What Have You Done(71)

“You alone?” Liam asked.

“That’s what you said in the text, right?” Don pulled out his phone and started reading. “Need to talk. I’m innocent. Meet me at Point Pleasant boardwalk. Come alone. No Sean. Life or death. Liam.” He looked up at his fugitive. “It was dangerous contacting me like that.”

“I’m still not totally sure I can trust you.”

“I get it. If I were in your shoes, I’d feel the same way. What you’re doing shows a lot of faith, considering I could take you down right now and be everyone’s hero.”

“I’m wondering why you don’t.”

“Because I know you didn’t kill Kerri. Or the girl in Delaware. Or the others.”

“What others?”

“Exactly.”

Liam searched Don’s face for any sign of doubt but saw nothing. “What makes you so sure I’m innocent?”

“I’ve learned a few things.” Don held up a small white envelope. He opened it and pinched a piece of yellow foam between his index finger and thumb.

“What is that?”

“It’s the answer to a question I wished I never had to ask. It’s another missing piece of the puzzle. Could be part of your get-out-of-jail-free card.” Don searched behind him for a moment and then turned back. “I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that you could be guilty of what I saw in the crime scene photos at the Tiger, but when you suspected that I could’ve killed her, I got scared. I don’t know why, really. I think it was the fact that someone I’d trusted so completely could think I could do something like that. I thought I might have to clear my name, so I started my own investigation. Just me. I didn’t know if I could trust Sean. I figured he’d always side with you over me, and if you had me as a suspect, I needed to preemptively clear my name.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I made two copies of Kerri’s computer on two separate flash dives. Sean only knew about the one he destroyed. I found some things on the copy I kept.”

Liam was silent.

“I have an extra key to your brother’s house and his truck. Always have. Yesterday I found myself snooping around, trying to find something that might make sense of what was going on. I waited until Sean was out and looked through the house, but I couldn’t find anything. When he was at the station, I took a peek inside his truck. All of it was just a cop’s hunch. But that’s the thing about cop’s hunches. There’s usually something there.”

“What’d you find?”

“Did you know there was a rip in his seat, passenger’s side by the door?”

“No.”

“This is foam stuffing. I asked Jane to run it against the material that was under Kerri’s nails. It was a match.”

Liam’s world dimmed into a blackness that engulfed everything else. The noise of the waves lapping against the shore disappeared. The seagulls above. The sun hanging in the sky. His breath would not come. He felt as if he were suffocating. As if he were drowning in his mother’s tub all over again.

“It was Sean,” Liam said.

Sean knew about him and Kerri. Sean knew about the paper flowers their mother had left for them the day she’d tried to kill them. Sean knew how to make the paper flowers and knew their mother had cut her hair. He knew about it all. Everything. His brother’s words echoed in his mind.

Those flowers scare me. Somebody knows something.

Don placed the foam back in the envelope. “Kerri found out about things your brother was trying very hard to hide. It’s tough to say this. Sean was having an affair with Vanessa.”

Liam fell against the wall, stunned. Everything he knew about his life was crumbling before him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. For over a year.”

Liam said nothing.

“I don’t know how, but Kerri found out about the affair and spent a good deal of time following them. I found the pictures she’d taken of them on the flash drive I copied from her hard drive. I also think that while she was following them, she came across another secret Sean was hiding. He was killing other women. She’d tracked his coordinates on his boat, and they match the vics we found. Up and down the coast, Sean was abducting prostitutes and killing them. Kerri had the GPS coordinates with the pictures. Your brother killed Kerri, the girl you guys found in Wilmington, and five others. For whatever reason, he’s pinning it on you. That call you got from Kerri the night of her murder could’ve been her wanting to tell you everything. Show you the pictures she’d taken. Tell you about the boat trips your brother was taking.”

“But I still don’t remember anything about that night.”

“I don’t know what to tell you about that. Drugged maybe?”

“My blood came back clean.”

“I don’t know.”

Liam’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I came here to convince you I was innocent. I guess this’ll be easier than I thought.” He showed Don the copy of the police report he’d taken from Lakewood and explained how Gerri Cain had found Kerri’s old medical record that led him there. He also explained what happened during his encounter with Kiki and Grandpa.

Don lowered his voice as a small group of joggers ran by on the boardwalk next to them. “There’s even more,” he said. “I read through Keenan’s case file again to see what else was uncovered and get up-to-date on things. Since Guzio, everyone’s attention has been focused on bringing you in. No one’s even talking about Kerri.”