"Convenient," Callie added, watching Noah through the glass.
Ray was quiet for a moment. "I don't think it was him."
Callie cast a sideways glance. "What?"
"Responsible for the murders of those girls found in the bog. He was in Colorado at the time."
"And Brooke Danvers? Fiona Spence?"
"Fiona Spence hasn't been found, so no idea on that. But Samuel's DNA was not found on Brooke Danvers. As for Hailey Benton and the girl from Colorado, I think he was a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Twice?" Callie asked.
"Without proof, it's all circumstantial." Ray looked through the glass at his brother again. Noah was talking now, his hands flat on the table, his expression steady. Whatever he was telling the BCI detectives, he was telling it the same way he told everything. "With that video footage, they'll release him in a few hours. Tell him to call me."
"And the investigation?" Callie asked.
Ray was already heading for the door. He stopped with his hand on the frame and looked back.
"Switch your focus back to finding Derek Hollis."
Noah arrived home after nine.The house was dark and the driveway was empty and the silence that greeted him when he opened the front door had weight to it.
The BCI interview had taken four hours. Despite his position with the department, they treated every situation where a civilian was killed with an investigator's handgun as serious, and they should. Two detectives, one room, the same questions asked from different angles until the answers had been turned over and examined from every side. They'd pulled the MDVR footage, matched it to Noah's account, and walked him through every minute of the drive and every second at the falls. By the end of it they were satisfied, but satisfaction in a BCI interview didn't come with a handshake or a pat on the back. It came with paperwork and a reminder not to leave the area.
He hadn't even thought about the implications of Samuel taking his gun until the detectives brought it up. His mind had been too consumed on that bridge by the thought that Samuel was about to end his life. Not Samuel's. His. The realization that the gun Samuel used was Noah's own weapon had landed hard.
The moment he'd learned BCI would be conducting the interview, he knew he wouldn't get home in time. He'd called Kerri and arranged for Mia and Ethan to stay overnight. They were probably asleep by now, or Mia was studying and Ethan was staring at his phone waiting for a text from Fiona that wasn't coming. Either way, they were safe and they were somewhere else, and the house was his alone.
He turned on the television and caught a replay of the evening news. Ray stood behind a podium with the High Peaks Police Department crest on the front, microphones clustered in front of him, camera flashes popping in irregular bursts.
"Although David Hughes, otherwise known as Samuel Bridger, is dead, he is not being considered a suspect in the current investigation into the bodies discovered at Bloomingdale Bog."
The media jumped on it. Questions fired from off screen, overlapping, sharp. When would an arrest be made? What was being done about the missing women? Was there a connection between Brooke Danvers, Fiona Spence, and Hailey Benton? Was the public safe?
Ray did his best to put on a brave face and act as if his entire career didn't depend on the words he chose, but it did. He might have had a foot in the door for the position of chief, but that could all be swept away with one botched case. And so far they were knee-deep in more questions than answers.
A knock at the door. Noah turned the television off and went to answer it.
Callie stood on the porch holding a brown paper bag. "Figured you might not be interested in cooking." She held it up. The smell of curry and warm naan came through the paper.
"Come on in," he said.
They sat at the kitchen table and unpacked the food. Lamb vindaloo. Chicken tikka. Rice. Two garlic naans that were still warm. Callie had ordered enough for four people, which was either optimism or the understanding that a man who'd had a gun to his head needed to eat more than he thought he did.
"I appreciate this," Noah said.
Callie leaned back. "How are you doing?"
"You know. Living my best life."
"I mean it."
He stopped eating. "What?"
"You had a gun pointed at you."
"It wasn't the first. Won't be the last."
