Matt slid into the booth across from her. The diner’s patrons were still giving him looks.
“Good morning,” Keller said.
“Morning.”
She regarded him. “You look … tired,” she said.
She was right about that. After meeting Jessica, he’d gotten two hours of sleep at most. He suppressed a yawn.
The waitress came over, topped off Keller’s coffee, asked if she needed anything. Matt could swear it was the same woman from when he was a kid. The same beehive hairstyle. She treated Matt like he was invisible.
Keller flicked Matt a glance, frowned. He wasn’t imagining it. The waitress was purposefully ignoring him.
“I’ll have a cup of coffee, please,” Matt said. He wasn’t a huge fan of coffee, but he wasn’t sure he’d get through the day without it.
The waitress made a noise in her throat. She hesitated as if she were going to refuse, but filled the mug without saying a word.
“Sure you wanna be seen with me?” Matt said to Keller after the waitress had left. “They are making your food, you know?”
Keller gave a close-lipped smile.
“I suppose they think no Pine should ever set foot in here—the diner where Charlotte worked,” Matt said.
“I’m not sure that’s it,” Keller said.
Matt gave her a look.
Keller laid a newspaper on the table. On the front page of the Lincoln Journal Star was a photo of Matt next to one of Danny. Matt looked tired, dark circles under his eyes, hair tousled. Maybe even worse than he looked today. It was the photo from his college ID. He remembered taking it after a night of partying that first week of school freshman year when everyone went crazy from the lack of parental supervision. How did the newspaper get it? Next to Matt was Danny’s mug shot. Together the photos made them look like criminals. Half true, but still.
Worse, the headline: “A VIOLENT NATURE” BROTHERS SUSPECTS IN MURDER OF FAMILY.
“What the—” Matt looked around the room, appreciating the hostility now. “They think I had something to do with—” Matt felt his throat constrict. His mouth was bone-dry. “I was in New York. Danny’s in prison, for fuck’s sake. How could they say—I’m going to fucking sue them.”
Keller waited patiently, letting him get it all out. Finally Matt just sat staring at his coffee mug, trying to process it all.
“I’m really sorry,” Keller said.
Matt’s emotions were raging. He tried to read the story, but he couldn’t focus on the words. The world was tilting.
“I’m sorry,” the agent said again.
“Why would they say this?”
“I don’t know. Someone leaked that the crime scene may have been staged, the work of a professional, and that your father had an unusually large insurance policy. That’s probably all it took.”
Matt swallowed again, his mouth a desert.
“It’s not right,” Matt said, his voice laced with emotion.
“I know, Matthew,” Keller said.
“Is it true, that the scene was staged?”
Keller hesitated. “We’re still investigating,” she said. “But maybe.”
“The funeral is tomorrow. And everybody’s gonna think—” Matt repressed a sob. He needed to get it together.
“Here, have some water.” Keller slid Matt her glass and he downed it.
“There’s more, Matt. When the Mexican authorities returned your family, they included their effects. All of the phones and laptops had been wiped clean. And it wasn’t some mistake by the local cops taking the devices into inventory. They’d been scrubbed in a way that there was zero chance of retrieving any data; not even the most skilled computer forensics agents at the Bureau could recover anything. Whoever wiped them down knew what they were doing.”
“But who—why?” Matt’s voice was still quavering.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s related to Danny’s case?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
Matt wanted to scream, Then what the fuck do you know? But it wasn’t the agent’s fault.
As if reading his thoughts, Keller said, “Here’s what I do know: After your sister posted the video of the party on social media, she and your dad planned the Mexico trip to chase a lead.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A friend of Maggie’s from school is a computer whiz. Right before your family left for Mexico, she asked him to track down the location of a phone that called your dad’s phone. The kid traced it to Tulum, Mexico. And your father also made several Google searches about Tulum.”