"And the Three Pillar farm and the deli?" Ray asked.
McKenzie leaned forward. "We've searched them top to bottom. No victims. No human blood. That blood in the trough was confirmed to be from a pig."
Callie added, "We have border control alerted for Canada. State and local departments in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are on the lookout for Hollis."
Ray nodded slowly. He tapped his pen against the table twice, then turned to Noah. "I need to talk to you in the office."
They headed in. Callie and McKenzie watched them go, exchanging a glance but saying nothing. Ray closed the door behind them and pulled the blinds shut across the interior window. The room went private.
"You can't go speaking to Seraphine again."
Noah frowned. "Excuse me?"
"We were contacted by her therapist today. Someone she's been working with for years. They've been unraveling years of abuse and the last thing they need is you showing up and unearthing old memories."
"Her artwork helped us find those bodies.”
“No, you did, Noah,” Ray said. “This woman isn’t psychic.”
“You don’t know that. Are you aware that a woman we interviewed recently, one who escaped the community, told us Seraphine's mother is the sister of Tabitha Smith. Jessie Maddox. And that Jessie had gone missing years ago."
"The therapist told us. She also described some of the trauma Seraphine went through. Being locked in the barn. Isolation.Things I don't need to get into." Ray sat on the edge of his desk. "I told them you were doing your job and that you won't be speaking to her again."
"We might have to."
"Noah." Ray's voice dropped. "They told me that your visit to her studio has set her back months in therapy. She's sleepwalking again."
That stopped him. "Again? Are you saying she did that before?"
"Yeah. It was one of the behaviors the therapist had been working to resolve. Night terrors, dissociative episodes, walking in her sleep to locations connected to the trauma. And now it's back." Ray folded his arms. "Whatever she knows, whatever you think she can give us, it's not worth destroying that girl. Find another way."
Noah thought about Seraphine on the sidewalk outside her studio, the way her arms had tightened across her chest, the way she'd retreated the moment he mentioned Three Pillars. The fear in her wasn't the ordinary kind. He nodded once and walked out without another word.
19
The vending machine in the break room at High Peaks Police Station promised fresh coffee and delivered something closer to warm brown water. Ray was standing in front of it with a paper cup in his hand, watching the stream fill, when Noah walked in.
"The lab report on the knife in the Lyle case says the blood was too degraded to identify. Inconclusive due to insufficient viable genetic material." Noah didn't sit. He didn’t get a cup of coffee, he just stood in the doorway and let the words land. "But the prosecution's summary says the blood was confirmed as Kara Ellison's. How does inconclusive become confirmed?"
Ray picked up his cup and took a sip. He didn't rush. He didn't flinch. "The DA's office writes their own summaries, Noah. I gave them what we had. How they presented it to the jury is their call. That's how it works. You know that."
"The chain of custody log has a two-day gap. April 14th to the 16th. The brother turned the knife in and it was logged, then nothing until it was transferred to the county facility. No entries. No record of who had access. Where was it?"
"It was five years ago. We were working around the clock. If the log has a gap, it's because somebody forgot to sign it in and out. Not because anything happened to it. The knife sat in the evidence locker. Where else would it be?"
"And Luke's body cam? He's the one who took the knife from Carter's brother. His footage is listed as corrupted and unrecoverable. Every other officer involved in the case has footage on file. Just not Luke."
Ray's expression shifted. Not much. But enough. "You're going to question Luke? Our brother?"
"I'm questioning the file, Ray. Luke's camera is the only one that would have shown the handoff. The condition of the knife when it came in. How it was handled. And it's gone."
"Luke's been dead for three years. His equipment was processed and returned. The file was corrupted. That happens. You know it happens."
"Your supplemental filing references the lab findings as supportive of the prosecution's theory, but you never quote the actual language. You never use the word inconclusive."
"I summarized the findings. I'm not going to copy and paste a lab report into a supplemental. The full report was available to the defense. If Carter Lyle's lawyers had a problem with the evidence, they had every opportunity to challenge it. They didn't. Because the case was solid."
Noah studied his brother. Ray's answers were smooth. Polished, even. He wasn't fumbling, wasn't caught off guard. These were measured responses from someone who had anticipated the questions long before they were asked. Or someone who had been through enough investigations to know how to frame an answer without lying outright.
