Chapter Seventeen
June and I got separated. With no concept of time, I was stuck in the small interrogation room.
There were no clocks, no windows. My phone and belongings had been taken, and I’d already berated myself for not standing my ground.
But when the Sheriff picked us up, I was too shaken to push back, too disoriented to track what was happening.
I wish my past experiences with cops had given me the nerve to say, No, I’m keeping my stuff, or refuse to talk without a lawyer. But I also knew that if I asked for one now, I’d be stuck here even longer, cut off from the outside world.
I considered asking to call my mother, one of only two numbers I knew by heart.
The other was Lucas’s. But my mother would lose her mind.
I’d already missed a few calls from her over the past couple of days, and her increasingly frantic texts had forced me to respond, carefully, trying not to set her off.
Lately, she’d been acting like I was some kind of fugitive, like she knew something was up.
I let out a listless sigh and looked around again, hoping to notice something new. The walls were a dull, institutional green, and the harsh fluorescent lights buzzed like dying insects. I felt trapped in a morgue.
A single table stood in the middle of the room, its lone drawer locked. Out of boredom, I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. The stale air only added to the foreboding atmosphere. It was all too familiar in the worst possible way.
Someone killed Duane. It had to be murder. Otherwise, why would I even be here?
The lock clicked, and the Sheriff, the same one who pulled us over on the way into town, stepped into the room. I straightened in my chair as if on cue.
"Miss me?" he smirked, shutting the door behind him.
"Not particularly," I said, annoyed—not at him, but at the whole situation. At being detained. At Mitchell. At myself.
He tossed a hefty folder onto the table. The thud echoed through the small room, making me flinch. But I knew the tactic too well. He was only trying to intimidate me.
He sat across from me, tilting the folder just out of my view, pretending to read. I didn’t make a sound. After a few long minutes, he closed it, set it aside, and began tapping his fingers on the cover.
"I’ve already had a chat with your friend," he said, eyeing me steadily. "She spilled the whole story."
"Okay," I said, forcing a casual tone. He was bluffing. June wouldn’t say anything to him. But even knowing that, I felt uneasy. The Sheriff’s presence was dense and oppressive, like someone who knew he could do anything he wanted and face no consequences.
He wanted my version, so I dryly recounted how we found Duane’s body, sticking to the story June and I agreed on.
We were just checking on him. The garage door was open, as was the back door to the house.
"Y’all take anything from the house?" The Sheriff asked.
"No," I lied, hoping he couldn’t tell.
"You’re mighty sure ‘bout that?" His tone made my stomach drop. Did he know? Had he searched the car and found the photos and flyers hidden in the trunk, beneath the cargo liner? But then I remembered my attorney’s previous advice and didn’t take the bait.
Besides, how could he be sure we took them? Were they even important?
"Yes," I said firmly, then added, "We didn’t take anything. Am I being detained, or am I free to go?"
"You think you’re so smart and sassy?" He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing.
I maintained a neutral expression, refusing to engage.
"What the devil were you two doin’ out there, snoopin’ around?"
"Just checking on a friend," I replied calmly.
"Good friend, then?" he pressed.
I held his gaze steadily. "He was my boyfriend’s friend."
"Not yours?"
A commotion erupted outside the room. A man swore in a low, grumpy rumble, and then something hit the ground with a loud thud. A knock on the door followed instantly, and a woman peeked her head in without waiting for a response.
"We’ve got a two-four-five comin’ in. Two males, aggressive. We need to separate them, and we need this room cleared."
The Sheriff cursed under his breath and stood up. "Follow me, Miss Foster."
He escorted me down the corridor, staying close behind, which made my skin prickle. I preferred him leading the way, rather than feeling his eyes on my back. He opened the door, and I stepped into a modest office, likely his own.
Unlike the sterile interrogation room, this space had a more lived-in feel, with beige walls, a small window, and memorabilia on the walls that tried to make the place look welcoming.
Despite the effort, it lacked a personal touch.
All the decorations were strictly professional: badges, framed certificates, and photos of local landmarks or the Sheriff shaking hands with various people I didn’t recognize.
His desk, in contrast to everything else in the building, looked expensive, made of solid wood, heavy and sturdy. It felt completely out of place. Across from it, on a small brown loveseat, June sat with her arms folded.
"Sit over there and don’t you dare get up or move," the Sheriff instructed.
"I gotta use the bathroom!" June blurted, but he’d already left, slamming the door behind him. "Fine, I’ll pee on your desk."
I was so glad to see her safe and sound, and in her usual snappy mood, that I immediately grew more at ease with the entire situation.
"Are you okay?" I asked. "I am so sorry I dragged you into this."
"Are you kidding? If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have found—"
I shushed her with a warning look, then shook my head, begging her not to say another word. I wasn’t sure if the Sheriff had cameras or recording equipment hidden in his office.
"Yeah, finding a dead body was pretty traumatic," I said, emphasizing every word so she’d understand we needed to keep the other thing to ourselves.
I sat next to her and whispered, "You didn’t say anything, did you?"
"Of course not!" She sounded offended. I tried to squeeze her hand in apology, but she wiggled out of my grip and went straight to the Sheriff’s desk.
"What are you doing?" I whispered. "You’re not really going to pee on it, are you?"
"I’m just checking what this creep is up to."
"What if he has cameras or surveillance here?"
"So what? We didn’t do anything wrong."
"Apart from getting into his personal stuff, you mean?"
June shuffled all the papers and folders on the table. I got up and started arranging them back to their original state. Then she tried the drawers. The upper one was locked.
"Do you see a key anywhere?"
"No." I didn’t bother to look.
She opened the other two drawers. One was filled with receipts, and another had a little calendar on top of some folders.
The calendar had a date circled: October 1.
A little over a week away. No other notes or dates were highlighted.
She picked it up. "You think he has a date or something? Ew, who would go out with him?"
I grimaced.
We waited a little longer, and at one point, a woman came by to escort us to the bathroom. She was polite but distant and didn’t answer any of our questions about how long we’d be kept, where the Sheriff was, or what was going on. We weren’t even sure if we were officially being detained.
Eventually, the Sheriff’s office held no more secrets. We counted every crack in the wall and got bored. June was reading some files on local criminal activities to entertain herself, but soon gave up on that too. We dozed off on the small couch, leaning on each other.
The sound of a throat clearing woke us. The Sheriff returned, seeming more tense than before.
June moaned, stretching languidly. My neck ached from the uncomfortable position, and I was more worn out than before the nap.
At that point, I didn’t care if they threw me in jail. As long as there was a bed.
"You two are done here. Get your belongings and get outta my town. We don’t need your kind around here."
"Why?" June drawled.
"Because I damn well said so!" His tired growl made us move faster. "I’m sick of you people pokin’ around, causin’ a scene, making’ my job harder."
"So, what happened to Duane?" I asked, suddenly finding some courage.
"Suicide. Now get on outta here."
Dawn had broken when we came out of the station, and the gray light hurt my sleepless eyes. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the sky was stained with an ombre of warm pastels. I shivered in my shirt.
"Ah, the long-forgotten taste of freedom," June said, as I spotted Mitchell and Nick waiting outside. Part of me was relieved to see them. I’d left the keys in the car and texted Nick where they were before the Sheriff arrived.
Nick leaned on the Dodge, scrolling through his phone. Mitchell rushed straight to June.
"You’re okay!" he exclaimed.
"Of course, I’m okay! Jeez, don’t get all mushy on me," his sister said.
But Mitch kept going, fuming, "I swear to God, I’m gonna kill them! Why the hell did they keep you all night?"
I half-feared he was really going to storm into the station and attack the Sheriff, but instead, he turned to me, jaw clenched and eyes blazing with anger.
"What the hell, Foster?"
"I—"
"You put my sister in danger! What were you thinking?"
"I wasn’t—
"I didn’t expect that from you!"
With each shout, my frustration simmered. The sleepless night had left me raw, and the weight of everything that had been building up—anger, exhaustion, fear—finally broke through.
My temper snapped, and all my emotions came out with a tone of guttural rage.
"If you listened to me sometimes and actually drove the investigation, I wouldn’t have needed to do it my-fucking-self!"
He seemed taken aback by my outburst. "What are you even talking about?"
"I’m talking about you only focusing on Amanda and ignoring anything related to Lucas!"
"No, listen, we’re—" Mitchell started, but I interrupted him. It was his turn to swallow half-spoken words.