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‘And when did this arrive?’ Detective Ecker’s eyes scanned down the letter again, creasing by his thumbs.

‘Came in the mail this morning.’ Jet sat across the table from Detective Ecker and the chief, tucked into metal chairs that were too small for them. Jack Finney stood against the back wall of the interview room, a file in his hands, hugging it to his chest.

‘I didn’t open it until this afternoon,’ she said, answering a question he hadn’t asked. ‘And I sat in re-re-re – the waiting room for over an hour, waiting for you to get here. You know I’m on a bit of a tight deadline, right?’

Ecker didn’t answer, even though Jet had asked him a question. He studied the letter again, moving his thumbs down, the top half of the page flopping over.

‘The loan was taken out two months ago,’ he said. ‘And the first repayment was supposed to be made last week.’

Jet shrugged. ‘Guess I’ve got bigger things to worry about than a bad credit score.’ She rubbed the spot above her eye, the pain deepening under these bright overhead lights. They never heard of soft lighting? Lamps?

‘And you don’t recognize this bank account number? The one the money was paid into?’

‘Nope, that’s not mine.’

Ecker clicked his tongue. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘we’ll look into it.’

‘You think it’s related? To my murder?’

The detective folded the letter, slid it back inside the envelope. ‘We’re not ruling anything out at this point.’

More cop speak.

‘Well, you’ve probably ruled some things out. I’m no detective, but it probably wasn’t aliens or Taylor Swift. She’s very busy.’

Chief Lou smiled, hiding it with his hand.

‘Let us look into this.’ Ecker banged the letter against the table and stood up, tiny metal chair screeching, making more noise than it should, to make up for its size.

‘Wait.’ Jet’s voice stopped him on his way to the door. ‘You said you were going up to River Street last night, to speak to the people who live there. You find anything?’

Ecker’s fingers stalled on the handle. ‘Spoke to the neighbors. No one remembers seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary that night. The house nearest the phone’s last known location, number 12, the elderly woman who lives there was already asleep at the time in question.

We had some officers on a grid search this morning.

Nothing’s turned up so far. I’ll let you know if it does. ’

Jet nodded, but she didn’t entirely trust that he would.

‘Oh, and you can tell the pricks at LightFi that they will be seizing that truck over my dead body.’

Crickets. Jet hadn’t even meant to do that one. Death was everywhere, linguistically speaking; she hadn’t really noticed until she was dying.

Ecker opened the door, and the chief followed him out, dipping his head toward Jet as he did, replacing his cap. The door closed behind them, and the clock shifted upward another minute. Counting up, but counting down really.

Jack came alive then, pushing off the wall and into one of the abandoned chairs, too small for him too. He put the file down on the table and stretched his fingers.

‘We had a call into the station a couple of hours ago,’ he said, holding her eyes. ‘Your mom, trying to file a missing persons report.’

Jet sighed, the air heavier on the way out. ‘I’m not missing.’

‘I know,’ Jack said gently. ‘It’s just her way, Jet.’

‘I wish it wasn’t.’

‘She said you left home this morning. She’s very worried about you … in your condition.’

‘I’m fine.’ Jet sniffed. ‘I’m staying with Billy.’

Jack nodded, left his chin up. ‘I assumed. I’ll let her know, when she calls back.’

Silence, also heavier than it was before.

‘Will you get in trouble?’ Jet said, head jerking toward the door. ‘Because I asked for you to be in here too?’

‘Don’t remember you asking. ’ Jack smiled. ‘More like demanding. ’

Jet smirked. ‘Sorry. It’s just, I don’t know them.

I don’t trust them.’ She played with her hands, slotted them together.

‘And they don’t know me either. I know they don’t really care, beyond closing a case.

But I do know you, and I know you’ll tell me anything I need to know. It’s next-door-neighbor code.’

Another smile.

‘So … is there anything I need to know?’ Jet prompted. ‘Anything turn up from processing the crime scene?’

The metal chair creaked as Jack shifted his weight. ‘Well, I should probably wait for Detective Ecker to –’

‘– Please, Mr Finney.’ Jet leaned forward, catching his flailing eyes. ‘I don’t have a lot of time.’

He sighed, checking over his shoulder, watching the door for a few seconds, time ticking away. The clock was silent, but Jet could hear it all the same.

‘OK,’ Jack said quickly, rubbing his nose with one hand, sliding the file over with the other. ‘We did find something interesting.’

‘Interesting?’

Jack opened the file, flicking through pages and photographs, those yellow numbered markers from the scene. Jet tried to catch all the words, failed because they moved too fast, upside down.

‘Here.’ Jack stopped at a large photograph, slid it out and held it up.

A gloved hand at the top of the frame, two fingers pinching a clear baggie in front of a white surface, sealed at the top. And inside the plastic baggie was a hair. Jet squinted, leaned closer. The hair looked red, straight, about five inches long.

Jack handed the photo over and Jet studied it closer.

‘That hair was found at the scene. More specifically, it was found where you were lying, after the attack. And this hair was on the wooden floor, underneath the main pool of blood. The hair was there first, and you bled over it; the techs can tell things like that.’

Jet lowered the photo, looked back at him. She thought she knew what that meant, but she wanted him to say it.

Jack nodded. ‘Which means it wasn’t left there by any of the first responders or police officers, or Billy finding you, when the scene was contaminated. This hair was under the blood. It was left there either before, or during …’

He didn’t finish his sentence, didn’t need to.

‘So it was left by the killer?’ Jet asked, eyes returning to the photo, running her finger along the zoomed-in strand of hair. Did Jet even know any redheads? Sophia’s hair was dark brown, but sometimes looked a little red under the right lighting.

Jet swallowed. ‘DNA?’ But she already knew. Knew that movies and TV lied about that stuff, fast-tracked it. Knew that it could take weeks to get any results back from the lab. Jet didn’t have weeks, and she wasn’t in a movie.

Jack shook his head. ‘No need,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not human.’

Jet narrowed her eyes.

‘It’s synthetic,’ he said. ‘Plastic.’

Jet looked back at the hair. ‘You mean a wig?’

‘I mean a wig.’ Jack reached forward, took the photograph from her, replaced it in the file, another look over his shoulder.

‘You know anyone who was wearing a red wig at the Halloween Fair?’ But he’d asked it like he already knew the answer, like this wasn’t really a question at all.

Which was why Detective Ecker hadn’t needed to ask it.

Jet exhaled. ‘JJ,’ she said, her hands finding each other again, gripping on.

Jack pressed his lips together, closed the file.

JJ couldn’t have done this, right? He’d hardly raised his voice the whole time Jet had been with him; in fact, maybe yelling would have showed that he cared more.

But JJ was missing. JJ had sent her a Sorry text after the time of the attack.

JJ had been wearing a red wig with straight hair on Halloween, on the night Jet was killed.

Jet could see it in Mr Finney’s eyes, could count them one by one.

Three strikes against JJ.