“It would have been, what, a corporate event?”
“Probably. We buy a bunch of tickets to a theater or a ballpark or an amusement park. It’s a perk for employees and clients. Is this for a story you’re doing?”
She pressed on. “You’d have had photographers on hand, right?”
“I assume so.”
“I mean, like this photo in front of that backdrop. A photographer you guys hired probably took pics like this?”
“Again: I assume so. What the hell is this about, Rachel?”
“Can you get me all the photos?”
Hayden’s eyes flared for a millisecond. “Pardon?”
“I need to go through them.”
“Corporate events like this,” he began, “we sometimes rent half the park. There could have been, I don’t know, five, ten thousand people at it. What are you looking for?”
“You won’t believe me if I told you.”
“Tell me anyway.” Then Hayden added, “I assume this has something to do with your brother-in-law escaping prison.”
“It does.”
“You can’t still have a crush on him, Rachel.”
“What, I never had a crush on David.”
“You talked about him nonstop.”
“You almost sound jealous, Hayden.”
He smiled. “Perhaps I was.”
This was a minefield she didn’t want to wander into. “Do you trust me?” she asked him.
“You know I do.”
“Can you get me the pics?”
He picked up the water glass, took a sip. “Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“So what else?” he asked.
She knew him well. “This favor is trickier.”
The waiter came over with a second dish. “Jamon Iberico with caviar.”
Hayden smiled at him. “Thank you, Ken.”
“Enjoy.”
“You’re going to love these,” Hayden said. He scooped some of the paella onto her plate. It smelled fantastic, but Rachel ignored it for the moment. Hayden took a bite, closed his eyes as though savoring. When he opened them again, he said, “So what’s the favor?”
“One of the logos on that backdrop,” Rachel said, “is for the Berg Reproductive Institute.”
“Makes sense,” Hayden says. “It’s one of our holdings. You know that.”
“I do.”
“So?”
“So ten years ago, I made an appointment at one.”
Hayden stopped midbite. “Pardon?”
“I called Barb.” Barb Matteson was the institute’s manager at the time. “You introduced us.”
“I remember. At the family holiday party.”
“Right.”
“I don’t understand.” Hayden put the fork down. “Why did you make an appointment?”
“I told her I wanted to look into getting pregnant via donor sperm.”
“Are you serious?”
“About making the appointment? Yes. About going through with it? No.”
“I’m not following, Rachel.”
“I made the appointment for Cheryl.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. Then: “I’m still not following.”
“She didn’t want David to know.”
“Ah.”
“Right.”
“So Cheryl made the appointment in your name so her husband wouldn’t find out?”
“Exactly.”
Hayden tilted his head. “You realize that’s probably against the law.”
“It’s not, but I know it’s an ethical breach. Anyway, Rachel checked in under my name. She used my ID. We look enough alike. The bills came to my house.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
“I even made the appointment for Cheryl at your satellite office in Lowell—in case Barb was around at the Boston one.”
“All to protect your sister from telling her husband?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting,” he said.
“She was going through some stuff. I thought it would be harmless.”
“Doesn’t sound harmless,” Hayden said. “Did David ever find out?”
“Yes.”
“He must have been furious with you.”
“He doesn’t know about my part in it.”
“But he knows Cheryl went to look into donor sperm.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told him your role in this—shall I use the word ‘deception’？”
“I never told him,” Rachel said softly.
The waiter came by and poured some wine. When he left, Hayden asked, “So what do you want now?”
“David doesn’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“Doesn’t think what’s a coincidence?”
“You’re going to think this is insane.”
“We’re past that, Rachel.”
“He thinks…that is, we think…” It sounded so ridiculous that for a moment, Rachel couldn’t finish the thought. Then: “We think Matthew was at the amusement park with your group.”
Hayden rapid-blinked as though he’d been smacked across the face. Then he cleared his throat and asked, “Who is Matthew?”
“My nephew,” she said. “David’s son.”
More blinking. “The one he murdered?”
“That’s the point. We don’t think he’s dead at all.”
Rachel handed Hayden the phone again, this time with the photograph of Maybe-Matthew. “The boy in the background. The one holding the hand.”
Hayden took the phone and held it in front of his face. He used his fingers to try to blow up the image. She waited. He squinted. “It’s so blurry.”
“I know.”
“You can’t really think—”
“I’m not sure.”
He frowned. “Rachel.”
“I know. It’s crazy. It’s all crazy.”
Hayden shook his head. He handed the phone back to her as though it were on fire. “I don’t know what you want me to do here.”
“Can you send me all the pics from Six Flags?”
“Why?”
“So we can scour through them.”
“And what would you be looking for?”
“Any other photos of this boy.”
He shook his head. “This blurry boy who looks like a million other boys?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“You’re right about that.”
“But for my sake, Hayden. Please? Will you help?”
Hayden sighed. Then he said, “Yes, of course.”
Chapter
30
Like most decent interrogators, Max employed a variety of tactics on his perps. Currently his most effective method involved disruption. He teamed up with Sarah to keep suspects off balance with a constantly evolving rotation of accusations, humor, disgust, hope, friendship, threats, alliances, skepticism. He and Sarah played good cop and bad cop and switched roles in the middle and then sometimes both were good and sometimes both were bad.
Chaos, baby. Create chaos.
They peppered suspects with a barrage of questions—and then they let them linger in long silences. Like the best of major league pitchers—and baseball being the only sport Max even mildly understood—they kept changing it up: fastballs, changeups, curveballs, sliders, you name it.