Set You Free (15 page)

“What a prick. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I say, though I am not totally all right. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Grady is looking at me differently.

“The infuriating part is that they’re still running Tom’s picture with Ben’s,” I say. “I saw it on the news this morning.”

“That must be coming from the mayor’s office. I haven’t seen anything about the drug bust either. If he asks for something to be kept quiet, it will be kept quiet.”

“And JJ seems to know it.”

“JJ is a different problem altogether.” He’s smiling again.

“Are you high?” I say.

“No, why?”

“You seem to be enjoying this too much.”

“Well, everything but you getting attacked, yeah. That was never planned. But I like to think this way. We do something, then they do something, then it’s our turn again. It’s fun.”

“Fun?”

“It would be if a kid wasn’t missing and my best friend wasn’t the main suspect and you didn’t have a psychopath threatening you and throwing bricks through your window.”

“Tom’s your best friend?” I say.

Grady looks directly at me. “Somehow, it seems I get along well with your family. Which might give some credence to JJ’s speculation that you’re all a bit messed up.”

“What about your uncle or people who work at the wrecker?”

“It’s only my uncle and me, and I wouldn’t call him a friend. Friends are people you choose to spend time with. You don’t have a choice with your family.”

“But you must have—” I begin before Grady interrupts.

“Are you trying to make me feel bad or something?”

“No, it’s just…”

“I was homeschooled, remember? I spent mornings with my uncle, afternoons with my mom or alone. I’ve never been on a sports team. I moved between all these adults who hoped I’d turn out okay but didn’t actually have a clue how to help that along. I worked at the record shop and had friends there, but that closed and they all moved on. Now I’m stuck with you and your brother.”

“Stuck?” I say, trying to sound hurt.

“You just made a mockery of my life. You’re not allowed to feel hurt.” He smiles again, and it’s really a very nice smile. He barely has to work at it.

“I’m not even certain who I am anymore,” I say. Grady doesn’t respond, so I go on. “Like today, when Detective Evans was grilling me, I didn’t feel nervous at all.”

“Good for you!”

“Okay, a little nervous. But, like, before I felt as if I’d done something wrong. Like I was a criminal or something. But that’s not true. I haven’t done anything wrong. And neither has Tom.”

Grady leans back in his seat. “That’s how the police operate. They need information, and people are vessels to get that information from. It’s why this is all so much fun. It’s a game for them, right? So…let’s play the game.” Grady crosses his arms and looks out the window. “It’s, like, my dad.
Okay, he was drinking. He might have hit that guy. But no one really knows for certain. The police figured it was him. They had him on the side of the road and the timing all matched. But then they had to go and interview everyone around him. His family, friends, co-workers. They asked everyone about his drinking problem. He didn’t have a drinking problem. He had a really bad day and decided to drink because of it. Stupid choice number one. He decided to drive home. Really stupid choice number two. But you ask about someone’s drinking problem, and there’s suddenly no debating it. That’s the starting point. So instead of being able to say, ‘He doesn’t have a drinking problem,’ you’re forced to say, ‘I didn’t know he had a drinking problem,’ and that’s not fair. They ruined his life.”

I drink some coffee and stay quiet. Grady goes on.

“He’ll get out someday, but so what, right? What does it even matter anymore? His old life is gone. His co-workers think he’s a lunatic. Which is why if you do talk to your brother, you need to get him to call Detective Evans.”

“What? Why?” I say, caught totally unaware by this suggestion.

“Because he hasn’t done anything. But the longer he’s missing, the more likely it is they’ll find something to pin on him.”

“That’s really paranoid,” I say.

“The police were tracking you without your knowledge. You don’t think they could find something to put on Tom to keep him in jail?”

“Isn’t that all the more reason for him to stay missing? At least until Ben is found?”

“You mean
if
Ben is found,” Grady says. Then he quickly adds, “Which he will be. For sure.”

“I know.”

“Yes,” Grady says. “Absolutely.” He taps the table, glances out the window. “I have some things to show you.”

“What?” I say.

“They have to do with your friend JJ Carter.”

“You have my attention,” I say.

“It’s a video on my laptop.” He looks around the Starbucks. “This isn’t really the place to watch it. Let’s go to my uncle’s shop.”

“Okay,” I say, grabbing my bag and standing up. “Let’s go.”

TWENTY

On the outside, Rodney’s Wreckers looks like every other wrecking yard on the planet. Inside the main garage, though, it’s a different situation altogether.

“This is incredibly clean,” I say.

“That would be thanks to my uncle’s
OCD
.”

There are three cars and a couple of motorcycles in various states of repair. The floor is a pristine white. “There isn’t even any oil on the ground,” I say.

“Who wants to work in a giant mess? We leave that outside.” Grady closes the door and walks to a desk on the far wall. Laptops blink from a bookshelf, neat and organized with all the outlets and cords linked through the back.

Grady sits at the desk and pulls a chair up beside him. “Grab a seat. I want to show you a couple of videos.”

“Said the creepy guy to the young girl.”

“Do you still find me creepy?” He looks right at me, his eyes narrowing.

“Depends on the videos, I guess.” I get an eyebrow raise from him. He flicks on a monitor and opens a video player.

The image on the screen is of Erin and Jack sitting beside one another on the couch in their living room. A clock running in the bottom right corner of the screen shows that the video was made at eight thirty in the morning on the day Ben disappeared. Grady increases the volume.

The first voice I hear is Detective Evans. “And what time did you put Benjamin to bed last night?”

“Eight,” Erin answers. “I gave him a bath, read him a story and tucked him in.”

“Do you know if he went right to sleep?”

“Not likely. He never does. We normally get a half dozen visits from him after he’s supposed to be asleep.”

“What time did you last physically see him?”

“I went in at eleven thirty,” Erin says, then looks to Jack, who shakes his head.

“I didn’t go into his room last night. I was on the computer until midnight and then straight to bed.” Jack Carter is wearing a dress shirt and perfectly creased pants, as if he’ll be leaving for a business meeting at any moment.

“Do you remember when Jack came to bed?” Detective Evans asks, looking at Erin.

“Sure,” Erin says. “It was right around midnight, like he said. I was still reading.”

“So we know for certain that Benjamin was in bed at eleven thirty. Was he awake?”

“No,” Erin says. “The second time I went in, he was out. I tucked him in again and gave him a kiss on the head and…” She stops and turns away from the camera. Jack glances at her but doesn’t touch her. Not even a hand on her arm.

Nothing.

“I know this is difficult, but we need exact times so we can check security and red-light cameras. So the last time either of you saw Benjamin was at eleven thirty?”

Erin gives a slow nod. The camera shifts slightly, revealing JJ Carter sitting on a bar stool that has been placed behind the couch.

“When was the last time you saw Benjamin?” Detective Evans asks.

“Like, yesterday?” JJ says. He’s wearing one of his trademark Abercrombie & Fitch polo shirts with professionally torn jeans. His hair is an oil spill. I think about how I looked when Detective Evans showed up at my place less than an hour after this interview. It wasn’t pretty.

“Do you recall the time specifically?”

“Like, in the afternoon?”

“But not last night?”

“No.” He shakes his head in an exaggerated motion.

“Did you sleep here last night?”

“No. At my place, like always. I’m here because I, like, need my dad’s car this morning.”

“What time did you arrive home?” Detective Evans asks.

“Oh, like, two?”

“Can I ask where you were?”

“Just at, like, a bonfire down on the beach.”

Grady pauses the video. “This guy is awesome,” he says.

“How?”

“Like, in every, like, way. Is he always, like, like that?”

“He’s pretty hollow,” I say. “If that’s what you mean.”

“Hollow. Yeah, that sounds right. I don’t mean to judge here, but does he always look like a giant douche?”

“Pretty much.”

“Look at that shirt! Eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, and he’s flipped the collar as if he’s being asked to stand in for a professional model. And that hair! Who does that?”

“The endlessly vain,” I say.

Grady points at JJ on the monitor. “He doesn’t seem all that concerned about his missing brother.”

“Half brother,” I say. “And yeah, you’re right. It’s like they’re discussing where he might have left a skateboard.”

Grady gets closer to the screen. “There’s no emotion in his face.”

“What do you mean?”

“When someone is upset or worried, their eyebrows go up and their forehead wrinkles. But there’s none of
that here. Also, he starts scratching his nose when he says he got home at two. And he’s always looking away from Detective Evans.”

“So?”

“That means he’s probably lying.”

“How do you know this stuff?” I say.

“I read a few books and watched a bunch of videos online about how you can tell if someone is lying.”

“You can tell if someone is lying?”

“Don’t freak out. It’s not an automatic thing. You have to really focus. But in a situation like this, it’s not very difficult. Why, have you been lying to me and I’ve missed it?”

“No,” I say.

“Well, good,” Grady says. “Nothing to worry about. Did you see what time JJ left the party?”

“I wasn’t really watching him.”

“Was this what he was wearing?”

I look at the video and realize I have no idea what JJ was wearing, even though I know I saw him at the party. “Not a clue.”

“Detective Evans asks about you in a minute. Here.” Grady starts the video, then fast-forwards.

“Did you see Lauren Saunders at this bonfire?”

“Yeah, like, for sure.”

“Did you happen to notice when she left?”

“Why? You think she has something to do with this?”

“We’re looking to follow up on everyone who came in contact with Benjamin over the past twenty-four hours. Lauren Saunders was with him yesterday.”

“She was still there when I left,” JJ says.

Grady pauses the video again and turns to me. “Were you?”

I look at the floor for a moment. “I don’t know. I lost track of everything that night.”

“Really? You don’t remember when you left?”

This is not a conversation I want to be having with Grady. I mean, going to a party and drinking is one thing. Not having any idea what happened at that party is entirely another. Luckily, Grady restarts the video without another word. The camera swings to frame Erin and Jack again.

“Can you think of anyone, anyone at all, who might want to take Benjamin?” Detective Evans asks.

Jack immediately says no. Erin takes another second before saying, “No, no one.”

Grady pauses the video. “So, she’s lying there.”

“What?” I say.

“I guess Detective Evans didn’t pick up on it. But you can see it right here.” Grady reverses the video slightly, leaving it paused. “Her eyes flick up and to the right.”

“So what?” I say.

“Your eyes move in the direction you want to stimulate your brain. So if your eyes go up and to the left, you’re stimulating the memory side of your brain. All your memories
are stored in the left side. But if they go up and to the right, you’re going for your imagination.”

“So when Erin says she can’t think of anyone, she’s making up a story?”

“She’s lying, I think. I mean, it’s not a huge deal, but her eyes go up and to the right, and then she scratches her neck here.” Grady advances the video again. “You get itchy when you lie. Because your adrenaline gets pumping when you’re nervous, and your skin swells.”

“So you think she knows of someone who would want to take Ben but isn’t telling Detective Evans?”

“Possibly,” Grady says, leaning back in his seat. “There are some things I’m looking at in Jack’s financial statements. I don’t have anything solid yet, but it feels as though there’s someone out there no one knows about.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“I have to keep digging,” he says. “I promise I’ll let you in on it as soon as I find anything out. If there is anything to find out. Right now it’s only a feeling.”

“What’s the other video?”

Grady pops forward in his seat. “Ah, yes, the walk-through.”

“Walk-through of what?”

“The house.”

On the screen is the Carters’ hallway. “This is the main corridor to the bedrooms,” Detective Evans’s voice comes through the speakers. “The mother has informed us that the boy’s door was closed. This is the room. We can see that
the window remains open.” The camera moves around the room as Detective Evans details the placement of the bed, the distance between various pieces of furniture, and how the scene does not appear to be one within which a struggle has taken place.

It is one of the most boring things I have ever sat through.

Grady pauses the video again. “Not only does there not seem to have been a struggle,” he says, “but there’s no evidence that anyone other than Ben was ever in the room.”

“How can you tell that?”

Grady replays the last few seconds of the video. “See anything?”

“The window doesn’t have a screen.” I already knew this.