Page 108 of I Will Find You

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.

But right now, as he sat across from Warden Philip Mackenzie in the corner booth at McDermott’s pub, Max threw all of that away. Sarah was not with him. She didn’t even know he was here. She wouldn’t approve—Sarah was very by-the-book—and moreover, he was (to keep within his piss-poor metaphor) throwing a scuffed-up spitball, clearly illegal, and if someone was going to get thrown out of the game, it might as well be him and him alone.

Mackenzie had ordered an Irish whiskey called Writers’ Tears. Max was going with a club soda. He didn’t handle spirits well.

“So what can I do for you, Special Agent Bernstein?” Mackenzie asked.

Max had chosen to meet Mackenzie at the warden’s favorite watering hole because this wasn’t about intimidation or pressing an advantage. Just the opposite, in fact.

“I need your help finding David.”

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