Page 39 of So Dark

Faith leaned back and crossed her arms. At the moment, Graham Nash was looking like their best bet for a suspect, but Jake’s and Kelly’s behavior was odd too. And those three were the main participants of the group that Faith and Michael couldn’t contact. She wondered again if they could be working together.

She sighed. They still didn’t know enough. They needed to talk to these three. It might be worthwhile to start an official search for them.

Her phone rang. She looked at the number but didn’t recognize it. It was an Alaskan area code, though. She answered. “Hello?”

“Hello, Special Agent Bold?”

“Who is this?”

“I’m Jake Thornton. I just got back from a hiking trip and found several messages from you on my cell phone. It looks pretty serious, so I was wondering if I could talk to you and your partner sometime soon and hopefully clear up any suspicion surrounding me.”

Faith and Michael shared a look. “Do you have any plans right now?” Faith asked.

“No, I’m free. I work as a freelance photographer, so I get to make my own schedule.”

“How convenient.”Especially if you need to take extended time off to murder three of your former friends.“Where would you like us to meet you?”

“You can meet me at my house. Or if you want, we can meet at a restaurant in Glennallen.”

“Your house is fine. Give us the address, please.”

He provided it, and Faith said, “Wonderful. We’ll see you soon.”

As soon as she hung up, Michael asked, “Are you sure it’s safe to meet at his house? He could have the entire place rigged.”

“If he’s the killer, he either doesn’t have evidence at his house, or he does, and we’ll find it. If he’s not the killer but has information we can use, he’ll be more comfortable sharing it in a private place, not a public place. Besides, there’s two of us and one of him. And we have Turk.”

“We hope there’s one of him,” Michael reminded her. “He could be working with Kelly and Graham.”

“Turk counts for two people,” Faith said. “So we still outnumber them.”

Michael chuckled. “That sound right to you, Turk?” Turk barked, and Michael said, “All right then. Let’s go.”

***

Jake Thornton lived in one of the far-flung properties removed from the central clusters of Glennallen. It was situated on the northwestern edge of the jurisdiction on the shore of Island Lake, a mile-long body of water fed by snowmelt. It occurred to Faith that if Jake was luring them out there to kill them, he would have plenty of time to do that before reinforcements could arrive.

Well, they had taken risks before. Sometimes you had to do that in jobs like this.

They parked near the road and walked the seventy yards or so up a pitted gravel drive to his front door. He walked onto the porch before they reached the house and lifted a hand in greeting. He was around Michael's age and devastatingly handsome, with dark hair that showed only a few strands of gray and piercing blue eyes.

“Good to see you, agents.”

“Is it?” Faith asked. “Usually people aren’t so happy when we show up.”

He chuckled. “Well, if I’m being honest, I was just being polite. I don’t love that I’m being looked at for murder.”

“Most people don’t,” Michael replied. “Especially if they’re guilty.”

“Well, I’m not guilty. And I’d like to convince you of that.”

“You can start by giving us an alibi for last night.”

He sighed. “Well, I can show you my satellite phone. It tracks my position by GPS at all times. I’ve never had to use it to defend myself from something like this before, so I don’t know if there’s a way you can verify that it’s telling the truth.”

“I’ll take a look,” Michael said. “Faith, why don’t the two of you have a conversation while I do this?”

“That works for me. While we’re here, Jake, do you mind if my K9 unit takes a look around your property?”

---