Lena stopped listening. Paladino had delivered his sound bite like the master that he was. There would be no need for a second take.
She turned away from the window and noticed that she’d left the memory box on the bed. Returning it to the night table, that photo of the dog caught her eye again. It was an old black-and-white shot-dark and grainy with rain clouds in the sky. She was still curious about the date and wondered if it had been printed on the back. Lifting the wooden lid, she pulled off the back cover and removed the cardboard filler. When the snapshot fell away from the glass, she turned it over.
The paper hadn’t been date stamped, but she realized that a second picture had become stuck to the first. She lowered the box to the table and pried the two pictures apart. Then she flipped over the second shot and gazed at it. She sat down on the bed and stared at it for a long time. The photo Lily Hight had kept hidden. The one in her memory box by her bed.
It was a snapshot of her killer. It was a picture of Jacob Gant.
14
Harry Gant wasn’t answering the door. Lena walked down the drive between the two houses and found him in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. The slider was cracked open, and she didn’t wait to be invited in. As she slid the screen shut behind her, shock waves rippled across the kid’s face.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“It looked like you had something on your mind,” she said. “Before you ran upstairs last night, you had something to say.”
He stared back at her, open mouthed. “You want to talk, save it for when my dad gets back.”
He dug his spoon into the bowl, trying to look bored and probably hoping that if he ignored what just happened, the homicide detective standing in his kitchen might go away. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and an old T-shirt, and hiding behind his long hair. But Lena knew that he was faking it. She could see his legs beneath the table, his bare feet tapping the floor like all his batteries were charged up. The kid was in a situation and didn’t know what to do.
“I realize that you haven’t had much time to think things over,” she said. “But has it occurred to you that we’re on the same side?”
He took another spoonful of cereal, still feigning boredom. “Which side is that?”
“I’m trying to find out who killed your brother, Harry.”
He laughed. She could hear the pain in it. The loss.
“You just spent three hours in the killer’s house,” he said. “Lily’s dad murdered Jake. It’s like you’re blind.”
“He says he hasn’t seen your brother since the trial.”
Harry finally pushed the bowl away. “Then he’s blind, too. He saw Jake every day. He sits in that chair spying on us like a lunatic. The two of them got into an argument yesterday.”
“Over what?”
“I wasn’t here. All Jake told me was that they had another shouting match.”
“Did he say when?”
“Sometime in the morning. Jake was out by the garage shooting hoops.”
Lena remembered Hight telling her that he hadn’t seen Jacob Gant since the trial. She had read it as a lie the moment it came out of his mouth. One among many. But what seemed important right now was Harry. He had stopped hiding. He’d made some sort of turn.
“Any chance you could show me your brother’s room?” she asked.
He looked at her for a while, then nodded without saying anything. Walking through the foyer, she followed him upstairs and started down the hall. The layout mirrored the Hights’ house next door. She checked the room on the right and saw an electric guitar laid out on an unmade bed. When she turned back, she found Harry standing before the door directly across the hall.
A moment passed, like he didn’t want to enter the room. Lena sensed his hesitation. Giving the door a push, she led the way in, then paused a moment herself.
Jacob Gant’s bedroom faced Lily’s. And they were close, just a driveway apart. She wondered why she hadn’t seen it before, then noticed the large oak tree standing beside the Hights’ house. The tree branches had given Lily’s room a false sense of privacy, obscuring the real view.
Harry joined her by the window, his voice so soft she could barely hear it. “My dad told me that David Gamble was your brother.” He hesitated again but pushed through it. “And Mr. Paladino says you helped him with a problem last year. He says you’re okay, too.”
It laid there for a while. Lena turned to him and knew that they understood one another. Her brother had played guitar and was murdered shortly after his band performed at a nightclub on the Strip. Although the murder occurred eight years ago, it worked like a shadow, changing sizes from day to day but never going away.
“I’m on your side, Harry. I really am.”
He sat down on the bed. Tears began to well up in his eyes and he covered his face with his hands.
Lena rolled the desk chair over and sat down. “Tell me why Jake was at Club 3 AM last night. Why was your brother with Johnny Bosco?”
This time Harry didn’t run out of the room when she asked the question. He wiped his cheeks. She could see him putting the words together in his head.
“Bosco was helping him,” he said.
“Helping him do what?”
“Find the guy who really murdered Lily. Jake told me that something had happened and he needed to see Johnny. He said he thought they knew who did it and hoped they could prove it last night.”
A beat streaked by like a stray bullet.
Lena looked around the room, the violent sketches and artwork that Jacob Gant had created barely registering. All she could see was the road ahead. What had seemed like a clear but difficult path a few minutes ago was vanishing like a mirage. She leaned forward, searching for an even voice.
“Your brother was investigating Lily Hight’s murder?”
Harry nodded.
“Why Bosco?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What did your brother tell you?”
“He wouldn’t tell me anything. He said it wasn’t safe.”
“What about Paladino?”
“Jake didn’t tell anyone about it. Just Johnny Bosco. He knew what it would look like.”
“What it would look like?”
Harry dropped back on the bed, raising his arms over his head and closing his eyes. “He said that no one would believe him because of the DNA. He said that if anyone found out what he was doing, it would only make him look even more guilty because that’s what they all do. The freaks you see on TV. They kill their wife, then act like they’re looking for the guy who really did it. It’s fake, but the people on TV are so stupid, they buy it. They’re fakes, too.”
A moment passed. There was no stillness in it. No peace.
“Your brother had bruises on his neck and arms,” she said. “His knuckles were scraped like he’d been in a fight.”
Harry opened his eyes and looked at her. “He was in lots of fights.”
“With who?”
The teenager shrugged. “Mr. Paladino may have gotten him out of jail, but he didn’t change anybody’s mind who wasn’t on the jury. Jake couldn’t go anywhere without people shouting at him or trying to beat him up. He wanted to find out who murdered Lily, but it was way more than that. Jake
