When (27 page)

I couldn’t help give into the smile that quirked at the edges of my lips. “So now you believe me, right?”

Faraday scratched his head, still staring at the two photos on his desk—the ones of his brother and his aunt. “I watched you like a hawk,” he said softly. “You never even
looked up. You went through a stack of forty photos of people I
know
you’ve never heard of or seen before, and you couldn’t possibly have researched any of them, and still you
didn’t miss a single photo. Ginny was supposed to trip you up, Maddie. And if she didn’t, then I pulled pictures out of other agents’ family photo albums, too. Even if you had
researched my entire family, I know you couldn’t have randomly guessed the dates of these other people.”

Faraday then pointed to the camera. “We had an expert in body language watching you, too,” he said. “An FBI profiler in D.C. who’s the best in the business says he
can’t explain how you could do that, but your body language suggests you’re not writing down these dates from memory. He says there would have been a momentary pause as you went through
each photo to recall the face and the date from your memory—and you didn’t pause once except with Aunt Gin, and he thinks that’s because you realized I’d tried to trip you
up.”

Faraday reached down to pull out a folder and laid it on the desk. Flipping it open I could see several photographs—many of them were of Stubby and me from the Jupiter game.
“It’s never quite fit,” he said, scratching his chin. “Agent Wallace and I have been round and round on this. From the first interview with Mrs. Tibbolt, she claimed that
you never actually came out and threatened her or her son, only that you had predicted he’d die the following week.

“And we interviewed several other clients of yours, too, Maddie. It’s taken us a few weeks to compile a list of them, but the one that really bugged us was Pat Kelly. Remember
him?”

I nodded. He was a man I’d read for only a few days before all of this started. He’d been very nice to me, even after I’d given him the bad news.

“He says that he’d come to see you on the twelfth of October. His name was right before the Tibbolts’ in your notebook, which is why we were interested in talking to him. We
asked him what you’d said, and he told us how you’d predicted he’d die in May. He then told us that he’d just come from his doctor who’d given him six months to live.
Kelly swore he didn’t tell you or in any way hint to you that he had pancreatic cancer. I looked him over real good, Maddie, and I couldn’t tell that he was sick. The guy seemed healthy
as a horse.”

As Faraday spoke, I didn’t interrupt. I simply let him work through it, waiting for the moment when he’d finally tell me that he believed me.

Faraday pivoted a picture to me, and I saw it was of me and Stubs, sitting in the stands at the Jupiter game, both of us smiling broadly and looking so happy. I realized either Wallace or
Faraday had taken the photo from their seats in the stands, and they’d inadvertently captured the last time Stubby or I had been that carefree.

“Truthfully, Maddie,” Faraday continued, “you and Arnold don’t fit the profile for two serial killers.”

Faraday’s admission left me stunned. “Then why have you been so focused on us?” I demanded.

He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “We have to follow the evidence,” he said. “And there was a lot that pointed to the two of you.”

“But there has to be stuff that points away from us, too,” I insisted, and for emphasis I waved my hand at the stack of photos that proved I’d been telling the truth all
along.

Faraday shrugged, then nodded. “The same guy in D.C. who watched you zip through the photos sent me the psychiatric profile this afternoon of the person he thinks killed Payton Wyly and
Tevon Tibbolt, and I’ve just had a chance to read it,” Faraday continued, and he reached for a manila folder at the side of his desk and opened it. “The report says that Wyly and
Tibbolt were definitely killed by the same person, and that person was likely to be a lone white male between thirty and fifty-five. A guy with a whole lot of repressed rage. A guy with sick
fantasies but above-average intelligence. He’s likely to be adept at keeping secrets, and is very good about hiding in plain sight. He likely has a good steady job, one he’s had for
years but secretly hates. He’s someone who has a distorted view of himself, a guy who thinks he’s above most people, and he has a hard time making lasting social connections. He takes
his rage out on kids in their teens because he seems to have some sort of sick vendetta against them. They represent some sort of trigger for his anger, and he vents that anger at them by torturing
and killing them. My profiler ends the report by saying that it’s highly unlikely either you or Arnold is the murderer.”

I felt rush of relief, but I didn’t want to say anything more to stop the momentum Faraday was building, so I simply let him continue.

Faraday put the file down and lifted another photo. “I keep coming back to this,” he said. The image showed me squinting at Payton, a look of shock on my face, and next to me, Stubby
was gazing at the pretty cheerleader with shy fascination and adoration. His cheeks were flushed, and he had this hopeful smile on his face. He looked boyish and sweet—not sick in the head.
Faraday tapped Stubby’s image. “He doesn’t look like anything but a love-struck kid,” he said, mirroring my thoughts. “We had a psychologist sit with him, and nothing
about that interview came back with any hint of violence or repressed rage. Just the opposite, actually. According to our guy, Arnold’s IQ is at genius level, but he’s humble about his
intelligence. And although he struggles a little socially, he doesn’t seem to hold it against anyone. So either Schroder’s the greatest young con man we’ve ever met, or he really
is a shy, smart kid who tried to warn a pretty girl that she had a date with death on her birthday. And maybe he’s also a good friend who wants people to believe in you so that mothers
don’t have to bury their sons.”

I found myself nodding. “I swear,” I told him. “That’s all it was, Agent Faraday. Stubby would
never
hurt Payton or Tevon. He’s the nicest kid you’ve
ever met. He was trying to find a way to save them both.”

Faraday reached back into his drawer and pulled out another file, this one secured with a thick rubber band. “I have to turn this over to your uncle today,” he said.
“It’s all the evidence we’ve collected against Arnold. One of the biggest pieces of evidence we found at both Tevon Tibbolt’s crime scene and Payton Wyly’s is a set of
size twelve boot prints. It’s pretty muddy on the banks of the Waliki River, and we found those boot prints all over the place, leading up to the road.

“It’s always bothered me that Schroder wears a size nine shoe, and we searched his closet. He owns four pairs of sneakers and one pair of leather loafers. No boots. I thought we had
him when we found his dad’s boots in his mom’s closet, but they’re the wrong size, too, and the wrong tread.”

I nodded; Donny had told me the same thing. Plus, Stubby would never wear any shoe he couldn’t skateboard in. I said that to Agent Faraday and he grunted, tapping the folder on the edge of
his desk like he was thinking deeply. Then he set it flat on his desk again and pointed to it. “This also includes a copy of that file your uncle gave us—the one of the kid in Willow
Mill who was murdered. Guess what was found there?”

“Boot prints?” I guessed.

Faraday nodded. “Yep. Size twelve. Hell, even my guy in D.C. admitted to me on the phone today that he thinks it’s the same killer for all three kids. Cigarettes found at the scene
of Carter’s murder match the type found at the other two scenes, but the DNA on all the cigarettes rules out both you and Schroder.”

I blinked. “I thought it would take a long time to get the DNA back?”

Faraday lifted his eyes from the folder. “Carter’s case was submitted back in August. The results came in last week, so we had the cigarettes from the other two murders expedited
through the federal lab, which isn’t nearly as backed up as the city labs. The results came in while I was grading your stack. Turns out none of the DNA matches you kids, or the blood on the
knife, which turns out to be Schroder’s. And yet, all the cigarettes were used by one lone individual who apparently has never had a criminal record, because his DNA isn’t in our
system.”

I closed my eyes. I felt a mixture of relief and also anger. “Why?” I whispered.

“Why, what?” Faraday replied.

I opened my eyes. “If you knew all of this, why are you still keeping Stubby in jail?”

Faraday sighed, but at least he had the courage to hold my gaze. “We had to be sure, Maddie. And like I said, a lot of this just came in, and so much of the early circumstantial evidence
pointed to you two.”

“Are you sure now?” I asked, crossing my fingers.

He shut the file, but I could tell immediately that he wasn’t going to give in quite that easy. Pointing to the file again he said, “Like I said, Maddie, I’m going to give that
to your uncle. He’ll file a motion to have the case against Schroder kicked out for lack of evidence, and while he’s doing that, we’ll have a talk with the DA and tell him not to
fight it.”

It was a long time before I could say anything. At last I stood up and whispered, “Thank you, Agent Faraday. Thank you very much.”

“Don’t thank me, Maddie. Until we catch this guy, we’ll continue to keep an eye on both you and Schroder.”

I pressed my lips together and looked at the floor. “Okay. I guess that’s fair.”

There was a knock on Faraday’s door, and I lifted my chin to see Agent Wallace standing there with his coat on and a somber expression. “We got another missing kid, Mack.”

Faraday paled. “When?”

Wallace glanced warily at me but kept talking. “Call just came in. A thirteen-year-old from Poplar Hollow was supposed to meet his mother at their house at three fifteen for a
doctor’s appointment. Kid never showed and was last seen leaving school about ten minutes before three.”

Faraday glanced at his watch. “It’s only twenty after four,” he said. “Is she sure he didn’t just forget?”

“The kid asked his teacher if he could leave class five minutes early so he could make it home in time. The mom started calling his phone over and over, and then she went out to look for
him. She said she heard his ringtone and found his cell on the sidewalk—but no sign of him.”

“Name?” Faraday asked.

“Nathan Murphy.”

I sucked in a breath.

“You know him?” Faraday and Wallace both asked me.

“Sort of,” I said. “I used to babysit for his little brother.”

Faraday stood and eyed me keenly. “You remember his deathdate, Maddie?”

I shook my head. “I don’t. But I don’t think I ever met him. I mean, I only babysat for the family when Nathan couldn’t watch his little brother.”

Faraday got up and grabbed his coat from the hook in the corner of the room. “Call your uncle. Tell him that we’ll want to talk to the two of you in a few hours.”

I started to shake my head. “It wasn’t me! I’ve been here the whole time, Agent Faraday!”

He shrugged into his coat and put a hand on my shoulder. “I know. Go home for now and tell your uncle that we’ll need to see you in a couple of hours, and he should be present.
I’ll call him with the time.”

And with that, Faraday and Wallace swept out of the room.

Donny was so furious with me that he hung up in the middle of the conversation. He arrived at the house red-faced and still so angry that I didn’t know if I should let
him inside. “Open the door!” he yelled from the back step.

I took a deep breath and undid the lock. He barreled in and gripped me by the shoulders.
“Do you know what you’ve done?”
he roared. “
How
could you have gone
down there without me?”

I waited while Donny paced back and forth in the kitchen, yelling about how anything I said to Faraday could be used against me, and how I’d now be lucky if he could keep me out of jail,
and how I’d likely jeopardized Stubby’s freedom, too…and then his cell rang. “What?” he snapped, not even bothering to look at the caller ID.

His expression changed within half a minute as he listened to the caller. “Thanks for calling, Barb. That’s great news.” He hung up and tapped his chin with the phone, his eyes
faraway until he turned his gaze back to me, but now he didn’t appear at all angry—merely stunned. “
What
did you say to them?”

“Nothing, Donny, I swear. I just had Faraday test me.”

Donny scratched his head. “Yeah, well that must’ve been a hell of a test, Maddie, because that was the assistant DA. She’s dropping the case against Arnold. He’ll be free
to go after they process the paperwork, which should be sometime tomorrow.”

I felt a smile burst onto my face, and I was about to rush forward to hug Donny when his phone rang again. This time he squinted at the caller ID before answering. “Donny Fynn,” he
said crisply.

I waited through the short call to learn that it was Faraday. He was ready to meet and wanted us to come down to the bureau offices as soon as possible. Donny told him he’d be there as
soon as he could.

“What do you think they want?” I asked.

“Faraday didn’t give me any specifics except to say that he thought we could help.”

“Do you think it’s a trap?” I asked, more because Donny looked very worried than because I didn’t trust Faraday. The truth was, after sitting with him in his office and
seeing that he’d been true to his word about telling the DA to drop the case against Stubby, I thought I could finally trust the agent.

“A trap?” Donny repeated. “I’m not sure, kiddo, but if you don’t want to go, we won’t. It’s up to you.”

I thought about it for a minute before I made up my mind. “Let’s go. But if you think they want to try and trap me, don’t let me talk.”

Donny eyed me through half-lidded eyes. “Like that’s worked so well before.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I had to, though, Donny. Stubby really needed my help, and I was the one who got him into this mess in the first place.”

Donny sighed and came over to give me a brief hug. “For the record, Maddie, you didn’t get anyone into this mess. Stubby decided all on his own to go see Payton. And if I recall, you
told me you even tried to warn him about contacting her.”