“Hannah?”
“No,” she said. Sam looked uncertain.
“I think you should leave it with me. Give me a little bit of time. I want to make sure . . . let’s make sure than Dandridge real y is innocent. If he is, then you come forward. If he isn’t, then you say nothing at al . Does that sound okay to you?”
He nodded, wilting with relief. She understood his feelings. He didn’t real y want to speak up, didn’t want to be exposed as a liar in the newspapers or invite trouble with his grandparents or the police.
“My grandparents are taking me and my little sister Rosie away,”
he said. “They have a cabin, up in the woods. My grandfather is afraid that you’l keep coming, or that there’l be too many journalists sniffing around, with the preliminary hearing next week. We’re going to the cabin and we’re going to stay there until things blow over.”
“The DA doesn’t want you in town next week? For the hearing, I mean?”
“Wel , yeah. That’s what they’re saying. But the plan is that my grandfather is going to come with me back to town for just long enough for me to give evidence. Then we’l go back to the cabin.
And now . . . I can’t . . . I don’t know what to do.”
“Right,” Hannah said. “Wel , I’l phone you. As soon as I can. I just need a day or two.”
“No phones,” he said. “There’s no service. Do you have a pen, and some paper?”
“I . . . I can get some.”
“The address won’t do you much good. But I can draw you a map. If you need me, in the end, you can come get me.”
Hannah went back into the house. There was a notepad and some pencils sitting on one of the side tables. The notepaper had a little printed drawing of the inn as its header. She took the pad and a pencil outside. Sam quickly wrote out instructions, drew a little map, then ripped the sheet off and handed it to her along with the notebook and pen.
“There,” he said. “If you need me.”
“And you won’t change your mind?” Hannah said.
He shook his head solemnly. She could see the fear in his eyes, but she thought that he meant it. His nerves made him rattle on.
“I wish I’d said something before now. Because if Dandridge didn’t kil my mother, then someone else did. What if he rapes or kil s some other woman? What if he already has?”
SAM LEFT, AND HANNAH RETREATED INTO THE HOUSE. SHE
TOOK A long, hot shower and got dressed in jeans, boots, a T-shirt, and a cardigan that she’d probably have to shed later when the day warmed up. She needed it though. If she had had armor she would have worn that instead. She waited in her room for the sun to come up. The police station wouldn’t open until nine. Every minute that ticked by hurt, but she couldn’t leave Yorktown without seeing Sean, without making sure that he was okay. She stood up and paced the room. Something was nagging at her. Something Sam had said had snatched at another snippet of memory. He’d talked about Rawlings.
His friend Teddy Rawlings. Pierce’s nephew. Why was that name familiar to her?
Hannah took out her computer, started going back through her notes. Mindy Rawlings. That was it. When she’d researched Jerome Pierce she’d found that he was married to Mindy Rawlings, former cheerleader and his high school sweetheart. Okay, so that was al it was. Hannah sat back, but she didn’t feel satisfied. There was no relief from her mental itch. She ran a search through al of her documents for the name Rawlings and came up with one more hit.
From her notes about her conversation with Angie Conroy. Angie had told them that on the night of the murder she had gone to Neil Prosper’s house and she had hung out there. She said that they had ordered pizza and the pizza had been delivered by Derek Rawlings.
She also said that Rawlings died ten months later in a car accident.
So that must mean that he was the same man. Derek Rawlings, pizza delivery guy, was also Teddy Rawlings’s dad, wife beater, and possible murder victim of Jerome Pierce. A coincidence, that was al .
But . . . wasn’t there something else? Something from her very first meeting at the Project? Jim Lehane had been giving them a recap of the case, and he had said that Sarah and Samuel Fitzhugh had had dinner . . . Hannah was almost sure he had said they’d had pizza. Hannah pushed her laptop aside and started to pace around the room again. What did this mean? If Derek Rawlings had delivered pizza to both Dandridge and Prosper and the Fitzhugh home that same evening, that must mean something? But what?