Chapter 10: The Woman in the Photograph
The first person who recognized the man with the scar was Priya Doyle.
She had worked at the county courthouse for fifteen years before opening a bookkeeping business.
I described his jacket, his face, and the way he called himself a family friend.
Priya searched her memory for a full minute.
Then she asked whether he walked with a slight limp.
I said yes.
“His name might be Graham Sutter,” she said.
“He used to work private security for property-management companies.”
Priya warned me that recognizing someone was not evidence of wrongdoing.
I agreed.
Still, I wrote the name beside my notes.
The next morning, Denise asked whether I knew Noah’s mother.
I said Valerie had told the neighborhood she was overseas.
Denise responded carefully.
“There are discrepancies in the information we’ve received about his family arrangements.”
She could not tell me more.
But her question prompted me to remember a photograph on Valerie’s mantel from a neighborhood holiday gathering.
The photograph showed a dark-haired woman standing beside a younger Valerie and holding a toddler.
Noah had once told Hannah that the woman was his mother, Rebecca.
He also said Rebecca had promised to call him when she found a safe place to live.
That was not the same as working overseas.
I began to suspect that the lie about Rebecca mattered as much as the lie about the SUV.
Two days later, Rebecca herself appeared at my workshop.
She wore a faded denim jacket and held a folded newspaper in both hands.
She asked whether I was Aaron Whitcomb.
When I said yes, she started crying.
“My mother told me you hurt my son,” she said.
“Then somebody sent me a picture of you saving him.”
