Fractured

wall. 'The judge limited the scope of our search warrant to evidence tying Kayla Alexander to Bernard. We could argue that we're looking for names of other victims. Even if he's convicted for Kayla, Bernard could be out in two to three with good behavior.'

'He'll be a registered sex offender. He'll never teach again.' 'That's a small price to pay for kidnapping and murder.' 'You're sure he's involved in the other crimes, that it's not just what he said: he had sex with her, she went her way, he went back to school?'

'You saw that bedroom, Faith. He's into young girls.' 'All that means is that he is into raping them, not murdering them.'

'He learned in Savannah that it's dangerous to leave witnesses.' 'Sorry to interrupt,' Charlie said, 'but maybe you should consider the fact that he was also looking into retiring.' Will seemed puzzled. 'How do you know that?' 'The Web site?' Faith asked, wondering how he had forgotten about it so quickly. 'Charlie, pull it up again.'

Charlie did as she asked, finding the correct Web page. He scrolled through the list of questions and responses. 'I'm not sure what screen name he went by. They're all pretty innocuous.' He clicked to the next page. 'Basically, they're talking about what benefits they retain after retirement, consultancy jobs to help pay the bills- that sort of thing.' The screen changed as he selected a new link. 'Georgia's teacher retirement program.' He leaned closer to the screen to read the details. 'All right, this deals with private versus public school teaching. With the state retirement program, you have to have a certain number of years vested to qualify for a pension. Private, you're on your own.' He scrolled down, skimming the text. 'It says here that they have to go thirty years to get full retirement.'

'Maybe he decided he couldn't wait it out,' Faith said. 'A million dollars would certainly help pave the way toward a comfortable early retirement.'

Will told her, 'Bernard's only been at Westfield for twelve years. He told us he was teaching in the public school system at one point. Let's find out where he taught before that.'

'He would've left in the mid-nineties,' Faith said, doing the math in her head. 'Maybe there was some impropriety they swept under the rug.'

'I know teachers don't make a lot of money, but don't you think it's odd that he's living in this crappy apartment at his age?'

Charlie suggested, 'Maybe he's been spending all his spare cash on flights to Thailand to pick up underage girls.'

Faith asked, 'Do you think we have enough cause to look at his financial records?'

Will shook his head. 'We didn't list financial documents in the search warrant.'

Charlie cleared his throat. Faith looked at the computer screen. He had pulled up Evan Bernard's accounts at the local credit union. 'Let this be a lesson not to store your passwords in your key-chains.'

Will said, 'Check to see if he made any payments to storage facilities.'

Charlie moved the mouse around, highlighting each account as he read through the details. 'Nothing's popping up. He pays twelve hundred a month for this place. His utilities are about what you'd expect. Groceries, dry cleaners, car payments, a couple of PayPal payments.' He read through the rest. 'It looks like most of his money goes into his 401-K. The guy's socking it away for retirement.'

Faith asked, 'What does he bring home every month?'

'Around twenty-three hundred.'

Faith stared at the computer screen. She could hear policemen outside the window, laughing about something. Traffic noise from the street filled the air with a low hum. This was the sort of place you rented when you were fresh out of college, not heading toward your fifties and looking to retire. She said, 'Evan Bernard's been teaching for how many years and he doesn't own his own house?'

'Could be divorced,' Charlie suggested. 'An ex-wife could have bled him dry.'

'We'll check court records,' Will said. 'If he's got an ex, maybe she found out what he was doing and left him. If we can corroborate that Kayla was a pattern, we might be able to get a judge to deny bail.'

'We already tried the neighbors. Most of them were gone- probably at work. There's a stay-at-home mom in the unit across the garden. She says she's never met Bernard, never seen anything suspicious going on.'

'Send a couple of units back around seven tonight. More people should be home by then.' Will went to the closet and checked the top shelves. 'Maybe he's got a photo album or something.'

'We won't find anything he doesn't want us to.'

Will kept searching the closet, taking down boxes, checking their contents. 'We know he was gone from the school for two hours.' He pulled out a stack of yearbooks and dropped them on the bed. There were almost twenty in all, their cheerful covers screaming school spirit. He picked up the top one, which was emblazoned with the Westfield Academy crest, and started thumbing through the pages. 'That's not enough time to do the murders, hide Emma and get back to school. The accomplice must have done the heavy lifting. Bernard would have known Emma came from a wealthy family.'

'Kayla's parents were well-off. Why not take her, too? Why kill her if she represents money?'

Will closed the yearbook and held it in his hand. 'Are we sure Kayla wasn't involved?'

Faith glanced at Charlie, who was still checking out the computer files.

Will didn't seem to mind talking in front of the man. 'Kayla Alexander was a nasty piece of work.' He dropped the yearbook and picked up the next one. 'We haven't found one person who's said otherwise.'

'She'd have to be pretty sick to be screwing Bernard in her car while she knew that her best friend was about to be kidnapped.' Faith considered something. 'Maybe Kayla felt threatened by Emma's affair with Adam.'

Will picked up on her train of thought. 'Kayla might know that Adam and Emma were parking in the garage. The nosey neighbor told on the girls last year. They had to find somewhere else to park.'

'I've been wondering why Kayla parked her white Prius in the driveway of the Campano house when she knew that the last time they were caught skipping, it was because the neighbor saw a car in the driveway.'

He stopped searching the pages. 'Something's bothered me since I saw the Prius in the parking lot. Everything the killer touched had blood smeared on it: the trunk, the door handles, the steering wheel. Everything except for the duct tape and the rope in the trunk.'

'Do you think Kayla brought them for the killer to use?'

'Maybe.'

'Hold on,' Faith said, trying to process all of this. 'If Kayla was involved, why did she get killed?'

'She had a reputation for being nasty.'

'You've said all along that the killer must have known her.'

His phone started ringing, and he slid it out of his pocket. The thing was pathetic, the pieces held together with Scotch tape. 'Hello?'

Faith picked up one of the yearbooks and thumbed through it so she wasn't standing there doing nothing. She glanced up once at Will, trying to read his expression as he listened to the call. Impassive as usual.

'Thank you,' he said, then ended the call. 'Bernard's fingerprints don't match the thumbprint on the letter.'

Faith held the yearbook to her chest. It felt heavy in her hands. 'So his accomplice handled the threatening notes.'

'Why send the notes? Why show their hand?'

Faith shrugged. 'Could be they were trying to scare away Adam so Emma would be alone in the house.' She contradicted herself. 'In that case, why didn't Kayla just drive Emma to the house? It had to be that they weren't getting along.'

Will opened the Westfield yearbook from last year and flipped through the pages. 'We need to go back to the beginning. There's a second man out there.' He traced his finger across the rows of student photographs. 'Bernard's not the kind of guy who gets his hands dirty.'

'My friend at Tech said he would probably have news today,' Faith told him, hoping she wouldn't have to be more specific about the vial of gray powder she had asked Victor to have tested. Will might have been okay speaking freely around Charlie Reed, but Faith didn't know the man well enough to trust him with her career.

Will said, 'Go to Tech. See if there are any results.' He found Kayla Alexander's class picture and tore out the page from the yearbook. He handed it to Faith. 'While you're there, ask Tommy Albertson if he's ever seen this girl hanging around either Adam or Gabe Cohen. Ask everybody in the dorm if you have to.' He flipped to another page and found Bernard's faculty photograph. He tore it out, saying, 'Show this one, too.'