Jack rolled his eyes. “That’s not fair. I can’t say no to that.”
Aunt Haddie gave him a little wink, got up, and patted his shoulder. “You should get some sleep. I’ll go make up your bed.”
Jack sat in the kitchen and listened to the silence fill the house. He sat with his head in his hands, still trying to drive the image of Stacy Shaw out of his mind. He kept thinking of how Stacy was murdered—manual strangulation.
She died looking her killer in the eye.
Jack finally stood up. He locked the back door and made sure the rest of the house was secure, then he headed upstairs. At the end of the hallway, he opened the last door on the left and paused. It was like running into an old friend. He’d spent four years calling this room his own. Aunt Haddie had made the bed, and the little room was neat and tidy.
Inside he hurt, but the corners of his mouth turned up.
This was his room.
He still remembered when he first stood here in the doorway and Aunt Haddie said those words: “This is your room.” Jack had felt as though he’d won the lottery and gotten his own castle.
He took off his sneakers and set them down neatly near the door. He didn’t even think about just kicking them off and leaving them scattered; Aunt Haddie ran a tight ship. He pulled off his shirt, lay back on the bed, and interlaced his fingers behind his head.
The house was quiet. The glow from the streetlight shone in the window. One of those stickers from the sheriff’s department was stuck to a corner of the glass, there to let the firefighters know it was a child’s room. The light hit the sticker and cast a shadow of a sheriff’s star on the ceiling. Jack stared at the outline. He used to imagine it was his own bat signal, like Commissioner Gordon calling Batman. He’d pretend that somewhere out there a person was in trouble and it was up to him to rush out into the night and save them. He just never thought the person who would need him would be Jay Martin.
But Jack knew Jay didn’t kill Stacy Shaw. He was just watching out for his brother. And now he might spend the rest of his life in prison.
Jack looked over at the globe on the desk in the corner.
Seven billion people on the planet. Out of that, only six people know Jay’s innocent. Jay, Tommy, me, Chandler, Aunt Haddie, and Mrs. Martin.
Jack shut his eyes.
Seven: the person who really killed Stacy Shaw.
Jack’s chest tightened.
He looked back to the sheriff’s star silhouetted on the ceiling. Some people called it a badge; Jack liked to call it a shield. When you’re a kid and a victim, a shield’s a good thing. And when Jack was little, he wanted someone to protect him. The first night in this bed was also the first time Jack had finally felt safe.
Aunt Haddie had often talked about layers of defense. That in her house, she was his protector. That the Fairfield police protected the town. That more police protected the state, and even more soldiers protected the country. And Jack had always wanted to protect people too. He didn’t want the monsters to slink off into the shadows and hurt other kids. He wanted to hunt the monsters. To catch them and put them someplace where they could never hurt anyone again.
He looked at his reflection in the window. He wasn’t a kid anymore; he was a man. He wasn’t helpless; he could fight back. He had the power to fight not only for himself, but for people who couldn’t. People who needed his help. Even if no one believed them. Even if they were… unlovable.
Jack got out of bed. He walked over to the desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a pocket notebook. He fanned out the pages to make sure it was blank. Then he wrote FACTS on the top of the first page.
Underneath it he wrote: Jay Martin is innocent.
16
So Has Mrs. Franklin
Early the next morning, Chandler shut the Impala’s door. “What are we doing here?”
“Starting at the last known place Stacy was.”
Ford’s Crossing was an underdeveloped area of Fairfield a mile northwest of Hamilton Park. Jack had parked at the side of the road where the main electric high-tension wires that ran into town cut across. The street was wide and deserted.
Jack walked down the grassy slope toward a thick old oak tree. A yellow ribbon had been tied around the trunk. “This must be where they found Stacy’s car.” He pointed at a two-foot section where the bark had been broken away and fresh wood was exposed. Pieces of broken glass and plastic lay on the ground. “But she was killed near her office. If she wrecked her car, why would she head back to work?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to get a ride home?”
“No, that doesn’t add up either.” Jack squatted down and smoothed out an area of sand with his hand. Using his finger, he made a large rectangle. “This is Hamilton Park.” He marked the basketball courts down at the bottom left corner and then above that the baseball field at the west entrance. He picked up a rock the size of an egg and placed it just below the bottom center of the rectangle. “That’s H.T. Wells.” He made an X well outside the upper left-hand corner of the park outline. “We’re way up here somewhere.” Then he grabbed an acorn and held it up. “This is Stacy’s house.” He placed it just above the upper right-hand corner of the park outline.