I felt a lump of discomfort form in my chest. “You’re going to ask me about my father again, aren’t you?” I couldn’t help but snap, still mad they had put him through that.
“He’s a person of interest, Rose. That’s all. One among many.”
“I’d love to know why,” I said, crossing my arms in annoyance.
“I can’t tell you that,” Pullman said. “It would be interfering with the investigation. Which I think you’ve done enough of already.”
“So why am I even here?”
Pullman sighed. “Because you want to find your sister. Just like I do. And in order to do that, I need you to let me in. Work with me instead of against me. Please.”
It wasn’t as if I had much of a choice. I was fresh out of leads, and Pullman did seem like he was trying to be genuine and helpful.
“Fine. I’ll try. Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” Pullman said, and he actually looked it. “Let’s get into it—after I go to the bathroom,” he added, pushing his nearly empty soda cup away from him. “Don’t go anywhere.” I watched him rise from the booth, giving me one last look before he slipped out of it and headed toward the men’s room.
I didn’t know how to feel. On the one hand, I had always hoped more people would listen to me, would consider the possibility that Will was innocent. It was what I had spent the last eleven years of my life trying to accomplish. But now, it just felt like a last-ditch attempt from Pullman to make sense of Hazel’s case. Which meant he had nothing.
I didn’t want to sit with the thought. I opened up my phone, searching for the local school superintendent’s email. I found it in seconds and opened up a new message to him on my email then attached the recording I had taken at Bradley’s and typed out a quick message about who it featured. I clicked the Send button before I could change my mind.There, I thought as the wordsentflashed across the top of my screen. There was no way they’d sweep this under the rug. There would be HR meetings and professional consequences. Bradley would have to answer for sleeping with me and Alex, and whoever had comein between and after. I might not be able to do anything for Hazel, but I could at least protect the girls that would come after her. It made me feel slightly less useless.
I was about to close out of my phone when I decided to open a new tab on my browser and typed “Dominick Pullman” into the search bar. If Pullman wanted me to be open and honest with him, I was going to do a little digging on who he was first. The first few pages were all links to the sheriff’s department website andPalm Beach Postarticles where he had been quoted about the job. He didn’t have a large online presence, mostly work stuff. I scrolled through some of the more boring pages until I found his Facebook profile. It was set to public. I found his birthday: He was thirty, and a local. He had gone to Palm Beach Gardens High School and then FAU. I kept scrolling through his page until I stumbled upon a comment from another officer under a photo of Pullman. He was smiling in front of a bag full of toy donations for the sheriff’s department toy drive. The other officer had written,Thank you for the donation. Way to go, Nick!
Nick. I froze. I had been so focused on the “Nicholas” angle that I had never considered that the name might be a nickname for Dominick.
What were the fucking chances? Heart racing, I scrolled back up and checked his graduation year. Class of 2011. I scrambled back to my email, searching for the ten or so unopened yearbooks I’d requested from Classmates.com. I stopped when I found one buried between emails from Marta and my publisher.
I opened the link. By now, I had done this so many times that it felt useless, but my fingers were shaking anyway as I opened the search bar and typed in “Dominick.”
And then there he was. Nick from the mall.
My fingers hovered on the screen, zooming in on the photo of the floppy-haired, dimpled boy I remembered from that day. My teenage memory had made him more attractive, the way we had always seen older boys. Looking at him now, eleven years later, he looked more average. But there was no question it was him. There was something about his face I couldn’t place.
And then I stopped cold, realizing the reason he looked so familiar.
Mall boy’s full name, written just under his picture, was Dominick Pullman.
26
I immediately left the booth, not caring if I stuck Pullman with the bill. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. My heart was pounding in my chest as I pushed through the restaurant, past the hostess, and through the double doors into the humid Florida night.
Pullman was Nick.
Pullman had known Alex—and me—this entire time. Alex had given him her number. Had he used it? Had the two of them been sneaking around together?
Had he killed her?
If he had, he also had the perfect cover. I pictured Pullman’s thick, large hands wrapped around Alex’s throat, squeezing the life out of her in our backyard. Who would suspect anyone else with Will sleeping only twenty feet away?
I felt a wave of nausea roll over me. Pullman had read my book, “cover to cover,” he’d said.He knew I remembered him from the mall, yet he had kept quiet. Why else would he have done that if he wasn’t involved? Had he insisted on being put on Hazel’s case too? Had he been using the investigation to cover up his tracks for both crimes? The questions raced through my brain.
I felt like such an idiot. I had almost agreed to work with this man. To tell him everything I knew. I had to admit I had been charmed by him slightly, and I was now revolted by myself. But this feeling was followed by a strike of real, genuine fear as I jogged through the Chili’s parking lot toward my rental car. It was still two lots away, in Bradley’s visitor spot.
I broke out into a run. I didn’t know how long I had before Pullman got back from the bathroom and realized I was missing, but I wasn’t going to still be here when he did. I hoped he thought I was just being evasive. The way I had been this whole time.
I didn’t relax until I was in the car, doors locked, and speeding back to Loxahatchee. My phone rang twice during the drive. It was Pullman. I pulled over to the side of the road when I saw his third call flashing on my screen.
I had no fucking idea what to do. He was the homicide detective on this case. Who would I even go to with this information? It wasn’t as if Detective Newbury would take me seriously. If Pullmanwasinvolved, he could have already destroyed any evidence. I needed to be smart about this.
