Matt didn’t understand. He hadn’t reported the guy who’d shoved him into the street. It was just a few hours ago.

She held up her phone, displaying a story from some web news rag. The headline read: SURVIVOR OF “A VIOLENT NATURE” FAMILY ATTACKED.

Matt groaned.

“There’s also a feature story about your family in this morning’s edition of the Times.” She said it like a warning. “Are you okay? What happened? Were you really attacked?”

Matt told her about the man with the cleft lip scar.

“Why didn’t you call me? Or report what happened to the NYPD? What if—”

“I’m fine, just some bruises. I didn’t get a good look at the guy and he didn’t get anything, so there wasn’t anything to report.”

Keller didn’t seem thrilled by his response, but she couldn’t do much about it. She retrieved a sheet of paper from her handbag. “This has the name of the consular officer who will meet you at the airport. He’ll know where to go, but just in case, I also included the address of the police station and the name of the local officer in charge of the investigation.”

Matt glanced at the paper, then folded it up and tucked it into his front pocket with his passport.

“Hopefully it will be pro forma,” Keller said. “You’ll sign some papers and they’ll release the bod—release your family. The consulate will help with the paperwork for their flight home.”

Matt nodded.

Keller handed him a folded copy of the Times. He glanced at the front page. The photo was a punch in the gut. It was a selfie of his family in front of a sign for the Cancún airport. They were hamming it up for the camera. Where the hell had the Times gotten the shot? He realized that his mom had probably posted it on Facebook, the place where she pretended that their family was doing just fine, thank you very much. Under the photo, a caption:

EVAN PINE (51), OLIVIA PINE (51), MARGARET PINE (17), THOMAS PINE (6).

Under the selfie were separate shots of Matt and Danny. The one of Matt was another Facebook grab of him last summer. Danny’s was his mug shot.

“I don’t want to read this.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Keller said. “But these local cops have been being difficult. If they need additional confirmation that it’s your family, the photo may help. It also may remind them that the world is watching how they handle the case.”

A distorted voice blared from the overhead speakers. It was hard to understand, but travelers started lining up to board.

“All right,” he said. “I’d better get going.”

“This will probably help.” Keller gave Matt his wallet and smartphone.

“Thanks.”

“You have no idea what a pain it was. The bouncer has a business on the side selling phones. There’s no money in your wallet.”

There never had been.

Matt looked at the face of the iPhone, cracked from the hundreds of times he’d dropped it. The phone was fully charged—thanks to Keller, no doubt. The device’s wallpaper was a photo of Jane, one she’d uploaded herself. She looked particularly regal in the shot.

“You find anything helpful on it?”

“We haven’t looked. We needed your password. And your permission.” Keller looked at him. “You mind?”

Matt thumbed the sensor, unlocking the device. He took a deep breath before checking his text messages. There were hundreds of them. Many from unfamiliar numbers, but dozens from friends. There were no new messages from his father. One text from his mother, saying they were getting on the plane and that she loved him. Something she did out of habit whenever she flew. The fatalistic precaution in case the plane went down.

But then he saw it. The unread text from Maggie.

Excerpt from

A Violent Nature

Season 1/Episode 4

“Holmes and Watson”

INT. PINE FAMILY HOME – HOME OFFICE

Twelve-year-old MAGGIE PINE sits behind a cluttered desk. File boxes and mountains of papers fill the space. In the background stands a homemade crime wall, complete with red string zigzagging from newspaper clippings to photographs to other clues mounted on the board by pushpins. Maggie wears a T-shirt with the picture of a horse on it, metallic braces on her teeth.

MAGGIE

My brother Matt loves movies and watches, like, a trillion. So one night my best friend was sleeping over and we were spying on him, like we always do, and I saw part of this movie, I don’t remember the name of it, where these lawyers, like, saved the day by digging through boxes at the clerk’s office. So it gave me the idea.

C.U. on Maggie’s hands digging through a box. She retrieves a sheaf of papers. She’s beaming, proud of the find.

MAGGIE

So when we went back to Nebraska to visit my grandpa one time, I went to the county clerk and told her I was doing a school project—it wasn’t a lie; Mrs. Melhoose said I could—and the clerk let me dig through the old case files. And I found this.

INT. STUDIO

EVAN PINE sits on a stool, the background dark.

EVAN

Maggie brings me copies of notes from a couple of police interviews. One about a suspicious man at the house party that night, the last place Charlotte was seen alive. The other, a tip from an anonymous caller who said Charlotte’s murder looked a lot like two others in Kansas. After Danny went to prison, several other girls in Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri were killed in the same way: their heads smashed in with large rocks.

INSERT – NEWSPAPER HEADLINE

“Break in the Smasher Case: Plainville Man Arrested for String of Grisly Murders.”

EVAN

The prosecution failed to turn over the reports. If we could’ve looked into the Smasher back then, we might not be here right now. The failure to give Danny’s lawyer the reports broke the law; they’re required to turn over exculpatory evidence. And we got our first big break for seeking post-conviction relief.

INT. PINE FAMILY HOME – HOME OFFICE

Evan and Maggie sit at the desk together studying the case file.

EVAN (V.O.)

From then on it’s been Magpie and me. Holmes and Watson, though I’m not sure who’s Holmes and who’s Watson.

CHAPTER 12

MAGGIE PINE

BEFORE

“Your boyfriend’s here.” Harper moved her eyebrows up and down.

Maggie had already seen Eric at the doorway to the high school’s tutoring center. She rolled her eyes. “Cut it out.”

“Seriously, he’s into you. He only comes on the days you’re here. Like, he’s literally, almost, like, stalking you.”

As with most of their generation, Harper overused like and misused literally. Maggie looked across the Center. It was filled with the usual cast: jocks who were trying to pull their grades up to a C so they could take the field, stoners who’d been given the choice between the Center or detention, and the nerds who tutored them. Well, except Harper, who was what some would call a hot nerd. Eric strutted through the room—that was the word, strutted, high-fiving other boys as he made it over to the check-in table.

Standing before them now, he grabbed the pen to sign the log, then offered a rakish smile.

“Any chance you can help me with algebra?” he asked Maggie.

Her face reddened as she felt Harper’s sideways glance. “Sure.”

Eric smiled again and directed his blue eyes at an empty desk in the corner. He gestured for Maggie to follow.

Maggie tried not to get wooed by his charm. Eric was royalty at their school, literally, as Harper would say, and for once with proper usage. Homecoming king. Maggie’s older brother Matt would call Eric the archetype from an eighties John Hughes movie. She had to admit he was dreamy. Dreamy—what an old-fashioned word. She was starting to sound like her mother.

She sat next to Eric, who flopped open his textbook. “I don’t get rational expressions.”

Maggie tried not to look surprised.

“I know, I know, you were doing this stuff in fifth grade.” His face flushed as if he were actually embarrassed. He was adorable even when he was uncomfortable. The world was not fair.

“No, rational expressions are super hard,” she said, lying. “And they’re pointless. When in life are you ever going to use them?”

“Right?” he said. “But I bet you will at MIT.”

Maggie’s heart fluttered: he knew where she was going to college.She scooched closer, and for the next half hour tried to stay professional while helping him work through some problems. He smelled of cheap cologne and masculinity. But she needed to keep her thoughts in check. Guys like Eric Hutchinson were trouble. And they usually didn’t appreciate girls like her. They would someday, her mom assured her, but it took longer for the male brain to develop.

“I like your shirt,” he said.

Maggie looked down at the vintage AC/DC T-shirt, one of her dad’s favorite bands. “You know tutoring is free, right? You don’t have to flatter.”

“I’m not. It’s cool.”

“All right, focus…” She smiled.