Page 96 of Silent Bones

Noah closed the pad.

This wasn’t suicide.

It was cleanup.

When McKenzie returned, he paused in the doorway. “You think this is connected to Miles?”

“I think it’s connected to everything.” He held up the notebook. “Logan knew something. Probably more than he let on in that interview. He said, don’ trust Mack.”

“You’re saying Mack did this?”

Noah stared at the sketch, then at Logan’s body, swaying ever so slightly from the draft under the door.

“I’m saying someone wanted him quiet. And Mack knew how to follow orders.”

“Geesh,” Callie whispered behind him.

McKenzie got closer. “With all that’s happened, my opinion is this wasn’t a suicide. It was a silencing.”

Noah nodded. “Seems that way.”

McKenzie exhaled, eyes narrowing toward the door. “Then we’ve got a killer who’s tying up loose ends.”

“Which means a list is real,” Noah said. “And it’s getting shorter.”

He walked to a rear window that was cracked open and looked out toward the lake. The water rippled under thelast light of day, indifferent. Somewhere across that surface, someone was watching, maybe not now, maybe not here, but always near.

“Get prints,” he said to Ozzy. “And have the room swept for fiber or fur traces. Anything you can find. My guess is whoever did this entered through the rear window.”

Callie stepped beside him. “Do you think Logan had ties to Wallface?”

“Anything is possible. But I think this ties to whoever needs Wallface or the meth business to stay buried. And if Logan knew something…”

“Then someone made sure he wouldn’t say it.”

He lifted a ziplock evidence bag. “Someone made sure Logan wouldn’t speak.”

Called nodded, then quietly said, “Or they think he already did. You think it was Mack?”

Noah looked at her. “Unless Logan died when Mack was out of custody? Any idea when he died, Oz?”

“Ballpark, around 30 hours ago.”

He took a breath, steadying. The kind of breath you take when you realize the walls you’ve been pushing against aren’t the walls holding the real threat.

Callie leaned in, her face unreadable. “Are we connecting this to the Strudwell case?”

“I’m connecting it to whatever the hell Logan saw,” Noah replied. “Because he ran from that site like something had teeth. And now he’s strung up in a motel room.”

Called crossed her arms. “What was in the notebook?”

Noah opened it again and passed it over. “This.” He tapped the page with the sketch of the Airstream trailer. “Silver trailer. Matches the one parked near Middle Saranac. Same one Mack supposedly used as a mobile base.”

McKenzie leaned in. “But Mack’s been cooperative since his arrest. Lawyered up, sure, but calm. Almost like he knows someone else is holding the bag now.”

Noah’s jaw tightened. “Or like he was told to stay calm.”

Savannah raised the sketch. “Don’t trust Mack,” she read aloud. “But that’s just the tip. Someone else is pulling strings.”