The utility room had a dropped ceiling, so Bug climbed atop a washing machine, lifted the tile, and shined the flashlight along the joist. Niki could hear him mumbling to himself but couldn’t make out the words. When he jumped down, he walked upstairs without saying a word. He found the router, paused to consider something, then, like a coonhound on a scent, he followed something invisible into the garage.

The space was large and clean—white walls, epoxied floors—and it held three cars: a Jaguar sedan, a vintage Corvette convertible, and a white Porsche SUV. Above the Porsche, a scuttle hole led to an attic.

Bug grabbed a ladder that hung on the wall and set it up below the scuttle hole. “Not a very sensible place to have a computer,” he said as he climbed.

“Unless you wanted to keep it hidden,” Niki said.

He shined his light around the attic. “Is there a pry bar down there?”

Niki found a crowbar and handed it up to Bug. He took it and crawled into the darkness.

As she waited, Niki leaned against the Porsche, a beautiful automobile, sleek and compact, more expensive than anything Niki would ever be able to afford. She glanced down at the driver’s-side window, her curiosity pulled by the red leather interior, and something caught her eye.

Above her, Niki could hear the screech of floorboards being pried up, but her attention remained on the door of the Porsche. The rubber seal at the bottom of the window had a tiny smear of something dark, a patch about the size of Niki’s thumbnail.

“There’s a server up here,” Bug yelled from the attic. “Fully functional. They hid it below the floorboards.”

“Bag it,” Niki yelled.

She bent down to look more closely at the spot, pulling a lock-blade knife from her pocket and scraping loose a tiny speck—dark red, almost black. Blood? She stepped back and looked at the car, a white SUV. Sadie Vauk’s killer had driven a white SUV.

Then Niki remembered the videos of Amy and Gavin in jail, some of the comments coming into a new focus. That’s what mothers do; they look out for their children. I’m scared for you, Gavin, she had said. I just want to help. And then there was that comment Amy made while standing beside the swimming pool, when she and Matty cornered Amy about Eleanora Abrams. What had she said? A mother’s supposed to protect her child, ain’t she?

She pulled out her phone and called Matty. “You okay in there?” she asked.

“I’m fine. Why?”

“Put cuffs on Ms. Spencer. I think we found Sadie Vauk’s killer.”

Chapter 63

Chapter 63