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Rachel ran against a lava-lamp sky of navy cut with orange. Dawn had broken by the time she’d reached the Morrison’s Point jetty. Her breathing was labored as she leaned over the rails and looked into the dark, impenetrable water.
Long gone were the wildflowers that Hannah had scattered in the waves a few days earlier to commemorate her sister’s death. That had been the last message that Rachel had received from her. Pete was checking the podcast inbox several times a day in case Hannah reached out again. There had been plenty of mail from fans and detractors alike. Nothing from Hannah. Rachel had repeatedly called the phone number for Hannah that Kitty had given her, but it went to an automated voice mail each time. She’d left several voice messages for Hannah, but she hadn’t received any response.
It may take time for me to get you the last letter. I keep starting it and stopping,Hannah had written at the end of the email.It will take all my strength to put into words what happened to Jenny that night. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. Maybe I should leave the past alone. Let it die with me.
Hannah’s last words left Rachel deeply worried. Hannah had intimated a few times in her correspondence to Rachel that she’d contemplated death. Rachel wished there was a way for her to reach out to Hannah. To reassure her. To get her help if she needed it. But Rachel couldn’t help someone who was so determined to stay out of reach. It was almost as if Hannah wanted to keep Rachel at arm’s length. It was, Rachel thought as she watched the pink dawn drain from the sky, as if she was a pawn in a game, the rules of which only Hannah knew.
Pete had called Rachel late the previous night to share the results of the background check he’d run on Vince Knox. “Four years ago, a man by the name of Vince Knox died of a heart attack in prison,” Pete told her. Rachel had been drifting to sleep when he called, his voice filled with enough urgency to immediately wake her. “The character witness who testified about Scott Blair saving that drowning boy can’t possibly be Vince Knox, Rach. For one thing, all records of his existence date back to exactly a week to the day after the Vince Knox I mentioned died in prison. I believe the character witness took the name Vince Knox after the real Vince Knox died, but he wasn’t born with that name. He’s actually someone else. The question is who?”
“Maybe I should ask him,” said Rachel. “Do you have an address for him?”
“No fixed address. He’s a vagrant. Apparently, he sometimes sleeps on the beaches south of town in the summer.”
“That’s a big area,” said Rachel, yawning. “There are a lot of beaches south of town.”
“If it helps, I just got off the phone with a charity worker who works with the poor in Neapolis and she said that he’s been known to sleep in a boat shed near the marine reserve,” said Pete.
Rachel knew the beach Pete was referring to. Right next to thenational park was a sheltered beach with a row of boat sheds and a ramp. On the map, it was called Anderson’s Beach. But Rachel knew it in another context. It was the beach where Scott Blair had taken Kelly Moore for pizza and then allegedly raped her.
After Rachel finished the call with Pete, she set her alarm to wake her before dawn. She wanted to run along the beach south of Morrison’s Point in case she stumbled across Vince Knox sleeping rough in one of his usual haunts.
After catching her breath on the jetty, Rachel continued running south to the national marine park, darting over clumps of glistening seaweed that had littered the beaches overnight. When she came around the last peninsula, she saw a row of boat sheds in the distance, painted in faded pastel hues. From across the beach, Rachel heard a repeated banging noise. It was coming from a boat-shed door, which was slamming open and closed in the wind. She ran across the sand to the shed to close the door. Otherwise it would tear off its hinges from the repeated banging.
As she approached, the door blew wide open in a fresh gust, giving Rachel a clear view inside. There was an old fiberglass boat with an outboard motor. Men’s work clothes hung off nails banged into the timber. On the concrete floor was a makeshift bed and a pile of blankets. On the walls, newspaper clippings fluttered in the early morning breeze.
Rachel stepped into the boat shed, her eyes drawn to the wall decorated with the newspaper clippings. She was shocked to see they were all about the Scott Blair case. They’d been carefully torn out and hammered into the timber walls with rusty nails. There were black-and-white photos of Scott Blair coming into court, and photos of Mitch Alkins and Dale Quinn walking down the courthouse stairs, their expressions blank.
An article about Kelly Moore’s testimony was pinned prominently on the wall. Sections of text were circled with a ballpoint pen. As Rachel moved closer to read the text in the dim light, the door banged shut behind her. It cast the room in an opaque blackness that made it impossible for Rachel to see.
Rachel instinctively moved blindly in the direction of the door, shoving it hard with her shoulder. The door swung open violently. Rachel tripped and stumbled out into the bright glare of morning and straight into the naked chest of a man.
The right side of his bare torso was horribly disfigured with severe burn scars, puckered and patched by skin grafts. The parts of his chest unmarred by scars were covered with tattoos. Rachel recognized one as a homemade gangland prison tattoo. She raised her head to look at the stranger’s face. Vince Knox’s eyes were narrow and they burned with rage.
“What are you doing sneaking around here?” he rasped. His lip lifted in a half snarl as Rachel moved back in surprise.
He lurched toward her as if to scare her. It instinctively made her want to step back to put space between them, but she resisted the urge. If she stepped back then he’d be able to corral her into the boat shed and lock her in. Rachel took a step to the side, which at least offered the possibility of outrunning him across the sand dunes.
Except Rachel didn’t run. She didn’t need to. He’d turned his attention away from her and bent down to caress a quivering seagull, which was bundled up in a plaid shirt near his feet. His gentle touch and the deep concern that creased his face as he tended to the bird was a sharp departure from his anger toward Rachel a moment earlier.
“I didn’t know that someone lived here,” Rachel said, by way of an apology. She figured that the only way to defuse the situation was to act normal. “I thought the boat shed lock had broken off.”
“I left the door unlocked when I went for a swim.” He rose, looming over Rachel to intimidate her again. She held her ground. “What are you doing here? You’re not a cop, are you?” he hissed. “I hate cops.”
“I’m a reporter covering the trial. I saw you testify for Scott Blair. You didn’t look like you were enjoying it. After you left court, I saw you talking to some guy who works for Greg Blair. Did Greg Blair buy your testimony, Mr. Knox?”
“No,” he said. “Everything I said in court was true. Scott Blair saved that kid’s life that day. Swam out and pulled him in. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
“Then what’s the connection between you and Greg Blair?” Rachel asked.
“It’s none of your goddamn business,” he roared. Realizing that he’d startled the bird, he bent down again to soothe the frightened creature in a hushed voice.
“Maybe it’s not my business,” said Rachel. “It is the business of the prosecutor, Mitch Alkins. He might be very interested, especially if Greg Blair paid for your testimony.”
“Every word that I said was true. That trial, it ain’t got nothing to do with me,” Vince Knox said. “I don’t have time for your dumb questions. I need to put a splint on this bird’s wing before she goes into shock.” He moved into the boat shed and returned a moment later with a box of bandages. He squatted down and expertly repaired the injured bird’s wing with a crude splint and bandages as Rachel watched.
“How long have you been living here?” Rachel asked a few minutes later as he cut up scraps of fresh fish with a pocketknife which he fed to the injured gull, now swathed in bandages.
“I stay sometimes in the summer. Get paid to keep an eye onthe boats. There’s a shower and toilets. A coin barbecue so I can cook. That’s all I need.”
