The young woman goes around to the driver’s side. I see her slip a folded bill into the man’s hand, and he leaves—she must have paid him to watch the car.

Guess that’s not Brother.

“Ride up front,” she says. “I’m not your Uber driver.”

She works her way through Midtown, then Hell’s Kitchen. When we’re in the northbound lane of the Henry Hudson Parkway, I ask, “Can you tell me where we’re going?”

“Nope.” Her eyes never waver from the traffic ahead.

She takes the 125th Street exit, and things start to look familiar. Very familiar.

I don’t believe this. We’re heading for Jerome L. Greene Hall, a blocky building better known as “the Toaster.”

It’s the home of my alma mater Columbia Law. When I walk through the main door, powerful sense memories bring me back to when I first set foot in here.

We ride the elevator to the sixth floor, then I follow the young woman through a wide corridor. We stop abruptly in front of an office door I know well.

She leaves, and I step forward and knock beneath a plaque reading DR. CAMERON GRAHAM.

“Enter!” booms that familiar voice.

It’s him, all right. My old mentor. Also my tormentor and inquisitor. And a father figure after Pops died.

I push open the door, and there he is. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, Dr. Cameron Graham’s brown eyes are twinkling. Above his expressive face is a fringe of white hair.

“Brea Cooke,” he says, standing up with a broad smile. “It’s been too many years.” He must be in his seventies now and wearing the same outfit as always: black slacks, white shirt, blue necktie that’s tight to the collar.

“Dr. Graham, I’m glad to see you. But I’m not sure why I’m here.”

He turns serious. “Close the door,” he says softly, dropping his smile. “And call me Brother.”

CHAPTER
73

Concord, New Hampshire

Behind her desk at the New Hampshire Department of Safety, Detective Sergeant Marie Gagnon is rubbing her temples, frustrated by the meager contents of Suzanne Bonanno’s murder book.

Even though it’s been seventeen years, the file should be bulging. But she’s had to rebuild it from practically nothing. She has the autopsy report, of course, complete with digital photographs and precise anatomical measurements. She has Dr. Alice Woods’s opinion that Suzanne might have been pregnant. But both she and the ME know that a defense expert could easily cast doubt on that theory. If there had ever been fetal remains, they’re long gone, dissolved into the dark Seabrook soil.

She has Suzanne’s bracelet and the DVD that shows her wearing it at a Boston children’s hospital back when she cheered for the Patriots.