Grange sighs on the other end of the line. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Detective Grange calls me two days later saying he was able to get an approved visitation for the following Thursday.
“But that’s during spring break,” I say.
“Do you want the visit or not?”
“Fine, yes. I’ll be there.”
He sends me the paperwork I have to fill out in order to visit the maximum-security prison just outside Boston. Our friends are supposed to go to the beach house Wednesday through Sunday. I tell them I’ll get there Thursday night. When Wes asks why, I lie and say Adrienne needs me to drop her off at the airport for her spring break trip to Florida. No one needs to know what I’m really doing. Not even Asher.
On Thursday I sit in a folding chair placed in front of thick glass, bouncing my leg nervously. I look around and think it’s exactlylike the movies and TV shows. I had to leave my phone and personal items with the officer when I arrived, but the clock on the wall says Miles is two minutes late. Grange got me a fifteen-minute visit, and now I have only thirteen.
Finally, a tired-looking man in an orange jumpsuit with his hands handcuffed in front of him is led out by an officer and sits on the other side of the glass. I pick up the phone on my left, the one we’re supposed to communicate through. He does not pick up his.
“Pick it up,” I say through the glass. We now have ten minutes. “Please,” I add. He lifts his shackled hands and picks up the phone, holding it to his ear. “Tell me why you did it.”
“Sloane,” he says. “You came.” He gives me a watery-eyed smile and it roils my gut.
“Please save the crazy for another time. Why did you kill all of these people and try to pin it on me?”
“I would never do that to you.” He shakes his head. “I love you; you know that.”
“No you don’t. If you loved me you would not have done any of this. They said they found a story. Is it the one you tried to give to me? You murdered all of these guys, wrote it down, and then tried to give me the story? That is demented, Miles.”
He’s quiet for a minute, and I glance at the clock. Seven minutes. “I heard about it on campus,” he says finally. “The Ryan kid, his name was familiar. Word got around about this strange eulogy type note that was in his pocket when he died, and I thought it was just a rumor going around the faculty. But it reminded me of that journal you kept, the one you showed me last year, and I realized he was in there. It was your journal page they foundon him. It was brilliant, the whole idea. My next murder-mystery bestseller. I was going to ask for your permission to write it, your input even, but you wouldn’t see me, so I wrote it anyway.”
“You were going tosellthis story? And you thought you’d get away with that?”
“Once again, as I’ve told you many times now, I am not the murderer.”
“It doesn’t look like that from here.”
“I was set up,” he says.
I give a disbelieving laugh. “That’s rich coming from the person who tried to set me up.”
“I’m telling the truth,” he says. “Someone planted evidence in my office.”
“In your locked drawer under your desk?”
“Yes,” he says.
Our time is almost up. “Did you send Adrienne to the Four Seasons after the gallery shooting to drop the gun off to my room?”
“No.” He looks me in the eyes when he answers and somehow I know he’s telling the truth, but my mind refuses to believe it.
“I just don’t know how you expect me to believe any of this.”
“Read the story,” he says. “I’m sure they have it in evidence. Read it.” The officer comes to collect Miles from the phone.
“Wait,” I say. “Wait!” But the visit is over.
“Read it,” Miles says from the other side, before yelling, “I love you, Sloane!” He’s ushered back into the prison where he belongs.
I get in my car to drive to Nantucket, thinking about my short thirteen-minute conversation with Miles and how it was the most confusing one yet. He’s denied being the murderer this wholetime, and even almost had me convinced that he isn’t. I saw him in handcuffs myself, so why am I still not completely convinced? I call Grange from the car.
“Well, did you get what you were looking for?” he asks.
