Peering over my shoulder, I caught the same shade of confusion etched into Noah’s expression.
“The Huntsman’s been caught?” I muttered.
“Barely an hour ago. Every news outlet is blowing up with the story.” Dad’s thick brows drew together. “I thought you said you knew.”
“I thought you were talking about something else,” I rattled off, ignoring the odd look Teddy directed at me. “How do they know it’s him? The Huntsman?”
“Because they caught the guy beating the ever-loving shit out of a registered sex offender with a tire iron in his flea-infested apartment earlier tonight. When they questioned him, the guy confessed to being the Huntsman, corroborating all thirty-three deaths.” Dad reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, freeing a silver flask and unscrewing the lid as though he had the dexterity of a three-year-old. “The Huntsman was mine. And some goddamn patrolman fresh out of the academy brought him in.”
Beside him, Teddy sighed. “I advised him not to pop in on you at this hour and to wait to talk to you in the morning, but when he crawled behind the wheel of his car, I told him I’d drive him over.”
“The innocent drivers of the city are in your debt,” I replied, shaking my head as my dad angled the flask as far back as it would go. There was clearly nothing left, but that didn’t stop him from trying to coax the last drop from it.
Noah pressed against the brace of my arm. “A tire iron? Doesn’t exactly fit the Huntsman’s MO.”
“Neither does getting caught. But we’re all invincible until we aren’t.” Teddy’s stance shifted. “From what I’m hearing, this sounds like our man.”
Wetting my lips, I was at a loss for what to say or do next. The man LAPD had captured was not the Huntsman.
“Why don’t we take this inside?” Noah said behind me, steady and sure.
Teddy turned and waited for us, eyeing my dad as though he weren’t sure Dad could manage the walk on his own. Noah flipped off the shed light, seamlessly closing and locking the door behind him when he stepped outside.
“I apologize for dropping in on you two like this.” Teddy slid up beside me while Noah made sure my dad didn’t run into any random shrubs or ornamental trees on the journey to the back deck. “I told him this could really wait until the morning, but you know your father.”
“I do,” I replied, gasping when Dad tripped over a patch of bare grass.
As though he’d been expecting it, Noah caught his fall, lifting Dad back to a vertical position. My father was not a small man, nor a particularly lean one, yet the exertion Noah employed suggested he was manipulating no one larger than a small child.
Signs had been posted for me to read for years, but I’d ignored their meaning.
“Between you and me, do you really believe this is our Huntsman?” I asked Teddy, hanging back so we were out of earshot from my dad.
Teddy’s hands slipped into the front pockets of his dark jeans as he stared at the ground. “I think that if it acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, and claims it’s a duck . . .”
“It’s a duck. I know. But the tire iron? There’s nothing subtle about that. The Huntsman’s whole approach is to stage the murders as suicides. How does tuning a guy up before stringing him up even begin to suggest suicide?”
His shoulders moved beneath his sport coat. “Maybe all of the national attention, being outed, and having some name slapped to him and chanted by a bunch of aimless idiots pushed him to a breaking point.”
“Our killer goes from painstakingly meticulous to brazenly thoughtless in the span of one murder? Something isn’t adding up.”
The prosecutor in me rattled, while the conflicted spouse scrutinized my response. If someone else wanted to take the fall for the Huntsman, that meant Noah remained anonymous; the true Huntsman left to tend to his flock, keeping the wolves at bay in whatever manner he deemed fitting.
This was a good thing.
Wasn’t it?
“Yeah, maybe not, but let’s see how the whole thing shakes down.” Teddy waved me inside when we made it to the back door Noah and my dad had staggered through. “But how many criminals have you dealt with in your life who take the fall for a crimes they haven’t committed?”
My eyes cut to Noah the moment I stepped inside the kitchen. He was helping my dad into a dining chair. “Hell, Teddy, I’m lucky if I can get one to confess to a crime they actually committed.”
“Especially someone who’s guaranteed to spend the rest of his life rotting in some federal hellhole for committing nearly three dozen murders. Until someone can prove otherwise, the Huntsman’s been apprehended and my role on this task force has come to an end.”
“It seems all of our roles have come to an abrupt end,” I replied as I rushed to retrieve my phone from the bowels of my purse. I had to wait a moment for it to power on.
“Your roles. That’s funny.” Dad chuckled from his dining room chair. “While LAPD was putting the heat on this guy, my esteemed task force was twiddling their thumbs. I hired you all to narrow in on the target, not put a mark on the back of anyone between the ages of twelve and ninety.” The next chuckle came out more cough than laugh. “Task force, my ass. Might as well have hired a bunch of vegetables for the results we got.”
Teddy lifted his eyes at the ceiling when I reentered the kitchen.
Noah was pulling glasses from the cupboard above the sink. “Anyone want a drink?” When Dad’s finger lifted into the air, Noah blinked at him. “A drink of water.”
His hand lowered.
Noah filled two glasses and handed them to Teddy and me, returning for a third I guessed he was going to attempt to force upon my dad.
Flipping on another panel of kitchen lights, I scrolled the latest news articles. My eyes widened as I discovered every one had something to do with the Huntsman’s discovery and capture.
“Have they released a name yet?” I asked, skimming through the first article.
“Not that I’ve heard, but I’ve got a couple of old contacts working on that.” Teddy checked his phone. “As soon as I know something, I’ll share it with you.”
I nodded absently, moving on to the next article by one of the major news outlets. A couple of pictures were plastered between the few paragraphs of information, the title screaming in black, bold letters “A KILLER CAPTURE.”
The photos weren’t top quality, but showed a man who looked to be in his early to mid thirties, large and capable looking, being pushed into a squad car in handcuffs by a parade of cops. Blood was spattered across his bare forearms and clothing, light jeans and a snug-fitting white tee, the very opposite of the true Huntsman’s hunting attire.
My head pounded as I scanned through the next article, “HUNTING THE HUNTSMAN,” and the few after that. When I glanced at Noah, I found him leaning into the counter, holding his glass of water without drinking, staring at the tile floor with his brow drawn in contemplation.
A nasally snore shook me from my temporary stupor. Dad was falling asleep in the chair, about to fall out of it from the slant of his body. Noah and Teddy bounded toward him before he slammed face-first into the tile.
“Put him on the couch. He can sleep it off there tonight,” I said, following them into the living room. “I’ll call my mom in the morning and inform her it’s time to pay up on those vows she took forty-five years ago.”