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Olin did not seem to have that same problem. “He hacked into your phone through your computer and installed a tracking application,” he said as he leaned the baseball bat against the wall.

Dylan put her feet back on the floor and rocked forward. “You what?”

“I didn’t know how else to find you.”

She glared at him, then collapsed back into the sofa. “Touché.”

If any of this concerned Austin, he didn’t let on. “Sit down,” he said to Connor and Olin, and they did. “I’m just glad all of you are safe. I think there’s something bad going on out there.”

“We know,” Connor said.

“We were at the Albright Mall when it happened,” Olin added.

“What are you talking about?”

“There was a bomb that went off in the food court. We’re lucky be alive.”

Austin sighed. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Anyone want some coffee?”

Olin said he would take a cup, and Austin disappeared into the kitchen.

Connor heard him open a cabinet and then turn on the tap. He knew the sounds meant Austin was making a fresh pot.

“Why do you think it was my parents in the fire?” Olin asked.

Dylan, who seemed to be staring at nothing, perhaps thinking about Tom and whether he was okay, tuned in. “What fire?”

Connor summed up for her what he had told Olin just so they could move on, then apologized to Olin for what he had said. “It’s just the ring. It still bothers me that it was on the wrong finger. And I just assumed if it wasn’t my parents, it had to be yours. But I don’t know that. I don’t know that it was yours or mine. For all we know, it could have been another two people entirely.”

“I guess so.”

“Let’s try to stay positive for now.”

Dylan rolled her eyes. “Have you been outside?”

Connor wasn’t sure what to say to that. Dylan was right. Things out there were bad. It would be easy to give in to the anxiety that had been hounding him since his parents were taken and had compounded when the bomb went off. But that wouldn’t do him any good. Instead of explaining that to Dylan, though—which was a one-way ticket to feeding his anxiety—he went into the kitchen to check on Austin.

A pot of water was sitting on the gas stove, not yet boiling. Austin was leaning against the counter, watching it. He had set out three mugs and a tin of Folgers instant coffee. “It’s the best I can do under the circumstances,” he said.

The kitchen was narrow and cramped. There was no reason to hang out here, literally watching a pot boil. Connor figured he must have overheard their conversation and was giving them some space.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

Connor shrugged as the water bubbled up to a simmer.

Austin turned off the stove, put a scoop of instant coffee into each mug, and then poured in the water. He handed two of them to Connor. “For you and your friend. I’ll bring some milk and sugar in case he wants any.”

There weren’t enough seats in Austin’s living room for all four of them, so Austin carried in a chair from the dining room. They drank their coffee while Connor and his friends filled Austin in on what had happened at the mall and afterward.

Dylan did most of the talking. Olin just nodded along, and Connor, regularly checking his phone for a signal, only spoke up when he thought he had something to add.

Although nobody said as much, Connor suspected they were all waiting for the power to come back on so they could find out how bad the situation actually was.

CHAPTER 47

Oldrich was barely out of bed when Basia called. He must have sounded tired or annoyed when he answered (he was both), because the first thing she said was, “I thought you would want to know about this right away.”

“What is it?”

“There’s no match in the system for the knife you gave me.”

Oldrich walked to his bedroom closet in just his underwear and pulled out a suit. It was brown and wrinkled. Brown because he liked the color, wrinkled because he didn’t iron. “What are you saying? That you couldn’t get any DNA off it?”

“I got DNA. Plenty of it. The sample I pulled from the blade didn’t have a match, but I expected that. The problem is, neither did the DNA on the handle.”

Oldrich tried to make sense of what Basia was telling him. He knew Matthew Jones had killed Heather Callahan. There was no doubt about that. So why wasn’t his DNA on the knife? “Are you sure there wasn’t a second sample you missed?”

“If there was DNA on that knife that had been in our system, I wouldn’t be telling you we didn’t have a match.” Basia sounded insulted.

Maybe, because he was American, Matthew Jones had been overlooked when they had catalogued the DNA of current prisoners. “When you get to the office—”

“I’m at the office. How do you think I know what the results of the test were?”

“Could you look up a name for me? I want to make sure they’re in the system.”

“Matthew Jones?”

Oldrich had an uneasy feeling about where this was going. “Yes.”

“I already did. He’s there.”

That was exactly what Oldrich had worried Basia was going to say when she’d rattled Matthew’s name off so easily. Still, since the DNA wasn’t a match, he had to consider the possibility that another sample had been miscategorized or that the record tied to Matthew’s name had been corrupted. While neither of those things happened often, they had both been known to happen before. Especially with some of the original records, which, since Matthew was in jail at the time the system was set up, would have included his.

Oldrich decided he had better go down to the prison, get a fresh sample, and run it again.

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