"Well," Hugh said. "Come in."
Earlier that afternoon,before Noah met his father, he had been at his desk in Ray Brook going through the Pike file for the third time.
The search warrant had been executed that morning. A team from the Sheriff's Office, assisted by troopers, had arrived at Pike's property in Keene at seven AM. Pike had been combative at the door, as expected, but complied once he saw the paperwork. Six firearms seized, including the .30-06 he had mentioned in the interview. His computer and phone were also taken for forensic analysis. Savannah had assigned Declan and another investigator to build the case around Pike's online activity, cross-referencing his posts with the timeline of the murder.
On paper, the investigation was progressing. A suspect had been identified, his weapons were being tested, and the task force had a working theory supported by the federal threat database. Savannah was satisfied. The machine was turning.
Noah wasn't convinced.
He had spent an hour that morning scrolling through Pike's social media. Three years of posts. Videos filmed in a dim basement with an American flag tacked to the wall behind him. Forum threads where he argued with strangers about government surveillance and vaccine mandates and the "corrupt mainstream media." The posts were loud, scattered, and repetitive. The same grievances recycled into different words. The same outrage performed for an audience that mostly wasn't there.
He found Callie in the break room refilling her coffee.
“His social media account is a mess. Pike writes like a man who wants attention," he said. "Every post is a performance. Every video is a monologue. He needs people to hear him."
Callie leaned against the counter. "And?"
"Whoever pulled that trigger didn't want to be seen. They wanted the opposite. They wanted to disappear."
"So where does that leave us?"
"Waiting on ballistics. If Pike's rifles don't match, and I don’t think they will, Savannah loses her theory."
"And if they do match?"
"Then I'm wrong." He paused.
Callie studied him over the rim of her mug. She didn't argue. She didn't agree. She just let it sit, which was one of the things he valued most about her.
Noah went back to his desk. He picked up his keys and left the building.
The drive from Ray Brook to the north side of High Peaks Lake took twenty minutes on Route 86. Noah kept the windows down. The light was starting to turn, the shadows of the mountains stretching east across the road. He passed the turnoff for Mirror Lake, the cluster of motels and restaurants near the ski jump, and the long sweep of lakefront where the tourist traffic thinned and the houses grew larger and farther apart.
He had made this drive a thousand times. As a kid in the backseat. As a teenager with a freshly printed license. As a young man coming home from the Marines with a duffel bag and a jaw that hurt from clenching it the whole flight. The landscape never changed. The mountains were the same. The lake was the same. It was only the person driving who was different.
The folder sat on the passenger seat. He didn't look at it. He didn't need to. The conversation he was about to have had been building since the day the Parabon results came back, assembling itself in his mind one sentence at a time, a confrontation he kept rehearsing and never delivering. Every morning he told himself today. Every evening he found a reason to wait.
There were no more reasons.
Hugh's housesat on the north side of High Peaks Lake, a two-story brick colonial with white columns and a wraparound porch. Southern plantation style, people called it, which was an odd thing to build in the Adirondacks. Five million dollars' worth of waterfront property that didn't belong to Hugh at all. It belonged to Luther Ashford.
Noah knew the house. He had lived in it himself, briefly, when he first moved back to High Peaks. Luther had gifted it to him rent-free, a gesture that seemed generous until Noah understood what it really was. The moment he found out who owned it, he left. He bought Alicia’s property on Connery Pond Road with his own money and never looked back. Hugh had moved in after, settling into the space after Noah had vacated, accepting Luther's hospitality the way he had accepted Luther's control for a decade. Another leash. Another way to keep the old man close.
And the family home near Mirror Lake, the house where Noah had grown up, where his mother had lived and died, Hugh had sold it. Against Noah's wishes. One more thing Luther had maneuvered him into. One more piece of the family stripped away.
This house was something else entirely. It still looked like Hugh's. It was maintained to a standard that suggested Hugh Sutherland had opinions about how things should look and the means to enforce them. But it was Luther's. And walking through the door meant walking into a space that reminded Noah of exactly how deep his father's compromise ran.
Noah followed his father through the foyer and into the kitchen. The oak table was polished to a shine. Two chairs werepulled out, as if Hugh had been sitting with someone recently. A glass of water sat beside a folded newspaper.
"Coffee?" Hugh asked.
"I'm fine."
Hugh poured himself a cup from the pot on the counter. His movements were slow. He set the cup on the table and sat down. Noah took the chair across from him.
For a moment, neither spoke. The refrigerator hummed. Through the window, the lake was calm under a sky that was starting to lose its light.
"I heard about Maggie Coleman," Hugh said. "Terrible thing."
