Lisa Gardner - The Neighbor

Then his fingers closed around my wrist He removed my hand from his shoulder

“Don’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Go to sleep, Sandy.”

“I want a second baby,” I said. Which was partly true. I did yearn for another child, or at least someone else who would love me.

“We could adopt,” he said.

“God, Jason. Do you hate me that much?”

He didn’t answer. I stormed out of bed, stomped downstairs, sat at the computer Then, just to be childish about things, I checked the empty recycle bin, and the three URLs left in the computer’s web history: New York Times, USA Today, and the Drudge Report.

At that moment, I despised my husband. I hated him for taking me away, but for never really saving me. I hated him for showing me respect, but for never letting me feel wanted. I hated him for his silences and for his secrets and for a lone black-and-white image of a terrified little boy who still haunted me.

“Just what kind of monster are you?” I demanded out loud. But the computer had no answers for me.

So I logged on to my AOL account. Then, working from memory, I wrote: Dear Wayne, thanks for meeting with me. I am working on our project now. I hope to see you again, at the next Thursday basketball game…

“What do you mean you can’t find the money? It’s four million dollars, for God’s sake. It takes a little more than a piggy bank to cart that much around.” D.D. was ranting into her cell phone, held tight against her ear. They were exiting the Jones residence and half a dozen photographers were snapping away at them. The class they should have at detective school and don’t: How to Always Have Photo-Ready Hair.

“No, I don’t want the Feds involved. We’ve traced money before; we can do it again… Okay, okay, so it’s not a one-day project. I’ll give you two more hours…I know, so get cracking.”

D.D. flipped the phone shut, scowling.

“Bad news?” Miller asked. He was stroking his mustache selfconsciously, obviously not liking the glare of the media spotlight any more than she did. They paused at the base of the porch stairs, not wanting to have this conversation in earshot of the press, who were already banging out questions.

“Cooper hit a wall chasing Jones’s assets,” D.D. reported. “Something about the money was wired into Jones’s current bank from an offshore account, and offshore banks are a little uptight about disclosing information. According to Cooper, we need to charge Jones with a crime first, then they might see things our way. Of course, we need to trace the money in order to expose Jones’s real identity, so we can charge him with a crime. At this point, it’s heads he wins, tails we lose.”

“Bummer, dude,” Miller said.

She rolled her eyes at him, chewed her lower lip. “I feel like we’re stuck in a bad episode of Law & Order .”

“How so?”

“Look at our pool of suspects: We have the mysterious husband who’s probably engaged in online porn, the down-the-street neighbor who’s a registered sex offender, a thirteen-year-old student who’s in love with his missing teacher, a state computer technician who seems to have a very personal stake in the investigation, and, last but not least, the victim’s estranged father who may or may not have known she was abused as a child and has lots of incentive to keep that quiet. It’s all In a case that’s been ripped from the headlines…’ Except I have no idea which fucking headline we ripped off.”

“Maybe it’s like that old movie. Murder on the Orient Express. They all did it. That would be cool.”

She gave him a look. “You have a strange sense of humor, Miller.”

“Hey, this job will do that to you.”

When in doubt, keep everyone talking. D.D. wanted to question Ree again, but the expert, Marianne Jackson, waved her off. Three interviews in three consecutive days would not only be too much for the child, but would appear like badgering. Even if Ree did tell them something useful, a good defense attorney would argue they’d harassed her into disclosing. They needed to give the girl one more day better yet, turn over some new piece of evidence that warranted a third interview. Then they’d be on safer ground.

So D.D. and Miller turned to their cast of suspects. In the past forty-eight hours, they’d hit Jason Jones, Ethan Hastings, Aidan Brewster, and Wayne Reynolds, which left the honorable Maxwell Black. Currently, the judge stood right across the street, working the crowd of reporters much the way a politician might work a room of high-net-worth donors.

Already, D.D. felt uneasy. Guy hasn’t seen his daughter in five years, learns she’s gone missing, so he catches a flight to Boston to smile for the cameras and press flesh with the local news personalities?

Judge seemed pretty relaxed about it, too. Wearing a dapper light blue suit with a pastel pink tie and coordinating pink silk kerchief, very Southern gentleman. Then, of course, there was that drawl that sounded so honey smooth in the land of dropped R’s and guttural A’s.

As they neared the news vans, Miller hung back, giving her the lead. D.D. waded into the fray.

“Detective, detective,” the hordes began.

“Sergeant,” D.D. snapped back, because they could at least grant her that much.

“ Any news on Sandy’s whereabouts?”

“ Are you going to arrest Jason?”

“How is little Ree holding up? Her preschool teacher says she hasn’t been to school since Wednesday.”

“Is it true Jason wouldn’t let Sandy talk to her own father?”

D.D. shot Maxwell Black a look. Clearly, they had the good judge to thank for that tidbit. She ignored the reporters, placing her hand firmly on Maxwell’s shoulder and leading him away from the sudden forest of microphones and camera lenses.

“Sergeant D.D. Warren, with Detective Brian Miller. If you don’t mind, sir, we’d like a word.”

The judge didn’t protest. Merely nodded his head elegantly while waving goodbye to his newfound media playmates. Man must be a lot of fun in his own courtroom, D.D. thought with irritation. Like the grand master of a three-ring circus.

She got him over to Miller and they walked him to their car, the reporters trailing behind greedily in a last-ditch attempt to catch a snippet of conversation, a juicy revelation. That Sandra was dead. That they were arresting the husband. Or perhaps the police wanted to question Sandy’s father as a fresh person of interest. Either way, the reporters’ wheels would be spinning for a bit, the attention ramping up exponentially.

Maxwell ducked into the back seat of D.D.’s car and they pulled away, D.D. laying on the horn and doing her best Britney Spears imitation as she aimed for the nearest photographer’s foot. The cameramen immediately cleared, and she managed to drive down the street without incident. She felt vaguely disappointed.

“You’re the detectives in charge of my daughter’s case,” Maxwell drawled from the back seat.

“Yes sir.”

“Excellent. I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you. I have some information on my son-in-law. Starting with the fact that his name is not Jason Jones.”

They took the judge down to the station. It was the kosher way of questioning someone, and Jason Jones had been giving them such a runaround on the matter, D.D. was pleased to get protocol right for at least one person. The detectives’ interrogation room was small, and the coffee terrible, but Maxwell Black maintained his charming smile even as he sat down in the hard metal folding chair wedged between the table and bone white wall. They might as well have invited him back to their country estate.