Chapter 24
Thursday evening
The house was quieter than usual, not empty, but settled. The dinner dishes were done, the low hum of a movie drifted from the other room, and for once no one needed anything from her.
Sabre sat at the kitchen table, a blank legal pad in front of her.
JP sat across from her, his legs stretched out and his boots heels down. “You’re still running the case, aren’t you?”
“I’m trying not to.”
“That never works.”
A small breath left her. “I know.”
JP shifted forward, resting his forearms on the table. “I talked to Tyler Burch today. He was one of the kids who was supposed to walk Hannah home.”
Sabre looked up. “And?”
“He changed the story,” JP said.
Her brow tightened. “How?”
“He said they left because Hannah was late and he didn’t want to wait.”
Sabre sat back. “He admitted that?”
“Yeah. He encouraged the girls to leave as well. He said Hannah would catch up.”
“You mean like he was setting her up?”
“Nothing like that. He said she was always late coming out and he wanted to get home to play a video game or something.”
“Was he remorseful?”
“Very. He said he thought he saw her come out of the school but then didn’t see her again.” JP glanced at his notes. “Tyler also said there was a man who lived in a corner house that would come out, sit on his porch, and watch kids walk by.”
“That’s odd and rather suspicious.”
“Did Rourke or the cops investigate anyone like that?” JP asked.
“Not that I recall, and I think I would remember that.”
“I looked through the file, the police reports, Rourke’s reports, and I couldn’t find any reference to him. I plan to check him out tomorrow.”
“Good idea.”
“Oh, and he would talk to the kids sometimes, but only if they were alone. He’d ask questions and sometimes scold them for walking by themselves.”
Sabre sat with that a moment, then said, “I talked to Bay again.”
“Yeah?”
“She said, ‘When something bad happens, I don’t cry. I just get really quiet.’”
“Does that mean something to you?”
Sabre swallowed hard. “Hannah used to say that.”
JP raised an eyebrow. “Those exact words?”
“Close enough that it doesn’t matter. Hannah said it to me more than once,” Sabre went on. “Different phrasing, but the same meaning. That was how she explained things. She didn’t cry. She just shut down.”
“That’s odd, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“That’s what I thought until we started to leave, and I asked her if she was okay.” Sabre took a breath. “And Bay responded with, ‘I can be brave for a little while.’”
JP’s eyes narrowed in thought. “And you’ve heard that before too?”
“From Hannah. Those exact words. She said that the day we told her she might be going home,” Sabre said. “She wasn’t excited. Not like most kids. Just calm and resolved. She just looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I can be brave for a little while.’”
After a moment, JP said, “So, we’ve got two possibilities “Either Bay is Hannah. Or she got those words from someone.”
Sabre nodded. “Which would have to be from Hannah, or from someone who knew her.”
“Or someone who studied her,” JP added.
“Bay denied knowing Hannah.”
“Of course, she did.”
Sabre stared at the blank notepad. “If she is Hannah, then everything we thought about that case is wrong.”
“And if she’s not,” JP said, “then someone taught her those words.”
Sabre looked up at him. “Someone who knew exactly what to say to me.”
“That’s the part I don’t like.”
Sabre snorted. “Just that part?”
JP didn’t smile.
They sat in silence for a moment as Sabre rehashed it in her mind. “Either she’s Hannah or she’s connected to her.”
“I don’t see a third option.”
Sabre’s fingers tapped lightly against the table. “She also said, ‘We protect each other.’ Like it was a rule.”
“Who’s we?” he asked.
“She wouldn’t say.”
JP leaned back again, thinking. “Did she ever indicate if the person she was protecting was a male or a female?”
“She chooses her words very carefully, but she did say ‘she’.” Sabre gave JP a sideways glance. “You think there is someone teaching Bay and maybe others, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” JP nodded. “And we have no idea how many.”
Sabre’s stomach tightened, because that led somewhere she really didn’t want to go.