reached over and found his hand. She squeezed it. The attorney went to the judge’s bench to discuss finalizing the plea agreement. In Alex’s ear, Hanna whispered, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
He nodded.
“You’ll have to do community service. I don’t know what that will be. The attorney said they would try to find something that would be a good fit. Maybe something outdoors.”
“I understand,” he muttered.
The attorney returned to the table with a document in hand. He told Alex to stand. The judge addressed him from across the room. “Son, this is a very serious matter.”
“Yes, sir,” Alex said.
“Your father is gravely injured and will need care for the rest of his life. I understand he has lost most of his faculties due to the head injury you gave him.”
“Yes, sir,” Alex repeated.
“But you’re only sixteen. There’s a chance that you could turn things around. Once you turn eighteen, your record will be expunged. You’ll have a clean slate. I understand that things in your household have been less than ideal.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m also told that you are a very devoted son.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have anything to say before I rule on whether or not to approve this plea deal your attorney has worked out with the district attorney?”
Alex remembered the words he and Hanna had come up with the week before. He recited them from memory. “I didn’t want to hurt my dad.”
They had decided that Alex should call him ‘my dad’, not ‘my father.’ It made it sound like Alex had had some affection for Frances. He had, once, a very long time ago. Before he knew what Frances really was.
“He was abusive,” Alex explained.
The judge frowned. “Yes,” he said. “Your mother has scars that bear this out.”
“My mom tried to stop him. I thought he would hurt her. I love my mom very much. I was afraid for her life, so I intervened. I only meant to keep her safe, not to hurt my dad. If I could do it over again, I would have just called 911. But it was a very stressful moment. It happened so fast. I didn’t make a good choice, and I am very sorry.”
He felt Hanna squeeze his arm. The judge studied him for a long moment. Then, with a sigh, he said, “Very well. I’ll approve the plea bargain. You’ll have to perform one hundred twenty hours of community service. Rather than making you spend time in juvenile detention, I’m going to place you on probation and send you home to help your mother care for your father. She’ll need your help now more than ever.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Forty-Five
They were at a standstill. Josie’s body ached for rest even though it was the last thing she wanted to do. When she could no longer stand the dizziness and pain throbbing in her head, she asked Noah to take her home. She took a hot bath and crawled into bed. Trout climbed up next to her and snuggled up against her side. Stroking his silky back, she fell into a deep sleep, not waking until the sunlight was streaming brightly through her bedroom windows the next day. She stirred. Beside her, Trout snored, deep in the sleep of total abandon. Josie thought about getting up, but she wasn’t ready yet. Instead, she closed her eyes once more and let her mind circle all the things her team knew about the case, trying to connect the disparate elements, trying to see what Trinity had seen. She had followed Trinity’s path so far, from her becoming obsessed with a case that her lover was lead investigator on to the Codie Lash connection to… what? What was Josie missing?
She had some kind of theory, Drake had said.
Which was what? And what did it have to do with some old diary she’d written in high school? What did it have to do with her past? Was the killer someone she went to high school with? Josie opened her eyes, reached for her phone, and fired off a text to Mettner, asking him to look into that angle. Without the actual diary, Josie had no idea what path Trinity had been trying to lead her down. As she drifted back into a near-sleep, various elements swept across the movie screen of her mind. The Post-it notes. OCD? Symmetry? Mirror killings? The combs—first in Codie Lash’s hair and then in Trinity’s. The search history on her laptop: Alphabet murders. Codie’s mouth forming the words: Bobby? What