He blinked.
“Scott?” she pressed. “What else are you keeping from me?”
He turned back to his cheeseburger and picked it up. Studying it, he slowly dipped his head and took another bite.
Her frustration rose. Yes, he had been through a traumatic ordeal. Yes, she was grateful that he was home. But a man was in jail based off his testimony. Police and county resources had been used to prepare a court case based off what he had said—what he had lied about. His new story was causing countless hours of work in shifting evidence, reports, and defense strategies. And yet he didn’t want to talk about it. He’d been more than happy to tell his fake story of escape to anyone who wanted to listen, but now—with the truth out—he was clamming up.
She reached out and slammed a hand on his desk, then immediately regretted the action when her son flinched in response. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “But talk to me, for shit’s sake.”
“Can’t I just eat?”
His cell phone was on the desk. She grabbed it before he could stop her, her haste unneeded as he ignored the action. She pressed the screen, but nothing happened. It was dead. No wonder he was ignoring her texts. “How long has your phone been dead?”
“I don’t know.” He put a few fries in his mouth.
“I looked at your call records, Scott. Why haven’t you been talking to any of your friends?”
He turned to face her. “Don’t look at my calls.”
“We pay for your phone. We have the right to know who you’re talking to.” God, when had she become her mother?
“So I have no privacy? Is that what you’re telling me? I’ve traded one prison for another?”
She flinched. “I wouldn’t call this a prison, Scott. You can—”
“I can what? I can’t drive anywhere without you freaking out on me. And I can’t leave my room without you and Dad screaming at me, and now you’re in here, yelling at me—”
“Who have you been calling?” She interrupted him before he got worked up. “What’s this number you kept calling?”
His gaze darted to the side. “No one.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll just find out on my own.”
The threat worked. He dropped his head in his hands. “MOM,” he groaned.
She waited.
“It’s a girl.” He sighed, his head still in his hands. “Someone I dated.”
“When?”
“Earlier this year. I called her when I got my phone back, but she didn’t answer.”
“Is it Jennifer?”
“You don’t know her.”
“Does she go to Beverly High?”
He let out a frustrated growl. “She doesn’t live here anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”
“When did she move?”
“She’s gone, Mom.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“She moved while we . . . while I was gone. I drove by her house, and she doesn’t live there anymore.”
The house for sale. The call to the Realtor. Relief rushed through her. Was that what all this was—the moping, the staying in his room and refusing to talk to them . . . Was it teenage heartbreak?
“Oh, Scott.” She held out her hands and wrapped him in a hug. Startled, he sat there, unresponsive, then awkwardly patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. He had probably thought of this girl during all that time at Randall Thompson’s house, then finally gotten free only to call her and call her, with no answer. “She must have changed her number when she moved,” she said.
“Yeah.” He pulled free. “Are there any more burgers?”
She smiled. “Sure. Come downstairs with me. I promise”—she held up her hands in surrender—“we won’t ask you any questions about anything. Just lie on the couch and watch some television while Beth makes brownies.”
Brownies were his weakness, and she watched a bit of life enter his eyes. He nodded, and even though it was a small victory, it felt monumental.
They were going to be okay.
CHAPTER 34
Robert’s home was annoyingly perfect. Clean contemporary lines, rich dark walls, and sleek gleaming surfaces, with just enough leather and fabric to warm everything up. He had two bottles of wine breathing and a fire crackling in an outdoor hearth. I took it all in with a raised brow. “Why do I feel like you do this often?”
“I don’t.” He brought a beer bottle to his lips, then nodded at the wine. “Pick your poison.”
I chose the chardonnay over the pinot and poured a glass, then took in the view. His home was in the Hollywood Hills, perched high enough to show off the city, and a rainbow of lights was beginning to glow out of the dusk. A half hour earlier and I’d have caught the sunset. Still, it was impressive. I turned back and caught a tendril of hair before it whipped across my face. “I miss the smell of a fire.”
He smiled. “My contractor wanted to put in propane, but I like the smell of the wood, even if it does stick to your clothes.”
“Same here.”
In front of the fire was a half-circle sectional with dark-blue cushions and big white pillows. I took a spot on one side and slipped my sandals off, then tucked my feet underneath me.
He sat in the middle, six feet between us. “How was the rest of your day?”
“Quiet.” I had gone straight home and filled up my bathtub with lavender-scented bubbles. Soaked in the hot water and thought through every piece of the case and how Randall Thompson fit into it.
I still—even with a thousand pages of case files and a personal interview with the accused—didn’t have enough to go on. I didn’t know what Randall had done to Luke. I didn’t know if he exhibited characteristics of secondary identities. He certainly hadn’t in my time with him. If I had interviewed Randall Thompson as part of a lineup of potential suspects, I would have put him in the “unlikely” category. He wasn’t precise. Emphatic and unwavering in his innocence. Psychologically, he was wrong for this crime.
But then there was the evidence side of things. He had been identified by Scott Harden. There was the box of keepsakes from all six victims in his house. And there was something inherently dark in his soul. I recognized it, I just couldn’t take a pulse on how deep the depravity went.
Robert rolled the beer bottle between his palms. “Before I ask you your impressions of Randall, there’s something you should know about Scott Harden.”
Oh no. My fingers tightened on the stem of the wineglass. Scott was so young. Surely he hadn’t—
“He changed his story.”
The alarm whooshed out of me in a single breath. “In what way?”
“Originally, he said he escaped. Now he’s saying that he was let go and dropped off a few miles from his house.”
“Let go?” That was strange, and my heart beat faster. That lent itself to DID, which I was starting to lean toward over paranoid schizophrenia. “When did you find that out?” This was huge.
“About fifteen minutes ago.”
I set my glass on the arm of the couch, needing my full wits. “Wow. That’s interesting.”