Let Her Lie Read online

  LET HER LIE

  A NOVEL

  BRYAN REARDON

  To Michelle, as always.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’D LIKE TO thank those that helped turn all these words into a book. Stephanie Rostan has had my back for a long time. Without her, I’d still be working on my first book. Jessica Renheim swooped back in the nick of time like the superhero she is. Great editor who has made every book she’s touched better. I owe gratitude to Matt Martz for giving this book a chance. And everyone at Crooked Lane Books, especially Melissa Rechter and Madeline Rathle. And most importantly, I have to thank my wife and kids. They are everything. And they’re fairly good at putting up with the daily challenges of living with an author. For there are many.

  ACT ONE/SCENE 1

  EXT. THE BEACH—NIGHT

  A full moon shines down on the rolling surf of the Atlantic Ocean. We see the pale rise of a sand dune, a patch of yellow daylilies and—a nightmarish figure appears out of the darkness. A CHYRON flashes across the jet-black sky: AUGUST 12, 2016.

  In the darkness, the sound of the surf was hypnotic. It drew Jasper Ross-Johnson like a beckoning finger or a dog’s leash, tugging him as his feet dug into the soft, pale sand of the dune. As he crested the rise, the horizon spread, the contrast between the inky Atlantic and the hint of a rising sun as sharp as his thoughts.

  Find a perfect daylily before dawn. Shape it into a crown and place it in the freezer. Ask the question.

  Jasper had not visited this exact stretch of the beach for just over twenty years. And never to harvest a flower. Something had drawn him back this morning. A fleeting memory of the weathered wood planking leading toward the beach. Wispy, straight-trunked pines lining the walk almost up to the base of the dune. As he remembered, the plantings, perfectly random, sprang up just past the trees, as they had so many years before.

  Jasper could have knelt under the cover of night, pulled out his perfectly edged sheers, and cut the brightest daylily of the bunch. That done, he should have returned to his powder-blue electric moped and slipped silently away. The ocean, however, had other plans for him tonight. It drew him up the dune with whispers from the past. To the top. And that’s when he saw her.

  She walked at the water’s edge, just where the surf had darkened the sand. Still a quarter of a mile away, she appeared as nothing more than a darker shadow. Jasper stood frozen, staring. For the first time, he wondered if it was the call of the tide that had lured him to this place. Or could it be something different? A ghost singing from the past. Something so foreign that it caused sweat to bead his perfectly smooth forehead.

  He certainly felt the danger. For the first time since his first time, this was unplanned. He was unprepared. He’d left things unfinished. And he had never heard the call before with things still unfinished. He looked back down the winding path, back toward his moped. He glanced at his feet, noting the leather thong sandals, their perfect fit. He had not cleansed. He had no gloves with him, not even stowed in the compartment of the moped. It was all wrong. All very wrong.

  Jasper’s eyes returned to her. The briefest flash of yellow, neon, seemed to catch his eye. The hint of a halo circling the woman’s head. His chest tightened, a flutter running through his body. Despite his basest instincts, or because of them, he took that first step over the dune, down toward the beach, toward the woman walking obliviously closer.

  PART ONE

  THE HALO KILLER

  CHAPTER

  1

  June 5, 2017

  WHEN I WAS a kid, I used to pray for snow. All winter I would watch the weather. Every chance, no matter how small, filled me with hope. That a storm would hit. And we would get to stay home.

  Then, one evening, it would come. I’d look out the window and see those first flakes dancing down from the night sky, playing under the streetlamp at the edge of our yard. I’d watch, my eyes almost watering with excitement, as it stuck to the pavement. Turning the world outside white like the clouds of heaven.

  The phone would ring. I’d hold my breath with anticipation. Then I’d hear it. School had been canceled. The euphoria would burst out like an eruption. I’d bounce on my bed. Slap a hand on my ceiling and cheer. What seemed like the most important dream of my childhood had come true.

  But there was this one storm. A blizzard. It swept through my town, dumping two feet of powder. School closed along with everything else. Our front door wouldn’t even open. For two days, we hunkered down inside the house. My parents seemed to love it. For me, my dream shifted to a nightmare. The walls seemed to close in on me, pushed by gnawing fingers of utter boredom. Life reduced to a pinpoint focus—my house, my bedroom, my bed, and eventually my own mind. With no distractions, my full being turned inward. I picked apart my family, my friends, my life. All my faults. All my failures. Although I didn’t know it at the time, that amount of attention so narrowly focused on anything only leads to the darker corners of our lives.

  Ironically, in less than a day, my prayers had changed. I found myself begging for the snow to thaw. For school to open. So I could get out of my house. Out of my head. And return to the normal, somewhat numbing rhythms of life.

  The summer I turned thirty-two , I started to think a lot about that memory. My life, in many ways, had turned into that storm. My dreams had been flipped into nightmares. For my entire life I’d dreamed of fame. And, as you might know, that wish had come true. My documentary The Basement hit big in 2015. Overnight, everyone in Hollywood knew my name. Invitations poured in to all the parties in the hills. Every-one knew me. Watched me. If I had remembered, I might have known that all that attention could only lead to something bad.

  For me, it was a scandal. Like all the good ones, it involved lies, sex, and money. And it ruined my career.

  Maybe I ran. Or maybe I just needed a break. But that June, I decided to move from Los Angeles to New York. I thought it was the right place for me to get my head straight after what I was calling the Bender incident. As I settled into my new apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, so much became clear. Most importantly, I could see the line between fame and infamy again. And I knew I needed to get back to my roots. I was born to be a filmmaker. I had made an award-winning, critically acclaimed smash hit. I was Theo Snyder! I just needed to find the next story I was meant to tell.

  It was at that time that the Halo Killer, Jasper Ross-Johnson, entered my life. At my agent Steph’s encouragement, I was chasing leads again. I was working two potential subjects at the time—a mother who had driven her kids off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean, and a Mississippi politician who’d spent five years in prison for statutory rape before his release due to a procedural misstep. Then I received his letter. It came forwarded from Steph’s office with the return address Howard R. Young Correctional Institute in Wilmington, Delaware. The note was concise and simple. Jasper stated that he had added me to his call list and would like to talk. It took me a week to navigate the circus of setting up a prepaid account. But I eventually contacted him and he told me about that night on the beach, the one where he was harvesting a flower and he saw a woman at the waterline. Even after that, though, I wasn’t sure he was the one.

  At first blush, it may seem as if the Halo Killer would be an easy choice for my next documentary. He was notorious, mysterious, and frighteningly good at his sinister hobby, having left almost no physical evidence behind for two decades. Unfortunately, he was also old news. He had been captured just under a year before, on August 14, 2016. His story had already run on every true-crime program from network to YouTube Red. I was late to the game. But I, and other filmmakers like me, didn’t just throw up the quickest story we could. Art took time. Jasper’s story was in that dead zone. Past the viral stage, it needed time to gestate until it cou
ld be told the right way.

  After hanging up with him, I can’t say I was initially sold. But the Halo Killer’s voice, soft and slippery, pumped back into my thoughts like the burn of a slow injection. A hitch in his tone at one point during our conversation, the hint of an unexpected emotion, caused me to close my browser and listen again to the audio of our conversation. When I did, the idea sunk into my brain like a barbed hook. Jasper had me on a line. Maybe I would fight, thrash around a bit. But, eventually, I’d tell his story. That’s how it works, really. We don’t have a choice. The great subjects always find us.

  I had a problem, though. I tried not to admit it, especially to myself, but following the incident, I was a pariah. I needed a camera operator, which was no big deal. I still had the cachet to convince some NYU student to handle that. Probably on spec. The real problem would be finding an investigator. To tackle something as big as the Halo Killer, we’d need to find new angles. New evidence. Or, more accurately, new doubts. I needed help in that department if I wanted this to be my redemption. I knew that the usual suspects were off-limits. That the best investigators, the big fish, had cleaner, less complicated waters to swim.

  So I called my friend Kent. He was in New York, too, and part of the reason I’d moved there. His father owned one of the largest production companies in Hollywood, one that was particularly interested in documentaries. In fact, they’d produced The Basement, which was how I’d met Kent. He didn’t work for his dad. He didn’t really work, I guess you’d say. Instead, he was the most connected person I knew who would take a meeting. When I called, he insisted on going to Nobu Downtown. His choice made me hesitate. My scandal was still fresh. Though I could walk down the streets of New York without being recognized, lunch at Nobu was a different story.

  I nearly said what I was thinking. The words almost slipped free.

  Are you sure you want to be seen with me?

  But some of the old Theo was still inside, even then. That Theo had swag. He used his charisma to move people. That’s what I told myself. So I kept the worries and insecurities bottled up as best I could and accepted his invitation.

  When I walked in, I found Kent right away. He sat in one of the six seats at the bar in the middle of the restaurant. As always, the place was packed. Walking over to him, I passed three celebrities. My cheeks burned, but I made eye contact. With friendly nods, I moved past them as casually as I could and headed for Kent.

  “Hey,” I said, breathing for the first time since stepping inside.

  He swung around in his seat. Kent was short, no more than five six. He had an international look to every inch of him, from his Italian shoes to his Cartier glasses. When he popped out of the seat, he wrapped me up in a hug. Then he pulled back. His surprisingly long fingers encircling my wrist, he looked me up and down. His mother was Jamaican, and every so often the accent would slip out.

  “You look good, Theo. Almost like your old, badass self.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do a spin for me?” Kent winked. “Just kidding. Sit down, you animal.”

  We took two of the six seats at the bar. I looked at the other four.

  “Maybe we should sit at a table,” I said, looking around. “There are a lot of ears here.”

  Kent laughed. “This is about as private as it gets, my dear.”

  “What about—”

  “I reserved all six, silly.”

  “Are you serious?” At my peak celebrity, I couldn’t have done that. “I guess you are.”

  “So,” Kent said. “What’s up?”

  “I might have a new project, but I wanted to talk to you about it.”

  Kent glanced at me, side-eyed.

  “No,” I continued. “I’m not looking for a deal or anything. I want to do this one unencumbered.”

  “You mean unfunded,” Kent said, smirking.

  “Both.”

  “Why the meeting then?”

  I tried to pour on the charm. In the past, it had just happened. I would compliment his glasses. Share a subtle take on his dad’s latest project or verbally jab at one of Kent’s enemies. That day, though I managed to go through the motions, they didn’t seem to hold the same sway.

  “And?” he asked when I was finished.

  “Come on,” I said, looking hurt.

  “Theo,” he said. “I like you. You’re funny. Reckless as hell, but that’s how you hit it big in the first place. No one could have done what you did with The Basement. When you left a hot mic on that creep. That confession while he was taking a piss?—that shit was crazy. But I know you need something. And I’m just saying that I want to help. That’s all I ever want to do. Who’s your target?”

  I looked over my shoulder. No one was paying me any attention, to be honest, but a number of eyes lifted in Kent’s direction. So, I leaned in closer, whispering as best I could over the noise of the restaurant.

  “The Halo Killer,” I said.

  Kent’s reaction was exactly as I’d expect. He knew everything, all the time. Whenever I passed any information to him, I could see his mind clicking, making connections. It was what made him Kent.

  “The Halo Killer,” he repeated, a little louder than I wanted him to. “That’s crazy. Kind of on the old side, though. Or do you have one of your signature new angles?”

  I knew it all came down to that moment. I would sink or swim on my one true gift. The substance behind all my success. I needed to perform. Give Kent the perfect pitch. And I knew he was waiting for it. Judging my pause.

  I closed my eyes in a deliberate blink.

  Come on, I urged myself silently. You can do this.

  Suddenly, it came back. I came back, if maybe for just a moment. I spoke, my voice low but ominous.

  “The Halo Killer was a ghost. The cops had absolutely nothing on him. He played with them. Teased them. And they were powerless to stop his rampage. He was better than them. All-powerful. The Superman of serial killers.

  But who cares? We’ve seen that doc already. It’s all over Netflix. Bundy, Dahmer … all of them. They’re white noise at this point.”

  I took a drink, like those past stories didn’t matter. Then I focused my eyes on Kent’s. I held him hostage. Slipped into his psyche and plucked at his true desire.

  “I have no interest in what makes Jasper Ross-Johnson tick. What made him a killer. No, the real story isn’t about Superman. He’s too perfect. Too boring. The real story is about …” I let it hang for a second before finishing. “His kryptonite.”

  Kent didn’t say anything. The silence spread out between us, and my insecurities crept back to the surface. It was a dumb idea. Stupid. I was finished.

  “Love it!” he finally blurted out.

  “Are you serious?”

  He squinted. “Of course I am. Shouldn’t I be?”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  “That’s my old goddamn Theo!” He slapped my shoulder. “So, what is it?”

  “What?” I asked, giving myself a second to think.

  “His kryptonite.”

  I teased him. “I’m not telling anyone yet. But I have a lead. A good one.”

  “Nice,” Kent said. “You’re going to need an investigator. Top-notch. I was just talking to someone. Do you know Zora?”

  “Monroe?” I asked, with a little more excitement than I had meant to show.

  Although I had never met or worked with her, Zora Monroe was far and away the best investigator in the business. And the most connected. Not just among producers, who loved her, but with seemingly everyone else too, from the feds to the local police to the neighborhood grocer. Most people seemed to owe her a favor.

  “The same,” he said. “In fact, we talked about that nutjob.”

  “She asked you about the Halo Killer?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She said she caught the Dateline piece on it. And she was surprised no one was on the case. It was no big deal. We were just having drinks and it happened to come up.”

  “D
id you get the sense she was interested in working on a project?”

  Kent shrugged. “Have you ever met her?”

  I shook my head, and he laughed.

  “She’s a tough read. I didn’t get the sense she was fishing. She really doesn’t need to.”

  “I know, I know. I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m just thinking about it,” Kent said. “No, I don’t think it had anything to do with work, really. It was more like she just knew someone would be on it soon. And it happens to be you, my friend. I think that’s a great fit.”

  “Really? And you haven’t heard anyone else nosing around the story?”

  “No,” he said.

  I took a deep breath. “Do you think she’d … work with me?”

  Kent leaned back. He looked me in the eye, a troubled expression on his face.

  “Theo, baby, none of that. You made The Basement. The fucking Basement. She should be wondering if you would work with her.”

  I laughed. “I love you, Kent.”

  His smile was only slightly salacious. “You better.”

  I touched his arm. “Can you introduce us?”

  Kent chortled. “You know I can do better than that.”

  * * *

  Three hours later, as I sat alone in my apartment listening to my recording of Jasper’s story for the hundredth or so time, I got the text. It was from Kent:

  She’s expecting your call. Be yourself and she’s yours.

  There were a bunch of emojis too, but I had no idea what they meant. My hand shaking just a little bit, I called Zora Monroe.

  “Hey,” I said when she answered.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  “This is Theo Snyder. Kent gave me your number. Said you might be interested in the Halo Killer case.”

  There was a pause. I think I might have held my breath.

  “Thought you were out of the game,” she said.

  “I … No, I’ve just been focused on finding the right target.”