Page 143 of Trust No One

“That’s only a guess.”

“Why would someone poison a dog?”

“Practice.”

“Why would anyone save the remains?” I asked.

“Killers keep mementos.”

My brain struggled with someone stowing the animal’s remains as a trophy. “Amy knew what was in the trunk.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

Judson

Thursday, October 22, 2026, 6:00 p.m.

Back at the office, Meg was waiting. She’d analyzed the footage from the six hunting cameras.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Definitely human activity.”

She swiveled her computer screen toward me. Six different black-and-white feeds glowed on the screen. The first two showed Hale House—front and back.

I zeroed in on those. The house sat dark, silent, quiet. “Any activity at the house?”

“You’d be amazed.” She fast-forwarded to mid-September.

At midnight on the twentieth, a light flared in the kitchen. It moved across the room. The refrigerator opened; a shadowed hooded figure placed items inside. Then the light drifted deeper into the house and then reappeared on the second floor.

“Is that a bedroom at the end of the hallway?”

“That’s my guess,” she said.

“That room belonged to Raine’s mother,” I said.

“The figure appears to be a woman.” She tapped the screen. “Watch.”

The figure stepped to the window, flashlight beam glaring. The hood slipped back—blond hair, pale skin, but no sharp facial details. The gait was also wrong for a man. Narrower stride. Smaller steps.

The trespasser could’ve been Amy.

Raine also fit the description.

I didn’t want to believe it was Raine—that she was a part of this. That personal bias was a problem. It could cloud how I interpreted evidence.

“Any guess?” Meg asked.

“Could be Amy.”

“Or Raine?”

“Maybe. Do we have footage of a car in the driveway?”

“No. The disk on that camera was missing.”

“Intentional?”