"No?" A sound that might have been a laugh if it had any warmth in it. "Oh please. Shut up. You just want me to surrender."
"You can just drop me off. Take the car."
"And go where?" The gun pressed harder. “No, with all the ruckus this case has caused, it's gained national attention. My face would be plastered all over the news within twenty-four hours." He paused. The tremor in his hand worsened and then steadied. "This was my home. This was my life. And now it's over."
"Doesn't have to be," Noah said. "Just give me the gun and..."
"Stop with that negotiation shit. It won't work." The barrel moved from Noah's ribs to the side of his neck. Cold against the skin just below his ear. "I've done nothing wrong."
Noah glanced at the rearview mirror. Samuel's eyes met his.
"Taking a dead person's name isn't right," Noah said.
Samuel stared at him through the mirror. A truck passed going the other direction and the shadow of it rolled across the cab.
"I didn't have much choice."
"You did it to cover up your history. So what do I call you? Samuel or David Hughes?"
"It doesn't matter." He shifted the gun to the base of Noah's skull. "Stay on this road. Don't go too fast."
They passed through Bloomingdale. The houses thinned out and the forest closed in on both sides, black spruce and balsam fir pressing up against the road like a wall. A gas station sat on the right, its pumps empty, a clerk visible through the window. Then it was behind them and the trees closed in again.
"To everyone I'm already guilty," Samuel said.
"If you're not, why run?"
"Why run?" He chuckled and the sound of it filled the back seat like something loose and broken rolling around. "Oh please. Give me some credit." He was quiet for a moment. The road rose and fell through the hills. "I didn't rape that girl in Colorado. They got it all wrong. I was cleared. They let me go. But it ruined my reputation. I couldn’t have continued even if I wanted to."
"And so you changed your name and moved across the country."
"Because it didn't matter that they let me go. The accusation was enough. My name, my real name, was finished. Every time someone searched David Hughes they got 'Model Mogul's Studio of Secrets.' Every client gone. Every model gone. Four years of work gone because a girl with mental health issues decided I was her target." The words came faster now, as if he'd been holding them for years and the gun in his hand had given him permission to finally let them out. "I came here to start over. That's all. A new name. A new agency. A chance to do the work without the past following me."
"And Hailey?"
The gun shifted. Not harder. Looser. Samuel's grip was changing, the adrenaline giving way to something heavier.
"Hailey came to me," he said. "Not the other way around. She had problems at home. She was lonely. She didn't have anyone to talk to and I had always been nice to her. I never laid a hand on that girl. She came to the agency that night. She'd been drinking. A lot. She was upset about something with her parents and she wanted to talk. I let her in."
"And?"
"She kept drinking. I had some beers in the office. She helped herself. I should have sent her home but I didn't. She got worse. Started crying. I tried to comfort her and she took it the wrong way. Thought I was coming on to her. She struck me on the head with a bottle and ran out."
"And you went after her."
"I went looking for her. She'd been drinking, she was upset, it was dark. I wanted to make sure she was safe. But I never found her." His voice dropped. "And now none of that matters. Because no one is going to believe me. Not after Colorado. Not with all those murders. Not with Hailey still missing."
Noah watched the road. They were on River Road now, heading toward the Whiteface Memorial Highway. The mountains filled the windshield ahead of them, massive and indifferent, a landscape that made everything human feel small.
"That's why you called her multiple times the night she went missing," Noah said. "And when you heard she'd shown up and was at the hospital."
Samuel nodded. Noah could see the movement in the mirror.
"I just wanted to talk to her."
"Before she talked to us?"
He nodded again. Slower this time. "I know how that looks. I know how all of it looks. But I swear to you, I didn't hurt her. I didn't hurt any of them."
