The public library had become Moira Brennan's second office, a development that Margaret Chen regarded with a mixture of pride and unease. The detective had visited four times in the past two weeks, each visit longer than the last, and each visit ending with her descending into the basement archives with a cardboard box of files that she would return, hours later, slightly more worn than before. Margaret did not ask what she was looking for. She had learned, in her years as head librarian, that some questions were better left unasked.
On a Tuesday morning in early November, Brennan arrived before the library opened, carrying a paper cup of gas-station coffee and a leather satchel that bulged with documents. She had spent the previous night reviewing the records that had finally arrived from the state department of corrections, and what she had found had kept her awake until dawn.
Ezra Blackwood—or rather, the man who now called himself Ezra Blackwood—had been released from the Northpoint Correctional Facility twenty-two months ago, after serving six years and four months of a ten-year sentence for computer fraud, identity theft, and unlawful access to protected government systems. His prison file described him as a "model inmate" who had earned two associate degrees through correspondence courses and had taught a weekly computer-literacy class to other prisoners. His psychological evaluations noted "above-average intelligence," "difficulty forming interpersonal attachments," and "a strong, possibly obsessive sense of personal justice." His parole officer, in quarterly reports that Brennan had requested and received, described him as "compliant," "cooperative," and "somewhat withdrawn." There was nothing in any of the records to suggest that he had violated the terms of his release, and nothing to explain how a convicted hacker had transformed himself into a small-town archivist with impeccable credentials.
Except that the credentials were not impeccable. They were, on closer inspection, impossible.
Ezra Blackwood's resume listed a bachelor's degree in library science from a state university that Brennan had called that morning. The university had no record of a student named Ezra Blackwood. His employment history included a three-year position at a public library in a town that did not exist—the zip code on the reference letter traced back to a vacant lot in an industrial park outside of Cleveland. His Social Security number was valid, but the name attached to it had belonged to a child who had died of leukemia in 1987 at the age of four. The entire identity was a fabrication, constructed with the kind of care that suggested professional expertise. Ezra Blackwood was not a real person. He was a mask, worn by a man who had spent six years in federal prison learning to be anyone he wanted to be.
Brennan sat in the library's reading room, the documents spread across a table near the window, and tried to decide what to do with what she knew. She had enough to arrest him—identity fraud alone was a parole violation that would send him back to prison for the remainder of his sentence. But arresting him for identity fraud would not solve the larger case. It would not tell her who was behind the attacks on Pryce and Hennis and Thorpe and Sable and Pendleton. It would not tell her whether Ezra Blackwood was the attacker, or whether he was, as he had claimed, simply a grieving brother who had come to Wildewood Springs to be close to his sister's memory.
The distinction mattered. It mattered because if Ezra was the attacker, arresting him would stop the violence before it reached Julian Croft. If he was not the attacker, arresting him would do nothing except silence the one person who might be able to help her find who was.
She gathered the documents and walked downstairs to the basement. Ezra was at his desk, exactly where she had expected him to be, his laptop open in front of him and a stack of old property records at his elbow. He looked up when she entered, and something in his expression shifted—a wariness that had not been there during their first conversation.
"Detective," he said, closing the laptop. "I wasn't expecting you today."
"I have some follow-up questions." Brennan pulled a chair from the corner of the room and sat down across from him, placing her satchel on the floor beside her. "I've been checking your records."
"I assumed you would be."
"Your prison records came back. Your parole file. Your employment history." She paused, watching his face. "Your university transcripts."
Ezra said nothing. His hands rested on the desk, still and calm, but his eyes had sharpened with the alertness of someone who knew that the ground beneath him was about to shift.
"The university has no record of you. Neither does the library where you claimed to have worked before coming here. Your Social Security number belongs to a child who died forty years ago. Your entire identity, Mr. Blackwood—or whatever your name actually is—is a work of fiction."
The silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant hum of the library's heating system and the muffled chime of the clock tower striking ten. When Ezra finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before, stripped of the careful neutrality he had maintained during their first conversation.
"My name is not Ezra Blackwood," he said. "But you already knew that."
"I know that you're a convicted felon who violated the terms of his parole by constructing a false identity. I know that you came to Wildewood Springs under false pretenses and obtained employment through fraudulent means. I know that you have the skills, the motive, and the opportunity to be the person who has been attacking the people on your list." Brennan leaned forward, her voice dropping. "What I don't know is whether you actually did it. So I'm giving you one chance to tell me the truth. All of it. Before I have to decide whether to arrest you."
Ezra looked at her for a long moment, and then he did something she had not expected. He laughed—a short, humorless sound, more exhale than amusement. "You're giving me one chance," he repeated. "That's more than anyone gave my sister."
"Your sister's case is the reason I'm here. It's the reason I've spent the past month doing nothing but following the trail of breadcrumbs that someone—possibly you—has been leaving across this town. I've read the comments. I've listened to the voicemails. I've seen the photographs of her dead cat on her doorstep and the crowd that stood on her lawn for three hours waiting for her to come outside. I know what happened to her, and I know that the people who did it were never held accountable. But what's happening now is not accountability. It's revenge. And revenge doesn't end. It just keeps taking until there's nothing left to take."
Ezra was silent. Then he stood up, walked to one of the metal shelves, and pulled down a small cardboard box that had been hidden behind a row of tax ledgers. He brought the box to the desk and opened it. Inside was a collection of items that Brennan recognized immediately: the printed screenshots of the Facebook comment threads, the photographs of the keyed car and the dead cat and the crowd on the lawn, the obituary that had been buried on page fourteen. And beneath all of it, wrapped in a piece of worn cotton cloth, was a cell phone—an old model, its screen cracked, its case covered in faded stickers of dogs and cats.
"This was hers," Ezra said, holding the phone but not turning it on. "The police returned it to me after the investigation was closed. They said they had no use for it. They said there was nothing on it that was relevant to the case."
"What's on it?"
"Everything. The calls she received, the messages, the threats. The recordings she made of Pendleton standing in her doorway telling her that her tormentors had a right to free speech. The draft of a letter she was writing to the city council, asking them to investigate the shelter funds that Croft had redirected to his brother-in-law's company. She documented everything, because she still believed that documentation mattered. She still believed that if she could just gather enough evidence, someone would have to listen."
Ezra placed the phone on the desk between them. "I've listened to every message on this phone. I've read every email, every draft, every note. And I've spent seven years trying to figure out what to do with what I found."
"And what did you decide?"
"I decided that she was right. That evidence matters. That the truth, if it's presented clearly enough, can still change things." He looked up at her, and for the first time since she had met him, his eyes were unguarded. "I didn't attack those people, Detective. I didn't hack Duncan Pryce's house or send packages to Marjorie Hennis or leak files to the school newspaper. But I know who did."
Brennan felt the air in the room shift. "Who?"
"Someone I met in prison. His name was Anton Voss. He was serving twelve years for cyberstalking and extortion. We were in the same computer-literacy program—I taught, he learned. He was very good at learning." Ezra paused. "When I told him about Elara, about what had happened to her, he took it personally. He said he had a sister too. He said he understood what it was like to lose someone and be powerless to do anything about it. And he said that when he got out, he would help me."
"When did he get out?"
"Four months before I did. He was released to a halfway house in the state capital. We kept in touch, for a while. He told me he was doing well, staying out of trouble, rebuilding his life. And then, about eight months ago, the messages stopped." Ezra met her eyes. "I think he came here. I think he's the one who's been doing this. And I think he's using the list I gave him."
Brennan sat back in her chair, her mind racing. The story was plausible—more than plausible, it was exactly the kind of thing that happened in the world she inhabited, where criminals met in prison and formed alliances that outlasted their sentences. But it was also convenient, a way for Ezra to explain the attacks without admitting his own involvement. She would need to verify everything: Anton Voss's prison records, his release date, his current whereabouts. She would need to find out if he was in Wildewood Springs, and if so, where.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" she asked.
"Because I wasn't sure. Because I didn't want to believe it. Because Anton was my friend, and I didn't want to be responsible for sending him back to prison." Ezra's voice cracked, just slightly. "But it's gone too far. Pendleton is in the hospital. Whatever Anton is planning for Croft, it's going to be worse. And I can't let that happen. Not in Elara's name."
Brennan studied him for a long moment. His story checked out—or at least, it would check out once she had time to verify it. But there was still something that bothered her, a detail that did not quite fit.
"The letter," she said. "The one that was sent to Pendleton. 'You are not alone.' And the message that was sent to Elara, the night she almost jumped the first time. 'I believe you. Wait.' Did Anton write those too?"
Ezra hesitated. "No," he said quietly. "I wrote those."
"You?"
"The night she almost jumped—the first time—I sent her a message. I had been tracking the comment thread from a café three towns over. I told her to wait. I told her I believed her. And she did wait, for a little while. But it wasn't enough." He swallowed. "The message to Pendleton was a warning. I wanted him to know that someone remembered what he had done. I didn't know that Anton was already planning his own warning. I didn't know that he would take it further than I ever intended."
Brennan picked up Elara's phone and turned it over in her hands. The cracked screen reflected the basement's dim light, fractured into a dozen different angles. "Mr. Blackwood—or whoever you are—I need you to give me everything you have on Anton Voss. His full name, his date of birth, any contact information you have, any details about his appearance or his habits or his methods. And I need you to understand that withholding information from a police investigation is a crime, regardless of your intentions."
"I understand." Ezra opened his laptop and began to type. "I'll write down everything I know."
"And one more thing." Brennan stood up, the phone still in her hand. "Your fake identity. The documents you used to get this job. I should arrest you for that alone."
"But you're not going to."
"I haven't decided yet. It depends on whether everything you've told me today turns out to be true. And it depends on whether you're willing to help me stop whatever Anton Voss is planning for Julian Croft."
Ezra looked up from the laptop. "What do you need me to do?"
"For now, nothing. Stay here. Don't leave town. Don't contact anyone from your old life, including Anton Voss. And be ready to answer more questions when I have them."
She turned and walked toward the stairs, but stopped at the bottom step. "One last question," she said, without turning around. "Your real name. The one you were born with. What is it?"
The pause that followed was so long that she thought he was not going to answer.
"Micah," he said finally. "Micah Vane. I took her last name when I was eighteen, after we aged out of the system. I wanted us to be a family, even if it was only on paper. The prison records don't show it because the name change was sealed by the juvenile court. But that's who I am."
Brennan nodded, once, and climbed the stairs without looking back.
In the reading room, the morning sun was streaming through the windows, illuminating the dust motes that floated in the still air. She sat down at her usual table, Elara's phone beside her notebook, and began to write down everything Micah Vane had told her. The name Anton Voss. The prison friendship. The list that had been shared and the revenge that had been taken. It was a story that made sense, and that was exactly what worried her. In her experience, the stories that made the most sense were often the ones that were hiding something.
She picked up her phone and called the state department of corrections. She asked for the records of an inmate named Anton Voss, released approximately twenty-two months ago from the Northpoint Correctional Facility. The clerk on the other end of the line put her on hold for twelve minutes, and when he returned, his voice was uncertain.
"Detective, I've searched the database. Northpoint has no record of an inmate named Anton Voss. No one by that name has ever been incarcerated in this state's federal system."
Brennan hung up and stared at the phone for a long moment. Then she opened her notebook and drew a line through the name Anton Voss, and beside it she wrote a single word: Lied.
The game was not over. It was only just beginning.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!