No One Can Know

by Lucy Kerr

  “But Aunt Frankie said that Reverend Tim deals with plenty of dead people. And then Grandma said that proved they had a lot in common, and then Aunt Frankie said …”

  “Aunt Frankie said it’s your turn to dry,” I said, coming into the room, tossing the bright-yellow dish towel over her shoulder.

  Noah’s amusement faded as he caught sight of me, though not entirely. “Entertaining clergy? You in need of spiritual guidance?”

  “I’m in need of a nap,” I grumbled.

  “Naps can wait.” He looked as haggard as I felt. “I need your statement about today.”

  I shrugged. “I told you everything back at the cottage.”

  “I need an official statement. Give me any lip, and the sheriff has authorized me to bring you down to the station.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Obstruction. Interfering with a police investigation. Tampering with evidence. Shall I go on?”

  I glanced behind me. Riley and my mother were both standing in the doorway, wide-eyed.

  “Outside.” I bit off the word.

  “Noah, do you need anything to eat?” my mother asked as I led Noah through the kitchen and onto the back deck. “I can fix you a plate.”

  “Thanks, Lila, but this is an official call.”

  The cold night air was just short of bitter, the shock of it after the overheated kitchen stealing my breath.

  Twelve years ago, Noah would have wrapped his arms around me to ward off the cold. Now he watched me shiver and deliberately stuffed his hands in his pockets. I hugged myself to keep warm and studied him closely.

  Did he always push himself this hard? I remembered what Reverend Tim had said about personal connections and wondered if he’d known Kate well or if there was another thread I hadn’t yet seen. Something I’d missed.

  Twelve years away meant I’d missed plenty, and Noah might not be inclined to fill me in, even if I asked.

  My pride wouldn’t allow me to ask.

  “Let’s start from the beginning,” he said.

  “Aren’t you going to use your little notepad?”

  He sighed deeply. “You’re in a mood.”

  “So are you,” I shot back.

  “I’m in a mood because I’m trying to find a stolen baby and close what is now a triple homicide. I am in a mood because for several days running, you have seen fit to insert yourself into a police investigation when I very specifically asked you not to, putting both yourself and my case at risk. I am entitled to my mood. You’re in a mood because your mom has resorted to setting you up with the local clergy. How’d that go, by the way?”

  I boosted myself onto the porch railing and tried not to let my teeth chatter. “I thought you wanted to talk about the case.”

  He reached into his back pocket and withdrew the notepad, waggled it at me. “Why did you decide to go to Dove Cottage?”

  “Because I found the picture of Jess and Kate in Hale, and it seemed like a good place to hide. Touristy, so she wouldn’t stick out, but definitely not the first place you’d think of. She had good memories of her time there with Kate, so it seemed like a natural fit.”

  “You got lucky.”

  “I paid attention,” I shot back. “Jess and Kate were friends, Noah. It doesn’t make sense that she’d want to hurt Kate or the baby. She was taking good care of him.”

  “Maybe she wanted to keep him. Maybe she and Josh decided they were going to start a family of their own?”

  “With her friend’s child? And then some random person kills them both and steals Trey a second time?” I scoffed, even though I’d entertained the same idea, at least for a while. “You don’t believe that.”

  “I believe we need to find Trey.”

  “Find the killer, and you’ll find the kidnapper,” I said. “Did you turn up anything strange at the cottage?”

  “Strange?”

  “When I found Jess … there was something …” I trailed off, trying to remember what I’d seen. What I’d felt.

  Spiders on the back of my neck. Ice in my gut. Something wrong, something that didn’t add up. Something that should’ve been there but wasn’t; something that shouldn’t have been there but was. The harder I concentrated, the further it skittered away.

  “We didn’t find anything weird,” Noah said, watching me closely. “Baby stuff—clothes, blankets, bottles, diapers. Medical supplies, but they were all unopened. Pretty much the usual. A baby name book. It’s not a good sign that the killer left all the supplies behind.”

  The chill that ran over my skin had nothing to do with the temperature. The killer hadn’t taken the supplies because they weren’t planning to need them. Newborns needed to be fed every three hours or so; assuming Trey was still alive, he wouldn’t last long without formula. “We’re running out of time, aren’t we?”

  “Looks that way.” He sank into a patio chair. “Steven’s holding a press conference tomorrow afternoon. He wants to update the public on the case. Like we’re not already doing that.”

  “He’s upset,” I said softly. “Anyone would be, in his situation.”

  “I get that, but he needs to step back and let us do our job. He’s constantly asking for updates; at this point, he knows as much as the sheriff, but I’ve got no guarantee he won’t spill it all to the press tomorrow. We’ve asked him to hold off, but he refuses.”

  “That’s Ted Sullivan,” I said. One more should do it. One more press conference, perhaps? How would he have known something newsworthy was going to happen, unless he’d been the one behind it? “Have you looked into him yet? Checked his alibi?”

  “I’ve been a little busy with all the dead bodies,” he replied. “But yes, he alibis out for everything—the accident, the kidnapping, Josh’s shooting. If he’s not with Steven, he’s schmoozing the press.”

  “We should be logical,” I said. “Go over the suspects. Alibis, motives, all of that.”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing, Frankie? We have an entire conference room devoted to this case at HQ.”

  “Yes, but I haven’t seen it.”

  “Because you’re not a cop.” He sighed. “Our official theory is that Jess and Josh were an item. Kate took Josh’s daughter away, and the two of them hatched a plot: kill Kate, take the baby. An instant family for the happy couple, plus revenge on the side.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “And who shot Jess and Josh, then? Kate’s ghost? Trey? You don’t have a scrap of evidence to support that theory, do you?”

  His shoulders slumped. “Not really. One toothbrush at the cottage and her apartment, no men’s clothes at either location.”

  I frowned. “You don’t buy the official theory, do you? You never have. That’s why you kept going back to Josh’s house after the first search. It’s why you’ve been sharing information with me, because you want someone to look at it with fresh eyes.”

  He stayed silent but put the notepad away. The time for official statements was over, and we could talk about the truth. He crossed the back porch to stand in front of me, his voice low enough that not even my mother, who was no doubt trying to listen, could overhear.

  “We’re seeing a lot more drug cases lately,” he said. “Steven’s office is in charge of prosecuting them. He’s campaigning on his reputation as a family man who’s tough on crime; he’s promising all sorts of new funding for treatment and prevention if he gets in.”

  “‘Steven Tibbs, Stronger Tomorrows,’” I parroted.

  “Exactly.” He studied me for a moment, as if weighing exactly how much to tell me. “I think Kate’s death was meant to send a message. Trey’s abduction is more of the same. There’s been no ransom demand—at least not that Steven’s told us about. Maybe whoever’s in charge wants something other than money.”

  “Like they want him to make a case go away?” I suggested, and then it hit me. “What if they want him to drop out? What if that’s what the press conference is about? He’s announcing his withdrawal from the race?
”

  “Could be,” Noah said finally. “Like I said, the sheriff believes Kate’s death was about revenge and getting the baby. Steven agrees, even though he’s unhappy with how we’re handling the investigation.”

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t being blackmailed—just that he hadn’t told the police about it.

  “What if … ?” I flexed my hand, the answer hovering just beyond my fingertips, and grabbed his arm. “What if we moved too fast?”

  His mouth curved slowly despite the gravity of the situation, and he stepped in closer. “I don’t remember you ever complaining.”

  “Focus.” I dropped his arm, ignoring the warmth that flooded my cheeks. “We jumped from the crash to the abduction. Everyone assumes they were basically the same thing—same motive, same criminals. They’ve blurred together. But if we look at them separately, there’s no evidence Jess was involved in the crash at all.”

  “If that were true, she’d have no reason to kidnap Trey.”

  But Jess always had a reason, according to everyone who knew her. Even taking Trey had been carefully orchestrated. She wasn’t impulsive or flighty—she’d grown up in a world that careened out of control at a moment’s notice, and it had made her cautious. Thoughtful. She understood contingency plans, but she craved order.

  “Let’s agree to disagree,” I said.

  “Story of my life,” Noah muttered. He stepped away, and the cold rushed back in. I hadn’t realized how much heat the man radiated. “You’re saying Jess had nothing to do with the crash, and … what? Josh had nothing to do with the kidnapping? It’s all a coincidence?”

  “Not a coincidence,” I said. “Someone else is manipulating them. It’s all part of someone’s agenda, whether that’s trying to get Steven elected or force him out of the race—or is related to one of his cases.”

  “Ted alibis out,” he reminded me. “And before you ask, so does Norris Mackie.”

  “What about Norris’s staff? Politicians never do their own dirty work.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You have a lot of experience with dirty politicians?”

  “Chicago, remember?”

  “We have guys running down some leads on Mackie, but they’re not panning out. It’s not a great motive, anyway. The polls were tight, but he’s been doing this long enough to know that a stunt like this could increase Steven’s lead. Without Kate’s crash, he might have pulled out the win.” He paused. “What about Steven?”

  I punched his arm lightly. “Not Steven. He has a better alibi than Mackie.”

  “He also has a staff.”

  “What’s his motive?” I asked. “The polls were tight, but he was still ahead, wasn’t he? He didn’t needed a sympathy vote.”

  “Marital problems?”

  “Everyone says they were happy. He’s devastated, Noah. You’ve seen him. Does he really seem like the kind of guy who would kill his pregnant wife? And then steal the baby? He doesn’t even need to steal Trey; he’s the dad. You can’t honestly tell me you think it’s him.”

  “Not really. It’s reflex, you know? To look at the husband first.” He shook his head. “It’s gotta be the drugs angle, doesn’t it?”

  Exhaustion and frustration were taking a bigger toll on him than I’d realized. Noah might be my friend, he might respect my judgment, but if he was actually asking me to verify that his police work was sound, he was in bad shape.

  “It’s got to be,” I agreed. “That’s the only motive that makes sense.”

  But even as I said it, I knew that sense had little to do with it. Motive was a deeply personal thing. Entirely justifiable. A worthy risk for the reward, whether that reward was financial or emotional. Outsiders couldn’t understand the calculus of what drove a person to murder; they could only recognize it.

  And we were running out of time.

  Twenty-Five

  We went over my statement a few more times, Noah coaxing details out of my tired brain, both of us concocting and discarding theories. He jotted down some things to follow up on, and each time I felt a sense of accomplishment.

  “We make a good team,” I said, sitting next to him on the steps.

  His pen stilled for an instant, then resumed. “Yep.”

  “Is this what you do when you’re not out actively catching criminals? Talk over the case with the guys?”

  “Women too,” he said. “And yeah, sometimes.”

  “Are you going to tell everyone I helped?”

  He slanted me a look. “Probably not.”

  “I had some good ideas.”

  “It’s not about the ideas. It’s that I am sharing case information with a member of the public. Someone who’s involved in the case, no less.”

  “Why are you?” I asked. The question had been gnawing at me all evening.

  “You’ve always been nosy,” he said with a grin. “Seemed like I might as well put that to work.”

  “Noah, you’re talking over a case—possibly the biggest case of your career—with me, instead of your team of trained professionals. And don’t give me the line about needing fresh eyes. With the number of agencies involved in this, you’ve got more eyes than an optometry convention.”

  He groaned, and I jabbed his shoulder with my finger. “Do you honestly expect me to believe it’s because I have a well-developed sense of curiosity?”

  “That’s what you call it?” he said. “Nosy.”

  “Nice try,” I said. “What gives?”

  For a moment, he didn’t reply. He’d put the notebook away, and now he sat on the steps, his leg pressed against mine, solid and warm. “Do you remember, back when we were in high school, and you’d keep me company while I was working on a car?”

  When we were seniors, Noah had worked at an auto shop after school and on the weekends, trying to bring in enough money to help at home. I used to visit him at the garage, sitting amid the tool chests and oil pans, listening to him explain how power steering worked, the difference between an alternator and a timing belt, or about how to properly gap a spark plug. Twelve years later, I couldn’t remember any of those things. I remembered Noah and the way his hands had looked, nicked and scratched and covered with motor oil. I remembered the sound of his voice, warm and rough, and the way his laughter seemed to vibrate through me. I remembered that the itch beneath my skin, the one that made me desperate to leave Stillwater and see the world, eased whenever we were there, because the rest of the world disappeared, and for those few brief afternoons, I was content.

  “I remember.” The words caught in my throat.

  The back of his hand brushed mine. “You didn’t care about cars.”

  “Not really.”

  “But you let me talk about them nonstop.”

  “It mattered to you,” I said. “Besides, it wasn’t always cars.”

  Sometimes when it had been late, or he’d been tired, or his dad had been on a particularly rough bender, we’d talk about other things: his younger siblings, what he was going to do for his next English paper, where we’d travel when we finally escaped. We’d argue politics or rank the best movies of all time. We’d plan road trips and train trips and chart a course through Europe. We’d talk about anything, and nothing, and everything.

  “I had so much going on back then. So many worries crammed into my brain, I could barely keep them straight. It was like listening to the radio and someone was flipping through the stations, so fast you couldn’t tell the difference between music and static.” He rubbed the back of his neck, almost bashful. “You cut through the static. We’d talk, and all the worry, all the craziness would drop away. The world would make sense again. I didn’t know what I wanted back then—nobody does when they’re seventeen—but when you were there, it felt like I had a shot at figuring it out.”

  I bit my lip, tried to ignore the prickling behind my eyelids. I’d known, at seventeen. I’d known exactly what I wanted: Noah and freedom. I hadn’t yet realized that the two were mutually exclusive.

  He lac
ed the very tips of his fingers with mine, staring at something far beyond the backyard. “I’m a good cop, Frankie. I’m good at what I do, and I care about the people in this community. But this case … I feel like I’m back in the garage again. I can’t figure out what’s real and what’s noise or how to make sense of it. But if I don’t, and soon, that baby will die.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “That is why I’m talking to you.” He turned and met my gaze, and something both defiant and hopeful was in his eyes.

  “Well,” I said, trying and failing to keep my voice from cracking. My heart wasn’t far behind. “As long as there’s no pressure.”

  His smile quirked, but he continued to watch me, the seconds slowing and the air between us shimmering with something indefinable.

  And then the back door swung open.

  “I thought you might be hungry, Noah,” said my mom as I scrambled to my feet. She hefted a tray of food. “We had plenty of leftovers.”

  “We’re wrapping up,” he protested. “I’ll eat back at the station.”

  “Vending machines do not count as dinner,” she said, crossing to the glass-topped table on the other side of the porch and setting down the tray. “You need to keep your strength up.”

  I glared at her, but Mom ignored me to smile brilliantly at Noah. “I seem to remember that you liked my roast chicken.”

  “Nobody makes better,” he admitted, joining her at the table and eyeing the spread.

  She smacked his arm with a napkin. “Flatterer. Have seconds, if you like.”

  She switched on the battery-operated lantern in the middle of the table, bathing us in warm, flickering light. “I’ll leave you two alone. No hurry.”

  She disappeared into the house again.

  I pressed my hands to my cheeks, feeling them heat. “Sorry about that.”

  “Are you?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, he nodded thoughtfully and sampled a bite of chicken. “She is a determined woman. Maybe I should hire her.”

  I took my cue from Noah, gliding past the strange, fraught moment, tucking away the raw emotions for a time when I was steady enough to handle them. I threw myself into the chair opposite his. “Do you see what I have to put up with? Every time I turn around she’s trying to ambush me. I can’t live like this.”