"What's that supposed to mean?"
"We always think our decisions are giving us some advantage over disadvantage. But the truth is it never does. It only gives us another experience. The same bullshit, the same joys, just wrapped up in a different package." He leaned back. "Why do you think I've never gone after advancement?"
"I just thought that was you being stubborn,” Ray said with a smile.
They sat in the silence for a moment. The building hummed around them. Phones rang in the office. Someone's printer jammed and an officer cursed at it. The ordinary sounds of a department that was running on caffeine and diminishing hope.
"So what was the outcome?" Ray asked.
"No sightings of Samuel so far. His home and the agency are clean. No weapons. No personal items from the girls. If he kept trophies or evidence, he didn't keep them in either location."
Ray nodded slowly.
Noah leaned forward. "If it does come to light that he was behind these murders, we should call the attorney general and see if we can get a stay on that execution."
"Even if he is behind them, Noah," Ray said. "Doesn't mean he didn't kill Kara Ellison."
"No, I get that. But once we match the DNA from the jacket and ID found on Brooke Danvers to the knife, that should give us the connection we need."
"Doesn't matter. The timeline doesn't match."
"What?"
"David Hughes wasn't in business with Strutz five years ago."
"You said..."
"I said he ran another agency in another state six years ago. He didn't open Strutz for another two years after that. Kara Ellison was murdered five years ago."
"It doesn't mean he didn't kill her. We can pin down when he moved from Colorado to High Peaks by checking with the DMV and with Sue Braxton." Noah sat up straighter. "Hell, Jessie Maddox, Seraphine's mother, went missing around the same time. Who's to say he wasn't behind that too?"
"But without hard proof regarding the Kara case, that's all noise to the DA. You know Maddie as well as I do. She'll request concrete evidence and we simply don't have it yet." Ray spread his hands. "We don't even have Samuel."
"So we don't even attempt to stop the execution?" Noah asked. "We have reasonable doubt."
"The attorney general won't do it, Noah. And you know that."
"Carter didn't do it."
Ray sighed and looked at him. Not with anger. Not with the defensive edge he'd carried during their break room confrontation. Something more tired than that. More resigned.
"What did our father always tell us growing up?"
Noah was quiet for a moment. "What we believe doesn't mean anything without facts."
"That's right. And right now all we have is circumstantial evidence at best."
Noah got up and nodded once. He walked out without another word. The conversation had ended the way these conversations always ended with Ray. Reasonable. Measured. Airtight in its logic. And completely, maddeningly insufficient.
No sooner had he stepped into the office than Callie was coming toward him, grabbing her jacket off the back of a chair, phone still pressed to her ear. She hung up.
"An officer found Samuel's vehicle. Parked outside Adirondack Regional Airport."
Six cruisersand two unmarked vehicles converged on the airport within twenty minutes. The parking lot was small, the way everything about regional airports in the Adirondacks was small, and Samuel's car sat in the third row near the terminal entrance. A silver sedan, doors locked, engine cold. It had been there long enough to collect a fine layer of pollen on the windshield.
Noah circled the vehicle while officers fanned out through the lot and into the terminal. Callie went inside with McKenzie. Noah stayed in the lot, directing patrol units to cover the exits and the access roads. The airport was a single-terminal building with one main entrance, two gates, and a parking lot that held maybe two hundred cars. If Hughes was here, there weren't many places to go.
A patrol officer approached from the terminal entrance. Young, out of breath, notebook in hand.
