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An excited energy bounces between Rhett and me, talking nonstop the entire way. The cool night air whips through the Jeep, invigorating our energy. I’m glad I’d left the doors off as Rhett seemed to enjoy the open space.
I am a chatterbox of theories, like a Chatty Cathy doll wound much too tightly. Who was this mysterious masked person who approached Jesse behind the pool hall? Why him? Why there? Why now, all these years later? Regardless of the identity, one thing is for certain—Rhett believes this masked man is the real person who killed my mother and framed him twenty years ago.
After all, who else would know the details of the clocks? Who else would be in possession of the necklace my mother was wearing when she was murdered?
Much like Officer Marino and I had done in the station, Rhett and I tick off each person who had access to the murder scene, the evidence, and the case file.
The list is long with many holes. Marjorie was killed twenty years ago—twentyyears ago. How many times has the Thorncrest police department’s personnel turned over since then? How many forgotten names and faces?
Rhett knows of only one person who had been involved in my mother’s case and is still employed with the department now: Detective Johnny Stroud.
Does this mean Stroud is the masked man? The man who framed Rhett? Is the small-town detective a cold-blooded killer?
If so, was Stroud the person Jesse saw lurking in the abandoned house in Deep Shadows? Why? And, if so, what was he doing with Jesse’s dad, Dr. Harris Taylor? Under the cover of night, nonetheless.
Are they working together? Partners in crime?
Could they be lovers, I ask.Secret lovers.
Or killers, Rhett corrects.
Or both, I counter.
We ponder this along with a dozen other jumbled ideas that make no sense.
As we approach the large iron gates of Deep Shadows, I can’t help but think how quickly my life has changed, in an instant it seemed. Days earlier, I couldn’t get off the couch, comatose with boredom. Now, I am racing through the night, chasing down leads with an ex-con.
“Is this it?” Rhett asks, peering at the large, ornate entry to the neighborhood.
“Yes. This is where Jesse’s parents live… You’ve never been here?”
“No.”
I frown. “But this neighborhood has been around forever. You were born and raised here, you said?”
“Not on this side of town.”
I recall the angle Detective Stroud had used twenty years earlier at his trial. Rhett was born poor and grew up poor. His carpentry business was underwater and his home and car were a week from being repossessed. He needed money—fast—andthisis why he broke into Marjorie Stone’s house to steal her jewelry.
The neighborhood is lit in the blue glow of dusk. Long black shadows stretch along the manicured lawns. A chorus of bugs roar through the air. The atmosphere is starkly different than when I visited the day before. Then, it had been eerily still, now, however, the neighborhood is a bustle of activity.
The driveways are no longer vacant, instead, filled with cars, some even parked along the street. We pass a white Tesla with loud bass booming through the windows, a stray dog darting through a row of bushes, its tail wagging wildly with freedom, and an elderly woman powerwalking with weights in her hands and a steely look in her eye—one on us, one on the wayward dog.
Rhett and I turn our cheeks as we pass the woman.
“That’s the Taylor’s house right up there,” I say quietly, as if anyone could hear us.
Rhett slows, studying the property as we pass.
Unlike the day before, the house is alive with energy. The windows glow with light, the porch swing sways in the breeze, squirrels skitter about the lawn. But there is no one in sight.
I twist in my seat, peering back at the neighboring house where I had seen the woman with red hair watching me from the window. She’s there, again, standing on a terrace of vines, a tall, statuesque silhouette.
“Who are you looking at?”
“The house next to the Taylors’—their neighbors. When I visited the other day, I saw a woman watching through the windows. Who owns the house, do you know?”
“I didn’t even know this neighborhood existed, remember?”
