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“You tried to disappear, but we know where you are.”
CHAPTER 12
Friday, October 2, 2015 Cambridge, England 2:15 p.m.
THE IDEA FOR THE BOARD CAME TO ALEX AFTER A PARTICULARLY lucid dream about the night her family was killed. Her dreams had become so vivid since escaping the circus of her old life in the United States that Alex had taken to writing down every detail she could remember about them as soon as she woke. She purchased a corkboard from a craft store—a four-foot-by-four-foot square—and hung it on the kitchen wall to collect her thoughts. Class schedules and dates of upcoming midterm exams should have been pegged to it. Photos, too, of family and friends. Instead, Alex pinned index cards around the board that contained every detail she could remember about the night her family was killed, in addition to new facts she’d uncovered in her yearlong pursuit for answers. The most recent addition to the board was a photo of the Sparhafen Bank in Zürich, next to which was one of the bank statements she’d found in the attic.
On the far left-hand side of the board was an index card with the words Home Invasion written across it and then X’d out by a red Sharpie. The home invasion theory, which was the current position taken by the McIntosh PD, was subterfuge. The department needed to blame the murders on someone after their lead suspect had been acquitted, so they settled on burglary gone bad. It was a lazy and uninspired theory and had been proven false a thousand times over. A home invasion for the purpose of burglary came with a motive to steal. But nothing was missing from the Quinlan home. Plus, the McIntosh PD’s explanation of events did not match what Alex knew. She had been watching from her bedroom when her brother was killed, and had been hiding behind the grandfather clock when the killer entered Alex’s room looking for the last remaining member of the Quinlan family. The killer had not been startled by Alex’s father, as was suggested by the incompetent detectives who attempted to explain the scene. For that to be the case, her dad would have had to stumble upon the killer. That her father had been shot while lying in bed, under the covers and likely sound asleep, proved the McIntosh Police Department’s official line not only impossible, but stunningly incompetent.
The middle of the board held the pictures found on her parents’ bed of three women and an image of the fingerprint lifted from her bedroom window. On the far right-hand side of the board was a detailed timeline of that day. It included every detail Alex remembered from nearly every minute of that late afternoon and evening, starting with the moment she arrived home from school and proceeding to her going to bed for the night, and ultimately being woken by the gunshot. The details were painstakingly specific, including such particulars as the exact physics chapter she studied that night for homework—Newton’s first law of motion, which Alex had written on an index card: An object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. It was a mantra that ran through her thoughts at odd times during the past two years. The board’s location in the kitchen, next to where Alex hung her jacket each day, ensured that her thoughts never drifted far from that fateful night.
* * *
The day after Alex returned from Zürich, she looked at the board before grabbing her coat on the way out of her apartment and headed to campus. The ruse started halfway through freshman year when Alex returned to the States to spend Christmas break with the Lancasters. By then Alex knew that college in Europe, or anywhere else for that matter, was not for her. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Donna and Garrett. The lie continued through the second semester of her freshman year and persisted over the past summer. Alex wasn’t sure how long she would lie about college. Still technically enrolled, she had yet to step foot in a classroom during her second year. At some point she’d come clean to Donna and Garrett, if for no other reason than it would start an argument. Free from the reins of authority at the ripe age of eighteen, Alex now longed for someone to tell her what to do. She wanted someone to disobey. She craved an argument with someone who wanted the best for her. An argument would mean there was someone watching out for her, caring about where her decisions took her and what impact they had on her life.
This desire for affection was the only reason Alex stepped foot on campus each week. Donna and Garrett sent one letter a week, always to her university address. Perhaps this was their way of making sure Alex was at least occasionally on campus. The only reason she still had an active mailbox at the university was because the tuition had been paid in full. Alex Quinlan existed on the ledger of Cambridge University, and her account was in good standing. No one on campus would pay her any mind until the next tuition bill came due, or until midterms revealed not just failing grades, but no recorded grades at all. That impending doom was like a far-off asteroid. At first, it was nothing more than a speck in the sky too far away to cause much angst. But now, a month into her second year, Alex was walking in the shadow of that approaching asteroid. As long as she had answers to look for and clues to follow, however, she could convince herself to ignore it.
Alex strolled through campus, crossing a bridge that arched over the stream that wound through the grounds, nostalgic for what this era of her life might look like had she been able to lead a normal existence. When she reached the registrar’s office, Alex walked inside and headed to a wall of mailboxes. She inserted her key and removed a small stack of envelopes, then shuffled through them looking for Donna and Garrett’s letter.
“Weren’t you in my criminology class last year?” the girl next to her asked.
The accent was heavy and mixed, and Alex didn’t immediately recognize it. Students came to Cambridge from across all of Europe, and there were too many dialects and accents to keep track of. Alex looked up from sorting her mail. The girl had a set of keys in her hands and was preparing to open her mailbox. Alex studied the girl and tried to place the face but was certain she’d never seen her before. Although Alex had enrolled in criminology the first semester of freshman year and had occasionally attended the class, so it was entirely possible that Alex had, indeed, crossed paths with this girl.
“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Alex said.
“Professor Mackity?”
Alex nodded. That might have been the name of the professor who taught the class, but she couldn’t remember. “Yeah.”
The girl smiled. “I thought I recognized you. I’m Laverne.”
“Alex.”
“Did you do okay?”
Alex paused a moment. “With what?”
“Criminology. Mackity can be a real pain in the ass. I got out with a C and was lucky to get that.”
Alex had passed with a D.
“Me too. I got a C.”
“Ah, cream of the crop you and I are. You know what they call C students after four years of school?”
Alex waited.
“University graduates.”
Alex forced a smile. “Right.”
“Hey,” Laverne said, “I’m meeting some mates tonight for a drink. You want to join us?”
“Oh.” Alex smiled and shook her head. “I can’t tonight. I’ve got some, uh, studying to do.”
“On a Friday night? You’re a committed one, aren’t you?”
Alex closed her eyes at the terrible lie she’d been caught in.
