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Ripley lowered her voice, ‘What do you know, Mr. Holt?’
Holt pulled up the sleeve of his suit jacket and showed his wrist. He was wearing a wristband for a beach resort in the Bahamas. Ella had to conclude right there and then that Thomas Holt was not a killer, merely a jerk. The revelation disappointed her, but she prayed Holt’s incoming information could put her back on track.
‘I’m telling you now, I had nothing to do with this. I’ve been in the Bahamas for four days. I got receipts, plane tickets, and a wife and two kids that’ll vouch for me. I know I’ve been yanking your chain, but I swear – I’m innocent in all this.’
Ella took it on board. ‘We’ll corroborate your claims, Mr. Holt. Please carry on.’
‘So, puzzles. There was this one kid. Real quiet, kept to himself. He didn’t say a whole lot. In fact, I’m not sure he could even talk. He had a problem, you know?’
Ella listened intently, her curiosity reaching breaking point. ‘A developmental problem.’
Holt snapped his fingers, ‘Yeah, something like that. Anyway, this kid was in a different class, so I don’t remember his name at all. I just remember the rumors about him.’
‘Rumors?’
'Yeah. He was rich as hell, mom was some big shot business owner. Some kids said they'd seen his house, and it was just… barren. But this kid, he didn't communicate like you or me. He had to write everything down, and one day he just started writing these cryptic messages, just scrambled letters that made no sense.'
Ella leaned in closer, her detective instincts fully engaged. ‘Cryptic messages? Do you remember what they were about?’
Holt shook his head. ‘Nah, they were gibberish to us. But it was his thing, you know? He always had a notepad with him, scribbling away. The only time he seemed... alive, I guess, was when he was solving puzzles or creating these codes.’
Ripley interjected, ‘Do you recall any specific about this person? Looks, address, anything?’
‘Real skinny, looked homeless. Black hair, weasel cheeks. Uniform was always filthy. A total loner. Then one day, must have been sophomore year, the kid just vanished. No explanation. Nothing.’
Ella absorbed every detail, the possibilities spinning like a carousel. ‘Vanished? No reason given?’
‘Nothing. Like he never existed.’
Ripley was already tapping into her phone, likely running searches on missing students from that time. ‘We need to find out who this kid was,’ she muttered.
‘But that’s not all,’ Holt said. ‘Around tenth grade, someone mentioned the kid to James Gorton, and Gorton freaked out, like he was hiding something. After that, it became kind of taboo to mention him. Then we all just forgot about him.’
Someone hadn’t forgotten about him, Ella thought. ‘And you don’t remember a name at all?’
‘Barely. It was something weird, not your standard Justin or Zack or whatever. We just took to calling him the Mime because he never spoke.’
Ella was already formulating the next steps. ‘Mr. Holt, did the school or the police ever get involved? Was there an investigation into his disappearance?’
Holt shrugged. ‘If there was, I didn’t hear about it. We were kids, more concerned with prom dates and grades. But I remember his disappearance was like a ghost story for a while.’
Ella felt a mix of unease and determination. This mysterious, puzzle-obsessed kid, seemingly forgotten by time, was undoubtedly the person responsible for four murders. It all fit too perfectly.
She was ready to head back. Thomas Holt was not a murderer, but he might have helped her find one.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
The night was unusually quiet in the outskirts of town where she lived, her house nestled among sprawling fields that stretched into the horizon. It was a peaceful life, far from the chaos of the city, but tonight, the solitude felt more like isolation.
A text message from an old friend had informed her that James Gorton – the boy she’d deemed the love of her life, at least for a few weeks back in high school – had been strangled on his front lawn. The fourth member of her circle to succumb to premature death, and by her count, that meant there was just one more to go.
And it was her.
The pattern was clear, and it seemed like a sinister countdown had begun, one that left her and another former classmate in its dreadful wake.
She’s already purchased plane tickets to New Jersey. Departure the following morning, no return penciled in. She’d stay there as long as she had to.
All she had to do was survive the night.
