He swung the door open enough to show his rumpled T-shirt and plaid shorts. “Rebekah.” His mouth angled in a sleepy grin. “She was always cool. How’s she doing?”

“She’ll be a lot better if I can tell her I spoke with you about Sam. Can I come in, Ezekial?”

The kid ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. “Call me Zeke.” He turned and walked away, leaving the door wide open.

Taking that as an invitation to enter, Hawthorne stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The apartment looked fairly new but was as cluttered and messy as a stereotypical bachelor pad, complete with pizza boxes and takeout containers piled on the kitchen counters.

Hawthorne veered through the kitchen and into the adjoining living room where Zeke flung himself onto the navy blue sofa.

“Look man, I want to help and all that.” Zeke laid his head back on the upholstered cushion and closed his eyes. “But I gotta be at work in like an hour.”

“Okay. I’ll be quick.” Hawthorne scanned the two armchairs cluttered with papers and discarded clothing and thought better of trying to sit. “Did you go to the fair with Sam the night he died?”

“Sure.” Zeke didn’t even lift his head. As if what he’d said wasn’t a revelation that would’ve changed the entire investigation of Sam’s death.

“Why didn’t you tell the police you were with him?”

“’Cause it wouldn’t have made any difference.” Zeke lifted his head and squinted at Hawthorne. “Oh.” A disbelieving half-laugh puffed from his mouth. “You think I mean—no, I didn’t see him…die or anything. I wasn’t with him all the time.”

Could be true. Could also be a lie. But the former seemed more likely given how easily and quickly Zeke had admitted to being with Sam. If he’d tried to hide that fact for two years because he’d murdered Sam or witnessed a killing, why tell Hawthorne now?

“When weren’t you with him?” Hawthorne kept his tone free of suspicion.

“Uh…” Zeke tipped his head back again and blinked at the ceiling.

“Why don’t you walk me through that night.”

Zeke tilted his head to the side to look at Hawthorne without lifting off the sofa. “All of it?”

“At least the high points.”

Zeke dragged his head off the cushion and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and resting his chin in his hands. “I met him at the fair like we’d planned. He’d sneaked out while the nut jobs were having one of their star-communing parties. Then we just hung out.”

“Doing what?”

“You know. Going on rides, hitting the games, following girls. Whatever.”

That didn’t account for the group of four or five guys Christy and Dan remembered. “Did you meet up with anyone else there?”

“Not really.”

Hawthorne’s ears perked at the wording. “You mean you met people, but maybe someone you’d rather leave out of it?”

Zeke lowered his arms and leaned back again, not looking at Hawthorne. He blew out a sigh. “Maybe.”

“Look, Zeke. I’m not a cop. Telling me doesn’t mean your friend will get into trouble.” Not necessarily, at any rate. “Don’t you think we should know what really happened to Sam?”

Zeke slowly swung his head toward Hawthorne, peering at him around the hair that fell over one of Zeke’s eyes. “You don’t think it was an accident?”

“No. I don’t.” The threatening note and cut brakes had seen to that. No one beside Jazz knew he was involved in investigating the fair sabotage outside his capacity as a security guard. The attempt to frighten or kill him had to be about Sam. Everyone he’d questioned knew he was looking into the boy’s death.

“Man.” Zeke pushed back his hair, running his hands along both sides of his face. “Okay. I had a friend at the gas station where I worked who was twenty-one. He said we could hang with him and his buddies so we wouldn’t need fake IDs to have a good time.”

So that was how Sam had managed to get alcohol at only seventeen years of age. “Did you and Sam drink much?”

He swore by way of affirmation. “We were kids. And it was Sam’s first time out of the cult on his own. I stopped that kind of thing after my DUI, though. I don’t touch the stuff anymore.”

“Glad to hear it.” The more crucial questions pressed against Hawthorne’s lips, but he fought to keep from shooting them out too quickly. Timing and pacing was everything, as in one of Carson Steele’s interrogation scenes.

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