The Neighbor

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“You’re telling us you caught a taxi to the Boston Daily offices. All by yourself? Entered the offices with no ID and nobody tried to stop you?”

“Asked and answered,” Ethan Hastings’s lawyer interjected, before his thirteen-year-old client could speak up. “Move along, Sergeant.”

D.D. sat in BPD’s conference room. She had Miller on her right-hand side, and the deputy superintendent of homicide on her left. Across from them sat Ethan Hastings, his parents, and a top Boston shark, Sarah Joss. Two weeks after Wayne Reynolds’s untimely murder in the parking lot of the state police crime lab, the Hastingses had finally allowed the BPD access to their son. Given their choice of lawyers, however, they weren’t taking any chances.

“Come on, Ethan,” D.D. persisted. “Your uncle told me by phone that you had located the Joneses’ computer at the Boston Daily offices. Then, all of a sudden, after wandering the offices for three hours, you changed your mind?”

“Someone changed the security protocols,” Ethan declared flatly. “I already told you that. I’d sent a virus. A newer virus-protection software eradicated it. At least that’s my best guess.”

“But the computer is still there. Has to be one of them.”

The boy shrugged. “That’s your problem, not mine. Maybe you should hire better people.”

D.D. fisted her hands under the table. Better people, her ass. They had security cameras showing Ethan entering the Boston Daily offices shortly before eleven-thirty, apparently driven there by a taxi he’d called using his mother’s iPhone. While D.D. and the rest of the BPD had been running to the state crime lab, the Aidan Brewster shooting, and then, ultimately, the discovery of both Sandra Jones and her wounded father and husband at the Jones residence, Ethan had been working in the Boston Daily offices. Several late-night reporters remembered seeing him there. But all had been too busy with deadlines to pay attention to a kid.

They assumed he belonged to someone else who was working late, and that had been that. They’d tended to their stories and Ethan Hastings had…

Definitely done something to the Jones computer, which by all accounts no longer existed.

“We know your uncle was pursuing a relationship with Mrs. Sandra,” D.D. tried now. “There’s nothing illegal about two adults having a relationship, Ethan. You don’t need to protect him.”

Ethan said nothing.

“On the other hand, your uncle implied that Jason Jones might have been using the computer to engage in various illegal activities. That, we’re very concerned about. So we need to find the computer. And I’m pretty sure you can help us.”

Ethan stared at her.

“Remember what you said, Ethan,” D.D. tried again. “Jason’s not a good husband. He made Mrs. Sandra unhappy. Let us do our jobs, and maybe we can help with that.”

It was an underhanded ploy, but then, D.D. was feeling desperate these days. Two weeks after one of the bloodiest nights in BPD’s history, she had three corpses and nobody to arrest. It went against her DNA.

Sandra Jones was claiming she’d disappeared to get away from an affair gone bad with Wayne Reynolds. Unfortunately, the publicity had drawn her estranged father back into the picture. He had killed her mother eight years ago, then sexually abused Sandra until she became pregnant at the age of sixteen. She’d terminated that pregnancy with an abortion. After that, she’d stopped staying home at night.

The police had found evidence in Maxwell Black’s hotel room that tied him to Aidan Brewster’s shooting, plus bomb-making materials consistent with what was used in Wayne’s car. According to Sandra, her father had confessed to killing both men in an attempt to frame Jason. Maxwell had hoped this would finally motivate the police to arrest Jason, paving the way for him to seize sole custody of his granddaughter, who would no doubt have become his next target.

Instead, when he broke into the Jones residence to frame his son-in-law, he’d discovered his daughter alive and well. He’d attacked Jason before Sandra had managed to wrestle the gun from him and, according to Sandra, shoot her own father in self-defense.

Maxwell Black was dead. Jason Jones had recently been upgraded to serious condition at Boston Medical.

According to Sandra Jones, she deeply regretted the damage caused by her impulsive disappearing act. She had returned, however; her husband had never harmed a hair on her head; and they could all move on with their lives now.

The whole thing rubbed D.D. the wrong way. Sandra was sorry? Tell that to Aidan Brewster, who’d basically been executed as a convenient fall guy. Tell that to Wayne Reynolds, who may have shown bad personal judgment, but up until the moment of his death, remained professionally adamant that Jason Jones was engaged in improper online activities.

Then there was Ethan Hastings, who’d disappeared for nearly four hours on the night in question, but claimed he had no idea what had happened to the Jones family computer.

For the record, D.D. had managed to get a warrant to search every computer in the Boston Daily offices to identify whether it belonged to the newspaper or to a private individual. They had used serial numbers retained by the newspaper and they had been very thorough. The Jones family computer was not in the offices. It had vanished. Just like that.

Ethan Hastings had done something. No doubt in her mind.

Unfortunately the teenage whiz kid was proving a tough nut to crack.

“Are we done?” his father was asking now. “Because we’re here in good faith, and it seems to me that there’s nothing more my son can tell you. If you can’t find the computer you need for your investigation, that’s your problem, not ours.”

“Not if your son tampered with evidence-” D.D. started to growl.

Her superintendent held up a quieting hand. He looked at her, and she knew that expression. It was the investigative equivalent of “Time to piss or get off the pot.” She had no evidence to piss. Dammit.

“We’re done,” she announced in clipped tones. “Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be in touch if we need anything more.”

Subtext being, it’ll be a cold day in hell…

The Hastings entourage exited, Ethan staring at her balefully as he walked out the door.

“He did something,” she muttered to her boss.

“Most likely. But he’s also still in love with his teacher. As long as he feels like he’s protecting poor Mrs. Sandra…”

“Who got his uncle killed.”

“Who was attacked by said uncle, at least according to what she says.”

D.D. sighed. They had seized Wayne’s computer, with the forensic techs recovering a fair number of e-mails between the state geek and the beautiful social studies teacher. No smoking gun, per se, but more e-mail volume than one would expect in a strictly platonic relationship. And true to Sandra’s assertion, all e-mails from her ceased five days before her disappearance, while Wayne’s computer showed dozens and dozens of IMs sent by him to her, trying to get her attention.

“I want to arrest someone,” D.D. muttered. “Preferably Jason Jones.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But a guy that cool and collected has skeletons buried somewhere.”

“You thought the same thing of Aidan Brewster,” her supervisor reminded her mildly, “and in the end, he had nothing to do with anything.”

D.D. expelled her breath. “I know. Just makes you wonder how the hell we’re supposed to know who the real monsters are anymore.”

My husband came home from the hospital today.

Ree prepared a huge banner for him. It took her three days to make it, covering the white butcher paper with pictures of rainbows and butterflies and three smiling stick figures. She’d even included an orange cat with six gigantic whiskers. Welcum Home Daddy! the banner read.

We hung it in the living room, above the green love seat, where Jason would get to recuperate for the next few weeks.

Ree positioned her sleeping bag next to the sofa. I set up my own nest of pillows and blankets. We camped out the first four days, a haggard little trio needing to wake up each morning and see one another’s faces. Day five, Ree declared she’d had enough of camping and returned to her bedroom.

Just like that, we moved on with our lives. Ree returned to preschool. I finished out the school year. Jason picked up several freelance gigs for various magazines, while his ribs finished knitting together and his in-sides healed.

The press had to get in its digs. I was cast as Boston’s very own Helen of Troy, a woman whose beauty led to great tragedy. I don’t agree. Helen started a war. I ended one.

The police continued to sniff around. The loss of our computer bothered them and I could tell from the look on the sergeant’s face that she didn’t consider the matter closed.

I got to take a polygraph where I told the absolute truth: I had no idea what had happened to our hard drive. The Boston Daily offices? Ethan’s possible involvement? It was a mystery to me. I hadn’t moved the computer and I certainly hadn’t coached Ethan in the matter.

I could tell that Jason expected to be arrested the moment he returned home. The doorbell would ring and he would tense on the love seat, steeling himself for what he thought would happen next It took him weeks before he finally seemed to relax. Then I would catch him regarding me thoughtfully instead.

He didn’t ask the obvious questions. I didn’t volunteer the answers. Even with our newfound closeness, we are a couple who can appreciate the value of silence.

My husband is a very smart man. I’m sure he has connected the dots by now. For example, I had fled on Wednesday night from Wayne Reynolds, who was rather conveniently blown to smithereens the same night I returned to my family. Or that my father confessed to killing Aidan Brewster, but never mentioned Wayne. Interesting, if you consider that all the bomb-making materials were discovered in my father’s hotel room.

Of course, anyone can figure out how to make a car bomb in this day and age. All you have to do is search the Internet.

No doubt, this led my husband to connect a few more dots. For example, what would lead Ethan to suddenly track down our computer? Furthermore, why would he risk tampering with said computer in a public area? He certainly wouldn’t care that the hard drive contained enough damning evidence to send Jason to prison for life.

On the other hand, the true significance of several online visits probably became clear in the moments after Ethan learned that his uncle’s car had exploded. His Trojan Horse had shadowed my activities as much as Jason’s, and let’s just say that the full scope of my Wednesday night Internet activities are best not to mention.

I have never spoken to Ethan on the subject. Nor will I. His parents have banned all contact between us, transferring Ethan to a private school. Out of respect for Ethan, I have honored their wishes. He gave me my family back, and for that, I will owe him always.

I know Jason worries about me. I wonder if he gets the irony-that my father murdered bachelor number one to frame my husband, even as I murdered bachelor number two to frame my father. Like father, like daughter? Great minds think alike?

Maybe I have simply learned a valuable lesson from my husband: You can be the hunted or you can be the hunter. Wayne Reynolds threatened my family. After that, his fate was sealed.

I will tell you the truth:

I don’t dream anymore of blood or decaying roses or my mother’s high-pitched giggle. I don’t wake up with the sound of my father’s last words in my ears, or the image of my almost lover disintegrating in a giant fireball I don’t dream of my parents, or Wayne, or faceless men pounding into my body.

It is summer. My daughter is running through sprinklers in her favorite pink swimsuit. My husband is smiling as he watches her. And I laze in the back hammock, my hand on the gentle curve of my rounded stomach, feeling our newest family member grow.

Once, I was my mother’s daughter. Now, I am my daughter’s mother.

So I sleep well at night, tucked inside my husband’s solid embrace, sound in the knowledge that my daughter is safe in the room next door, with Mr. Smith curled up at her feet. I dream of Ree’s first day of kindergarten. I dream of my newborn baby’s first smile. I dream of dancing with my husband at our fiftieth wedding anniversary.

I am a wife and a mother.

I dream of my family.