Noah's mind went quiet. The bar noise fell away. The hockey game, the couple arguing, the clink of glasses. All of it receded as the second letter came to mind.
The porch light.
It came back to him without warning.
Rebecca Hale used to leave the porch light on after midnight when Liam was away at school. She said it made the house feel less empty.
Noah stared at the table.
That wasn't something you pulled from a report. That wasn't something you guessed. That was something you knew. Something you saw. Someone who had been close enough to the house to notice it. And to understand what it meant.
Danny Walsh's voice cut through it.
Leave him out of this.
Connor.
The name settled in. Not as a conclusion. As a direction.
McKenzie's voice came back. "Noah?"
He was staring at the table. The newspaper. The bourbon. The condensation ring on the wood.
Noah set his glass down and got up.
“Where you going?” McKenzie asked.
"I need to check something," he said.
Callie looked at him. "Now?"
“No. Tomorrow." He pulled his jacket from the back of the booth. “I’ve got to be up early."
McKenzie watched him. The look on his face was the look he always gave Noah when the gears started turning and the conversation was about to end without explanation.
"You know something," McKenzie said. “Don’t you?”
"Maybe."
“Are you going to tell us what it is?"
Noah put his jacket on. "Not yet," he said. "Let me make sure I'm right first."
He dropped cash on the table and walked out into the night. The weather was cold, the rain from yesterday was gone. The sky had cleared to black with stars sharp enough to cut. His breath hung in the air. The street was quiet. Just a few cars parked. A couple walking arm in arm toward the lake.
He got in the Bronco and sat for a moment.
Connor Walsh. Au Sable Forks.
He didn't have the answer yet. But he knew where to find it.
27
The morning was cold enough to see his breath.
Noah drove north on Route 9 with the windows cracked, letting the air cut through the cab. The trees along the road had turned hard in the last week, reds fading to rust, the last of the gold going brittle at the edges. Leaves scattered across the asphalt in gusts that made them look like small animals running.
Au Sable Forks sat at the confluence of two branches of the Ausable River, a small town that had been built around lumber and iron and had never fully recovered from losing both. The main road ran through the center past a general store, a laundromat, a church with a steeple that needed paint, and a gas station that looked like it had been there since the Eisenhower administration.
