Three confession forms.
“Research about other defendants.”
Monroe wrote something.
“Anyone know you had it?”
“I mentioned parts of the research in emails.”
“To whom?”
“Myself. My mother. One law professor.”
“Anyone connected to the prosecutor’s office?”
“No.”
“Police department?”
“No.”
Monroe nodded.
“We’ll need copies of whatever you have digitally.”
“I can provide them.”
He hesitated.
“Miss Freeman, there’s something else.”
Harper waited.
“The back window wasn’t forced.”
Maya frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“The latch was disengaged from inside.”
Harper stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“Was anyone given a key?”
“No,” Maya said.
“Housekeeper?”
“No.”
“Contractors?”
Maya shook her head.
Harper thought about it.
Then she remembered.
“Six weeks ago.”
Her mother looked at her.
“What?”
“The alarm system.”
A technician had come to replace a defective motion sensor.
He had spent almost forty minutes moving between the first and second floors.
Harper had been studying in the kitchen.
“What company?” Monroe asked.
Maya answered.
“BrightShield Residential Security.”
The officer wrote it down.
Harper pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?” Maya asked.
“Checking something.”
She searched her email.
There it was.
SERVICE CONFIRMATION.
Technician: R. PIKE.
Harper stopped breathing.
“No.”
“What?” Monroe asked.
She turned the phone toward him.
The technician’s listed name was Robert Pike.
Not Raymond.
But beneath the name was a service identification photograph.
Harper enlarged it.
She had never paid attention to the technician’s face that day.