Page 44 of Once Silenced

Putnam looked like he might attack the young geek physically, so Riley hurried to speak again.“You’re saying you know who is behind these messages?”she asked calmly.

“Martha had a son,” Aldrich revealed.“Timothy.He was in his late teens when she—when it all happened.”

“Where is Timothy now?”Ann Marie asked, as though this was just a casual conversation.“Have you been in touch with him lately, Derek?”

“He was declared legally dead years ago,” he replied, his shoulders lifting in a shrug.”He disappeared not long after his mother’s death.Nobody heard from him again.”

“And what do you think, Derek?”Ann Marie asked in the same conversational tone as before.“Do you believe that Timothy Lancaster is dead?”

“If you want my personal input,” he replied.“My opinion is no.”

“I do value your opinion,” Ann Marie said with a smile.“So if you’re right and Timothy is still alive, can you tell us who else might be in danger from him?”

Riley saw the suspect’s face relax as he turned to Ann Marie.

She knows what she’s doing,Riley thought.He responds better to her because she’s young and pretty.

“No,” Aldrich replied, “But I don’t claim to understand how his mind works.”

“Thank you, Derek, I know you’re trying to help us.But you didn’t answer my other question.Have you seen him or heard from him yourself?”

He leaned toward Ann Marie when he answered.“No, it was like he vanished into thin air.But rumors persist within the society.Whispers that he’s still out there, somewhere.”

“And you agree, don’t you Derek?”Ann Marie chirped.“What can you tell us about that?”

Derek leaned back in his chair.He was calm, almost eerily so.“I had been piecing together Timothy’s digital footprint.It was like chasing a ghost through the internet—traces of activity under different aliases, sporadic appearances in obscure forums.It’s something I do pretty well.And I thought maybe I was close to something when the stormtroopers interrupted my search.”

“Why are you so certain no current member of the Cipher Society is behind these killings?”Putnam took the opportunity to get in a question.

Derek scoffed, shaking his head with an air of condescension.“That’s not how the society operates, Agent Putnam.That’s not the kind of people we are.We’re thinkers, analysts—not killers.Violence has never been part of our creed.”

Putnam bristled at the response, leaning forward until he was nearly nose-to-nose with Derek.“Or maybe,” he said, his voice rising with anger, “you’re concocting this elaborate story about Timothy Lancaster to shield one of your own.Maybe even yourself.”

Jonah Bell, the defense attorney, broke in smoothly, “My client has been cooperative.We’ve agreed to provide all the data from his investigation.It’s up to you to determine if it leads anywhere definitive.”

“Your story is full of holes, Aldrich,” Putnam spat.

Bell rose to his feet.“That’s it.We’re done here,” he declared.He called for the guard to return his client to his cell.

“Let’s go,” Riley said, getting to her feet.

Without comment, Putnam turned and stormed ahead out into the hallway, his shoulders rigid, a man clearly at odds with the world.

Detective Prendergast, who had been watching through the interrogation room’s 2-way mirror and listening to the interview over the intercom, met them in the hallway.

“Let’s talk this over,” he said, leading them toward a nearby conference room.The door closed with a decisive click behind them, and the three agents gathered around the polished surface of a conference table with the police detective.

Prendergast surveyed the group, his eyes asking the question before his lips formed the words.“Thoughts on what Derek just told us?”

Putnam, hands braced against the cool wood, leaned in.“It’s a fable,” he said dismissively.“This Timothy Lancaster—he’s a ghost, a Cipher Society myth.”There was conviction in his voice, the kind that left little room for doubt or debate.

Riley considered the ramifications.Was Derek using a legend to mask his own guilt?Her instincts, honed by years of delving into the psyches of killers, told her otherwise.And if Timothy Lancaster was alive, driven by a twisted sense of filial devotion, they were dealing with a killer molded by two decades of silent fury.

Her mind went back to the garage, where Robert Nash’s life had ended.The air there had been thick with the scent of oil and metal, yet it wasn’t the disarray of tools or the car parts that had caught her attention; it was the meticulous placement of Nash’s body, the ritualistic arrangement that spoke louder than any confession.

It was reverence,she thought.

The killer had been reverent, like a son might be toward a departed parent.That was what she had felt in the cold space—a dark homage to something beyond mere violence.

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