectives, he was telling it the same way he told everything.
"With that video footage, they'll release him in a few hours. Tell him to call me."
"And the investigation?" Callie asked.
Ray was already heading for the door. He stopped with his hand on the frame and looked back.
"Switch your focus back to finding Derek Hollis."
Noah arrived home after nine. The house was dark and the driveway was empty and the silence that greeted him when he opened the front door had weight to it.
The BCI interview had taken four hours. Despite his position with the department, they treated every situation where a civilian was killed with an investigator's handgun as serious, and they should.
Two detectives, one room, the same questions asked from different angles until the answers had been turned over and examined from every side.
They'd pulled the MDVR footage, matched it to Noah's account, and walked him through every minute of the drive and every second at the falls.
By the end of it they were satisfied, but satisfaction in a BCI interview didn't come with a handshake or a pat on the back.
It came with paperwork and a reminder not to leave the area.
He hadn't even thought about the implications of Samuel taking his gun until the detectives brought it up.
His mind had been too consumed on that bridge by the thought that Samuel was about to end his life.
Not Samuel's. His. The realization that the gun Samuel used was Noah's own weapon had landed hard.
The moment he'd learned BCI would be conducting the interview, he knew he wouldn't get home in time.
He'd called Kerri and arranged for Mia and Ethan to stay overnight.
They were probably asleep by now, or Mia was studying and Ethan was staring at his phone waiting for a text from Fiona that wasn't coming.
Either way, they were safe and they were somewhere else, and the house was his alone.
He turned on the television and caught a replay of the evening news. Ray stood behind a podium with the High Peaks Police Department crest on the front, microphones clustered in front of him, camera flashes popping in irregular bursts.
"Although David Hughes, otherwise known as Samuel Bridger, is dead, he is not being considered a suspect in the current investigation into the bodies discovered at Bloomingdale Bog."
The media jumped on it. Questions fired from off screen, overlapping, sharp. When would an arrest be made? What was being done about the missing women? Was there a connection between Brooke Danvers, Fiona Spence, and Hailey Benton? Was the public safe?
Ray did his best to put on a brave face and act as if his entire career didn't depend on the words he chose, but it did.
He might have had a foot in the door for the position of chief, but that could all be swept away with one botched case.
And so far they were knee-deep in more questions than answers.
A knock at the door. Noah turned the television off and went to answer it.
Callie stood on the porch holding a brown paper bag. "Figured you might not be interested in cooking." She held it up. The smell of curry and warm naan came through the paper.
"Come on in," he said.
They sat at the kitchen table and unpacked the food. Lamb vindaloo. Chicken tikka. Rice. Two garlic naans that were still warm. Callie had ordered enough for four people, which was either optimism or the understanding that a man who'd had a gun to his head needed to eat more than he thought he did.
"I appreciate this," Noah said.
Callie leaned back. "How are you doing?"
"You know. Living my best life."
"I mean it."
He stopped eating. "What?"
"You had a gun pointed at you."
"It wasn't the first. Won't be the last."
"Don't be flippant," Callie said.
Noah set his fork down and wiped his lips. His eyes drifted to a photograph on the counter. Mia and Ethan, taken last summer, standing on the dock at the lake. Mia had her arm around Ethan's shoulder. Ethan was squinting into the sun. Neither of them knew the photo was being taken.
"You know, in the past, before I came back to High Peaks, I didn't think much about what my death would do to my kids. But after Lena died. When I felt the weight of the responsibility on me, it felt different."
Callie observed but didn't answer.
"All I could think about out there was them. I know Gretchen or Kerri would step in. They have, so many times. But it wouldn't have been the same."
"How do you function?"
"I'd like to give you some pat answer about taking it one day at a time, but I'm not sure I really have it down to a science.
" He paused and let out a long breath, one that felt like it had been held in since the moment that gun touched his skin on the bridge.
"I really thought he'd shot me when that gun went off.
For a split second..." He trailed off. "Anyway.
" He took a few more bites. "It got me thinking. "
"About what?"
"What if our killer isn't driving them away?
What if he has them drive while he has a gun on them?
And that's why they get into a vehicle in the first place.
" He leaned forward. "I mean, we figured it's because they're on an isolated stretch of road.
Vehicle broken down. No cell coverage. And maybe that's enough incentive to convince a few. But all of them?"
Callie nodded slowly. “That’s possible. Either way, whatever he's doing, it works.
" She sighed. "I really thought we had him.
Your brother doesn't believe it was Samuel.
He wants us to focus on Derek Hollis again.
No weapons or trophies were found in Samuel's home.
His DNA wasn't on the girls. None of them have semen present.
So if they aren't being sexually assaulted, why is he taking them? "
"I don't know. If we don't find Hollis, we may never know."
Callie took a drink. She set the glass down and turned it between her fingers for a moment.
"Ray said you think Carter Lyle isn't good for Kara Ellison's murder. That right?"
Noah nodded. "He'll be executed in a few days."
The kitchen was quiet. The food was getting cold. Outside, Ed’s car passed and its headlights swept across the ceiling and then were gone.
The Daily Grind was winding down for the evening.
A few tables were still occupied, the barista running the dishwasher behind the counter, the overhead music turned low.
Ruby sat at the bar with a chai latte and her phone face down on the counter.
Lacey Montgomery was wiping down the espresso machine, her apron splashed with milk foam and coffee grounds.
"She never said anything else?” Ruby asked.
"Ruby, you know as much as I do. She came in, ordered her usual, sat with you, and left. That's it. I never saw her after that." Lacey tossed the rag into the sink. “But did you hear about the owner of Strutz?"
"Yeah. Crazy shit." Ruby stared at her drink. "I was only there this morning."
"You think he was behind Fiona's disappearance? Rumor has it he assaulted Hailey Benton before she went missing."
"With Garrett Finch in the slammer, Samuel dead, and them chasing after Derek Hollis, I'm beginning to think there was some kind of trafficking going on.
All under the guise of modeling." Ruby balled her hand into a fist on the counter.
"I told Fiona to be careful. I said that the modeling business was no good. But she wouldn't listen."
Lacey dried her hands and leaned against the back counter. "She wanted out, Ruby. Out of her dad's house. Out of this town. Modeling was the only way she could see to make that happen."
"And look where it got her."
They sat in the silence of that for a moment. The dishwasher cycled. A customer left and the door chimed behind them.
Noah was clearing the plates when his phone rang. He dried his hands on a dishcloth and checked the screen, expecting Mia or Ethan. Instead, the display showed an unfamiliar number and beneath it, a collect call from a federal correctional facility.
He glanced at Callie, who was putting the leftover containers in the fridge. He answered and stepped into the hallway.
"They transferred me to Indiana." Carter Lyle's voice was different than the last time they'd spoken. Flatter. The anger was gone. What replaced it was worse. "I heard the news about the recent death. Have you found anything that can help me?"
"Not so far."
"Great. I'm days away from being executed." A pause. The background noise of a prison phone bank, other voices, other conversations, other lives continuing. "Look, I never killed the Ellison girl. Jenny Walters is another story."
"Did you kill her?"
"No."
"That's not what people believe."
"I don't give a shit what people believe. I'm not in here because of her. I'm in here because they pinned the Ellison girl's murder on me."
"But what about the knife?"
"That was mine. But I didn't kill Ellison. I never met the girl." His voice cracked, just slightly, the first fracture Noah had heard in it. "Look, you said a woman came forward with a picture that you used to find those bodies. Maybe she can prove I wasn't the one. Maybe..."
"That ship has sailed. She won't talk to us. Her therapist made that clear."
The line was quiet. Noah could hear Carter breathing. He could hear the institutional hum of a building designed to hold people until the state decided what to do with them.
"Then I guess I'm out of luck." Carter's voice had gone flat again. The fracture sealed over. "Thanks for nothing."
The line went dead.
Noah stood in the hallway with the phone in his hand. Callie appeared in the kitchen doorway, reading his face.
"Who was that?"
"Carter Lyle. They've moved him to Terre Haute."
Callie didn't say anything. She didn't need to. The clock on Carter's life was running and they both knew it and neither of them had anything to stop it with.
Ruby finished the last of her drink and set the cup on the counter. "Thanks again for the free drink."
"Anytime," Lacey said. "I hope you find out about Fiona."
Ruby nodded and grabbed her jacket off the back of the stool.
She pushed through the door and out into the evening.
The parking lot was mostly empty, a few cars under the lights, the neon from the café sign casting a warm glow across the asphalt.
Her car sat at the far end of the lot where she always parked, under the broken light that the owner kept saying he'd fix.
She walked across the lot, keys in hand, her mind still turning over the conversation. Fiona. Samuel. Garrett. Derek. Names that circled each other without connecting, pieces of something she couldn't see the shape of no matter how many times she rearranged them.
She unlocked the car, climbed in, started the engine, and pulled out of the lot without seeing the rag stuffed into her tailpipe.