The Neighbor (42 page)

D.D. didn’t believe they’d find the young mother alive.

Mostly what she hoped for at this stage of the game was to save Ree.

Ethan Hastings was having a crisis of conscience. This had never happened to him before. Being smarter than any adult he’d ever met, the teenager was naturally disparaging of them. What they couldn’t figure out, they didn’t need to know.

But now, sitting on the floor with his mother’s iPhone—yesterday’s incident at school had resulted in a total loss of computer privileges for the next month, but technically speaking, no one had said he couldn’t rifle his mother’s purse—he was reviewing e-mail and trying to figure out if he should call the police.

Ethan was worried about Mrs. Sandra. He had been ever since November, when it became clear to him that her interest in online security extended way beyond what one might need to know to teach a sixth grade social studies class.

She’d never told him she suspected her husband, which meant, of course, that he was the most likely culprit. Likewise, she’d never used the words “Internet porn,” but then again, what else would drive a pretty teacher to spend all of her free periods working with a kid like him?

Oh, she was kind about it. She knew that he worshipped her, because he wasn’t so good about hiding these things. But he got the message, loud and clear, that she was not in love with him the way he was with her. She needed him, however. She respected his skills. She appreciated his help. That was good enough for him.

Mrs. Sandra talked to him, person to person. Not many adults did that. They either tried to talk over his head, or they were so terrified of his staggering genius they avoided engaging him in conversation altogether. Or maybe they were more like his parents. They both tried to talk to him, but sounded like they were grinding their teeth the entire time.

Not Mrs. Sandra. She spoke warmly, with this pretty lilt he could listen to again and again. And she smelled of oranges. He never told anyone, but he got her to mention the name of the lotion she used. Then he bought an entire case of it online, just so he could smell her when she wasn’t around. He had the case of lotion stashed in his father’s closet, behind all the suits his father never wore, because he’d long ago figured out that his mother searched his room on a daily basis.

She tried very hard, his mother. Having a kid as bright as him couldn’t be easy. Then again, it wasn’t his fault he was so smart. He’d been born this way.

In November, after deducing that Mrs. Sandra was worried about her husband’s online activities, then determining that Mrs. Sandra’s husband was surprisingly computer savvy, Ethan had decided he needed to take further action to protect his favorite teacher.

First, he’d thought of his uncle, the only adult Ethan considered intelligent. When it came to computers, Uncle Wayne was a pro. And, better yet, he worked for the state police, meaning that if Mrs. Sandra’s husband was doing something illegal, Uncle Wayne could arrest him for it, and Sandra’s husband would go away. This had been a very good idea, in Ethan’s mind. One of his better plans.

Except Sandra’s husband hadn’t gone away. Neither, for that matter, had Uncle Wayne. Suddenly, his uncle had developed an enduring interest in JV basketball. Every Thursday night, Uncle Wayne would appear at the school, and off he and Mrs. Sandra would go, leaving Ethan all alone with pesky Ree.

Ethan had started to be annoyed by Thursday nights. It didn’t take three months of weekly meetings to hack into someone’s computer. Heck, he could’ve done it in five minutes or less.

Then it had occurred to him: Maybe he didn’t need his uncle or state police involvement after all. Maybe all he needed to do was write some code. It was called a Trojan Horse. He could tuck it into an e-mail. He could send it to Mrs. Sandra. And the Trojan Horse would open up a gateway on her computer just for him.

He would have access.

He could see what Sandra’s husband was really up to.

He could save the day.

Except that Ethan had never actually written the code before. So first he had to study it. Then he had to test it. Then he had to revise it.

Three weeks ago, he’d been ready to launch. He wrote an innocent little e-mail to Mrs. Sandra containing some links he thought she might find helpful for her social studies class. Then he’d embedded the code and sat back to wait.

It took her two days to open the e-mail, which annoyed him a little. Weren’t teachers supposed to be more responsive than that?

But the Trojan Horse passed the gates, the computer virus embedding itself instantly into Mrs. Sandra’s hard drive. Ethan tested it on day three, and yeah, he had access to the Jones family computer. Now he could sit back and catch Mr. Jones in the act-literally.

Ethan had been very excited. He was gonna be on
48 Hours Investigates.
A whole episode on the boy genius who nabbed a notorious child predator. Leslie Stahl would interview him, social websites would want to hire him. He’d become a one-man Internet security alpha team. A modern-day website Marine.

The first three nights, Ethan had definitely learned some things about Mr. Jones. He’d learned, in fact, quite a lot about Mr. Jones. More than he really wanted to know.

What Ethan hadn’t counted on, however, was how much he’d also learn about Mrs. Sandra.

Now he was stuck. To rat out Mr. Jones, he’d have to also rat out Mrs. Sandra, and Uncle Wayne, too.

He knew too little, he knew too much.

And Ethan Hastings was a bright enough boy to know that was a very dangerous place to be.

He picked up his mother’s iPhone, checked messages again. Told himself to call 911, set down the phone again. Maybe he could call that sergeant, the one with the blonde hair. She seemed nice enough. Then again, as his mother always told him, lies of omission were still lies, and he was pretty sure lying to the police would get him in even more trouble than school suspension and a four-week loss of computer privileges.

Ethan didn’t want to go to jail.

But he was terribly worried about Mrs. Sandra.

He picked up the iPhone again, checked messages, sighed heavily. Finally, he did the only thing he could bring himself to do. He opened a fresh e-mail box and started,
Dear Uncle Wayne …

Wayne Reynolds was not a patient man. Sandra Jones had been missing for multiple days, and as far as the forensics expert could tell, the lead detectives were taking a slow boat from China to find her. Hell, he’d practically had to hand them Jason Jones on a silver platter, and still, judging from the five o’clock news, no arrests had been made.

Instead, reporters had picked up the scent of a registered sex offender living just down the street from Sandra. Some pale, freaky-looking kid with a blistered scalp they’d caught walking down the street, then literally chased all the way to an old 1950s ranch.
“I didn’t do it!”
the kid had cried over his shoulder.
“Talk to my PO. My girlfriend was underage, that’s all, that’s all, that’s all.”

Pervert had bolted into the house, and the erstwhile reporters had documented half a dozen shots of a closed door and blinds-covered windows. Really scintillating stuff.

At least Sandra’s father had entered the fray, deriding Jason Jones as a highly dangerous, manipulative man who’d isolated the beautiful young woman from her own family. The grandfather was demanding custody of Ree and had already won visitation rights to begin shortly. The old man wanted justice for his daughter and protection for his granddaughter.

The media were eating it up. And still no arrests had been made!

Wayne didn’t get it. The husband was always the primary person of interest, and as suspects went, Jason Jones was perfect. Conspicuously lacking in credible background information. Suspected by his own wife of dubious online activities. Known to disappear for long periods of time after midnight, in a job that didn’t really provide a concrete alibi. What the hell was Sergeant Warren waiting for, a pretty package with a bow on top?

Jason needed to be arrested. Because then Wayne Reynolds could finally sleep at night. God knows in the past few days he’d been frantically purging his personal computer as well as his Treo. Which was ironic, because he of all people knew he’d never get the electronic devices one hundred percent clear. He should buy a new hard drive for his computer, and “lose” his Treo, preferably while running over it with his lawn mower. Or maybe he could flatten it with his car? Toss it into the harbor?

It was funny, outsiders always assumed law enforcement officers had an advantage—they worked in the system, meaning they knew exactly what sort of misstep might trip a guy up. Except that was the problem. Wayne of all people knew how hard it was to cover one’s electronic tracks, and, being fully aware of such things, he understood just how hard his own actions would be scrutinized under a microscope.

He’d spent three months going on walks with Sandra Jones, nothing less, nothing more, but if he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself labeled as her lover and placed on administrative leave, a subject of internal investigation. Especially if the forensic computer expert “lost” his Treo, or “replaced” his home computer. That sort of thing simply wasn’t going to play.

Which made him wonder why the BPD hadn’t cracked open the Jones computer yet. They’d had it nearly twenty-four hours. Figure five to six hours to make a forensically sound copy, then getting EnCase up and running …

One to two more days, he figured, and sighed. He didn’t think his nerves could take one to two more days.

Let alone what such a long period of time might mean for Sandy.

He tried not to think about it. The cases he’d worked on before,
the crime-scene photos he often viewed in his line of work. Suffocation? Stabbing? Single gunshot wound to the head?

He had tried to warn Sandy: She never should have gone away on the February vacation.

Wayne sighed heavily. Consulted the clock again. Decided to stay a little later at the crime lab, do a bit more work. Except then his Treo buzzed. He looked down, to find a message from his sister’s e-mail address.

He frowned, clicked open the message.

Five forty-five
P.M.
Wayne read his nephew’s startling confession.

And started to sweat in earnest.

Six
P.M.
Maxwell Black was sitting at a white linen-covered table in the corner of the dining room at the Ritz. His duck had just arrived, prepared with wild berry compote, and he was savoring a particularly fine Oregon Pinot Noir. Good food, fine wine, excellent service. He should be a happy camper.

Except he wasn’t. After his conversation with the detectives, the judge had returned to his hotel and immediately called his law clerk to have him do some legal research on Max’s behalf. Unfortunately, the case law unearthed by his clerk did not sound promising.

Most family courts—and Massachusetts was no exception—deferred to the birth parents as the primary caretakers in a child custody dispute. Naturally, grandparents did not start the process with any guaranteed rights, with the courts accepting the parents’ decision in the matter.

Max had assumed, however, that Sandra’s disappearance—and Jason’s resulting position as a viable suspect in his wife’s disappearance—might sway the court in his favor. Furthermore, Max was confident that Jason was not Clarissa’s biological father. Hence, with Sandra gone, Max himself was now Clarissa’s closest living relative. And surely that would count for something.

But no. Leave it to the state that had legalized gay marriage to accept
in loco parentis
, or the person that had served in the place of the parent, as the proper legal guardian. Which put Max back in the position of having to prove that Jason posed an immediate threat to
Clarissa in order to successfully challenge the current custodial arrangement. Take it from a judge, those standards were nearly impossible to prove.

Max needed Sandy’s body to be found. He needed Jason to be arrested. Then the state would take Clarissa into custody and he could argue that as her biological grandfather it would be in the child’s best interest to live with him. That should work.

Except he had no idea how long it might take to find Sandra’s body. Frankly he’d driven by that harbor four times already and as far as he could tell, Jason Jones could’ve dumped Sandy’s body just about anywhere. It could take weeks, if not months, if not years.

It was enough to make him consider filing a case against Jason in civil court, where the burden of proof was lower. Except even in civil court, it was hard to proceed without a dead body. No corpse meant Sandra Jones might really have run off with the gardener, which meant she might really be alive and well in Mexico.

It all came back to dead bodies.

Max needed one.

Then it occurred to him. Yes, he needed a dead body. But did it necessarily have to be Sandra’s?

Seven forty-five
P.M.
Aidan Brewster stood at the Laundromat, folding the last load of laundry. In front of him were four stacks of white T-shirts, two stacks of blue jeans, and half a dozen smaller piles of white briefs and blue-banded athletic socks. He’d started at six
P.M.
, after his PO had graciously picked him up from his reporter-infested property and spirited him away. Colleen had offered to take him to a hotel for the night, to let things calm down. Instead, he’d asked her to drop him off at a suburban Laundromat, someplace far away from South Boston, where the reporters would have no reason to look for him and a man could bleach his tighty whities in peace.

He could tell Colleen had been uncomfortable with the request. Or maybe it had been the trash bag after trash bag of dirty laundry he’d loaded into the trunk of her car, while three cameramen had clicked away from across the street. At least when Colleen had pulled
away, the photographers had abandoned their posts, as well. No use staking out a house when you knew the target wasn’t there.

“What happened to your head?” Colleen had asked as she drove down the street.

“Kitchen fire. Left a paper plate too near a burner. Embers floated up and caught my hair on fire, but I was too busy dumping flour on the stove to notice.”