Page 52 of Carry on Wayward Son

“I managed to get a look at something. Some of Carson’s notes from after Willa’s memory came back.”

The room went quiet.

“How?” Madden asked.

“One of the SBI agents had a folder out on a desk. She stepped away for a few minutes to take a call. I happened to wander by.” He said this in a tone that was anything but casual. “They’ve been so damned tight-lipped, I got what I could before she came back.”

He stabbed at his phone, opening something, then passed it around.

I looked through the photos when they reached me. Fragments of cramped, hurried handwriting. Carson’s presumably. Names. Dates. Questions with no answers written next to them. O’Shea’s name. A date from fourteen years ago circled twice. An arrow connecting two things I couldn’t make out because the photo had caught the edge of the page.

“What does it mean?” Sawyer asked.

“I think it means he was actually looking,” Rios said. “After Willa came forward, he reopened the case, and he was actually working it himself. I don’t think these notes would exist if he were tangled up in the cover-up of what happened. At least insofar as Gwen was concerned. Whatever he found or didn’t find, he was pulling on threads. Beyond that, I can’t tell you. The notes are incomplete, and I don’t have context for half of what’s written.”

Madden studied the phone. “He connected something. Look at this. He’s asking where O’Shea’s money came from. That’s not a question you ask unless something has already made you suspicious.”

“But we don’t know what made him suspicious,” Jace pointed out.

“No.” Rios took the phone back. “Whatever he found, he kept it in his head or somewhere we haven’t located. And then someone put a bullet in him before he could do anything with it.”

The table sat with that. Outside the Sutter House windows, the December dark had settled in completely, the ocean invisible beyond the glass, just the reflection of the living room lamps and all of us in it.

“Do you trust the SBI?” I asked Rios.

He looked at me. “I trust them more than Carson. Beyond that, jury’s still out.”

I nodded and let the silence sit for another moment before I looked up. “The videos. Do you have copies here?”

“Yes.” Madden opened her laptop and began tapping keys.

“I’d like to see both of them. Maybe there’s something there a fresh pair of eyes will catch.” That my experienced eyes would catch. But I didn’t say that out loud.

Someone turned on the TV, and Madden cast the grainy image to the larger screen. It was cellphone footage shot on something old, the image quality of a phone that had been cheap even when it was new. The camera was held loosely, shakily. Whoever was filming didn’t care about the picture. They cared about the threat. The faded marina logo was visible in the background, the Busby family name just legible at the edge of the frame.

Miles Busby stood in front of it. Younger—significantly younger, his face not yet fully settled into itself, shoulders narrower than they must be now. He was looking at whoever held the phone with his chin up and his jaw set in a way that suggested he understood he was in trouble and had decided that showing it would be worse than feigning bravado.

“Have you considered my offer?” There was nothing especially notable about the male voice from off-screen. It was mid-tone, conversational. No particular accent.

Miles rocked on his feet, a betrayal of the nerves he was trying to hide. “I can’t do it.”

“Come on now. We both know your family is struggling. This would provide a much-needed influx of cash.”

Miles shot a glance around. Checking for backup? Listening ears? “It’s dirty money, and I’m not gonna use my family’s business to launder it for you.”

A fist came in from off-screen and buried itself in Miles’s stomach. He folded with a grunt. The voice didn’t change at all. “I don’t think you understand the situation here. I was being nice, giving you the illusion of a choice. But either you say yes and take the deal, or someone you care about is going to pay the price.”

Straightening, Miles wiped the blood from his split lip and spat. “Fuck you.”

The defiance in that look. I knew from the records that he was nineteen, a kid who had grown up on this island thinking he understood the shape of his life, standing in front of his family’s marina being told to do something he’d decided he wasn’t going to do. He didn’t know yet. I could see it clearly—the moment before he understood what his refusal was actually going to cost. He thought he could hold the line. He thought no meant no.

“You’re going to regret that, Busby.”

The video clip ended.

“Once more,” I requested.

When it had finished again, I sat back. “There were at least two people. The one hitting him, one holding the phone. The speaker is probably the one with the phone. The hitter is muscle.” I looked at the frozen frame. “The camera angle was deliberate. They wanted Miles to have this afterward. Wanted him to be able to watch it again and again and know exactly what was coming.”