Freya waves a hand. “We were in a public place in the middle of the West Village. Nothing would have happened to me, and besides, it was clear Isaac had no idea what I was talking about. I felt bad enough that I gave him the hundred bucks in my wallet.”
“Maybe he was playing you,” I say.
Freya jerks her thumb toward the truck. “From the grave?” she asks. “Isaac Haviland’s dead and buried. My stalker’s very much alive. I hadn’t heard from him much since I leftScene of the Crime, but last year, when I shot the true-crime pilot with Duncan, the threats started again. I was almost relieved when the show didn’t get picked up. That’s part of the reason why I came to New Hampshire. I thought I could escape.”
She stands and looks at the letters written on the windshield. She taps the blueWinWelcomewith her fingertip. “Nail polish,” she says, holding her own painted nails against the glass. “It’s the same color I’ve been using. I have a bottle of it at the condo.” A shadow crosses her face. “You were in my bathroom.”
I back away, holding my hands out where she can see them.
Freya snaps her fingers. Ginger leaps to her feet, the fur at her neck standing on end.
“Ginger’s fickle,” I say.
“She sees who people really are.”
“I’m taking my phone from my pocket, that’s it,” I say, retrieving the phone and entering the code. “I’ve been with you at the firing range since you left your truck down here, so I couldn’t have done this without help from someone else. Go through my texts. See if I plotted with anyone.”
I hand her the phone.
Freya scrolls through the first few texts and whistles. “Wow, you pissed off nearly everyone you know.”
The podcast.
“Tell me about it,” I say.
Freya keeps scrolling. “There’s nothing connecting you to this crap,” she says, returning the phone to me. “You’re off the hook, for now.”
“Who else has been to your condo lately?”
“You, Paul,” Freya says. “And Duncan.”
Maybe Duncan Gilcrest is a suspect, after all. “Gilcrest went to Columbia,” I say, remembering my conversation with the detective at Burkehaven.
“What about it?” Freya asks.
Columbia is in New York. And Gilcrest is forty-eight years old, which means he’d have gone to college in the nineties, right when Freya’s stalker first appeared. “What was the name of the security company the producers used onEternal Flame?” I ask.
“I don’t want to play detective anymore,” Freya says.
“Humor me.”
“You’re testing my memory. That was a long time ago.” She thinks for a moment. “It was a pun, Safety Pin, or something similar.”
I pull up Gilcrest’s résumé on LinkedIn. There, in the first entry, is a part-time job working for Pin Safety in Manhattan.
“Do you have security footage at the condo?” I ask.
“What do you think?”
“You probably have all the evidence you need sitting somewhere in the cloud,” I say. “We should call Seton. She can meet us here.”
Ginger suddenly growls. I turn to the thick forest surrounding us. Beside me, Freya slides a bullet into the rifle’s chamber. I tap Seton’s name on my phone. A twig snaps, and Ginger charges into the trees. Freya takes off after the dog, rifle in hand.
“Charlie,” Seton says on the other end of the line, “what’s with this teaser? You couldn’t give me a heads-up?”
I cut her off. “We’re at the trailhead by Burkehaven Farm,” I whisper. “Come. Now.”
I sprint into the woods after Freya. In the distance, a snarl follows a splash.
