Page 62 of Cold as Hell

“Uh… I can give you a list of those who were at the table, but others stopped by for a look. Anyone in the Roc that night saw them, and more people know I make them, from conversations and such.”

“Did you mention the heart one to anybody?”

“I don’t think so. Mathias saw it and…” He stops. “Lynn. Not that she saw it, but I asked whether she actually wanted a fly or just something else, maybe for a necklace. I said I’d made a heart for my girlfriend. She said the fly was fine.”

“Was that at the Roc?”

He nods. “And before you can ask, others were there, but I don’t remember who.”

Sebastian lowers his voice. “Is it true what Grant said? I heard that Lynn died of exposure. But you think it was murder?”

“Grant knows it was hypothermia, and he knows we’re investigating the possibility it was murder. Anything else is his own conjecture.”

He shoves his hands into his pockets, going silent. Then he says, “I don’t have an alibi. It’s the same as for the night Kendra was attacked. During the storm, I was here in the apartment, working on my flies. Mathias was, too, which is technically an alibi but…”

He shrugs. Again, Mathias would tell us whatever it took to exonerate Sebastian.

“He wouldn’t let me get away with murder,” Sebastian says, as if reading my thoughts. “He’s been very clear on that. If I screw up, that’s it.”

“No exceptions?”

Sebastian exhales and lowers himself onto the edge of his bed. “I should say no exceptions but we both know Mathias’s ethical code is a little convoluted.”

“Just a little.”

“If I killed someone in self-defense, he wouldn’t turn me in. But if someone hurt me, I wouldn’t kill them in revenge. That’s a shitty revenge—hurting them back would be correct. Same if someone hurt Felicity. Now, if someone hurt another person I care about, like you or Mathias? I’d probably just turn them in. No offense.”

I need to bite my cheek at that. He says it with sincere apology, as if I might be offended that he’d turn in my attacker rather than wreak vengeance himself.

He continues in that same thoughtful tone, as if laying out the circumstances under which you’d commit murder is very ordinary conversation. “But killing someone because they killed a stranger, even horribly?” He shakes his head. “I’d be putting a target on myself, and I don’t do that.”

Unlike Mathias. That’s what he means. I’m sure Sebastian knows what crimes Mathias has committed. While that’s hardlypart of normal psychotherapy, nothing about their particular therapeutic relationship counts as normal.

“What about an accident?” I say. “What would Mathias do if you accidentally killed someone?”

“Accidentally let Lynn die of exposure?”

I move to a small chair and sit. “Someone was seen escorting Lynn during the worst of the storm. The size of the person fits you. Let’s say you’re out and you see her struggling to get to her residence. You help her. As soon as you see the residence, you say goodbye, and she gets turned around in the whiteout and heads into the forest.”

“But that wouldn’t be my fault. Sure, I’d feel bad that I didn’t take her to the front door, but no one would blame me.” He considers. “No, I guess Grant would still blame me. But if that happened, I’d quietly tell you what happened, and I know you wouldn’t go around telling people that I let her die. Or even that I was the last to see her.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“So I’d tell you. But whoever was seen with Lynn, it wasn’t me.”

I’ve given him an out here. Someone saw a person escorting Lynn, and that person could have been him. All he has to do is say yes, that’s how it happened. Oh, I’d still investigate, because Lynndidn’tjust get lost and die. But without more information, this could seem like a way to explain why he’d been seen with her. He didn’t take it, though.

“Wait,” he says. “What time did someone think they saw me?”

“Roughly four. During the worst of the storm.”

“Then I might have an actual alibi. I stepped outside around three thirty to see what was happening with the storm. I noticed someone outside at Kenny’s place, wrestling with a shutter.I pulled on my stuff and told Mathias I was going out. One of the external shutters on the carpentry store had come loose and was banging away and Kenny was fixing it before it flew off and damaged something. I helped with that, and then we went in and had a coffee. I got back around six and made dinner.”

He looks my way. “Please tell me that helps.”

It does, if Kenny can confirm the alibi. Or, at least, it helps prove that Sebastian wasn’t that person seen with Lynn. Does it exonerate him completely? No. But it’s a good start.

“It helps,” I say. “I’m going to need to search your room, though.”

---