"No. It's just not supported by anything." Noah turned from the board. "Aspen is a man with a grudge and a set of skills that match the profile. Half the county with a chip on their shoulder fits that description. The rifles were the one thing that could have made it specific. Now they're gone."
He walked out. Callie gathered her files. McKenzie appeared in the doorway.
"Thorne. You coming?"
She looked back at the board. Two victims. One shooter. A profile that described a ghost. The only man who had made sense no longer matched. Nothing had replaced him. The comparison images lingered in her head—the grooves that didn't match. The science didn't lie. Aspen's rifles weren't the weapon. And nothing pointed to who owned the real one.
14
Ethan was in the kitchen when Noah got home.
That alone was unusual. For weeks his son had been a closed door and the sound of footsteps passing through the hallway. But tonight he was standing at the counter eating cereal from the box, his phone face down beside him, wearing a charcoal henley Noah had never seen before and jeans that fit better than anything in his closet. His hair was different too. Not drastically, just trimmed and shaped, as if someone had told him it looked good and he had listened.
The sneakers were new as well. Not flashy. Just clean, well-made, the kind of thing a teenager wouldn't buy for himself because he wouldn't know they existed. Someone had taken Ethan shopping, or at least pointed him in a direction he hadn't been pointed in before. The overall effect was subtle. If Noah hadn't been trained to notice details, he might have missed it entirely. But the sum of the changes added up to something he couldn't ignore: his son was being shaped.
Noah set his keys on the table and watched his son eat dry cereal from the box. Mindlessly. As if no one was watching. ButEthan knew. His posture had a slight rigidity, aware of being observed and choosing not to acknowledge it.
"Hey," Noah said.
"Hey."
"You're home early."
Ethan shrugged. "Had nothing going on."
Noah opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water. He leaned against the counter across from his son and drank half of it slowly, giving himself time to choose his words. The confrontational approach hadn't worked. The soft approach hadn't worked. Every conversation he had attempted in the past month had ended the same way.
Maybe tonight he needed to try something different. He stayed where he was and said nothing for a while.
Ethan ate. Noah drank his water. The kitchen clock ticked. Through the window above the sink, the last of the evening light was fading behind the tree line on the far side of the lake.
"The school called today," Noah said.
Ethan's hand stopped moving between the box and his mouth. A small hesitation, barely a second. "About what?"
"You left again at one-thirty. Same as yesterday. You told the front desk you had a family appointment."
"I did."
"No, you didn't."
Ethan set the cereal box on the counter. He didn't look guilty. He looked annoyed, the way people look when they've been caught in a lie they expected to hold longer. "It's not a big deal."
"Leaving school in the middle of the day with a fake excuse is a big deal."
"I had something to take care of."
"What?"
"Personal."
"You're seventeen. Nothing is that personal."
Ethan finally looked at him. The eye contact was new. Six months ago Ethan would have been staring at the floor during a conversation like this, shoulders hunched, voice barely above a mumble. Now he held Noah's gaze with a composure that didn't belong to a teenager eating cereal in his father's kitchen.
"Where were you?" Noah asked.
"Out."
