Chapter 12
TWELVE
The wheels of Claire’s bike clicked beneath her as she pedaled down the country road under the gaze of a million stars.
Finally, a clear night, equipped with a wan moon that emanated rings of light, illuminating her path ahead, even in the absence of streetlights.
Walled in by cornfields on either side, she peeked over her shoulder—no headlights, but if she were right, then when Dillon left earlier, it was to meet with her dad and Marty. And they’d be meeting at the farm.
She stood on her bike and pedaled harder, her thighs burning, her pulse hammering against her throat as the night’s heat wore on her. Almost there.
Up ahead, the previous cornfield broke off, leaving room for plains on each side.
And there, up ahead, her family’s farmhouse loomed like a specter in the night, backed by the silhouette of the barn and a cornfield.
She angled her bike in a ditch past the shoulder of the road.
The rest of the way, she’d have to go on foot.
Keeping low, Claire used the cover of the tall grass to get closer.
It was after midnight—there were no lights on inside, but a pair of headlights lit the front of the house, occasionally broken by some figures moving in front of them.
Claire held her breath and drew closer till she made out the shape of Dillon’s car parked beside two pick-ups—both Marty’s and her dad’s.
It was Marty’s lights that were on, his truck sitting in idle.
Marty hauled something out from the direction of the barn around the back of the house.
A crate balanced above his shoulder. He loaded it into his pick-up truck and closed the bed, just as her dad appeared behind him and looked it all over.
Like an inventory check. Satisfied, he patted Marty on the back and sent him on his way.
Claire dropped to her hands and knees, taking full cover in the grass.
She didn’t dare peek till the sound of Marty’s engine disappeared eastward, in the opposite direction of town.
Whew.
Claire inched closer till she could make out some muffled words. Her dad faced Dillon, a firm hand on his shoulder.
“…know it was hard on ya. I only did it ’cause I know how much potential you’ve got. I wanna see you become the type of man your daddy will regret walkin’ out on.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Ron.”
“Come on, ride with me tonight.”
Claire ducked as they got into her dad’s pick-up.
The engine grumbled to life, and she held her breath.
The lights appeared between the blades of grass.
She kept herself hidden till they shifted away, feeling like she was on some sort of prison escape.
The truck bounded down the road in the same direction as Marty.
Slowly, Claire stood on wobbly legs.
They were gone.
The only people left in the house would be Clementine and Sully. Long as she didn’t wake them, she’d be home free.
But she had to be quick. There was no telling how long they’d be gone—could be minutes, could be hours.
Claire rushed onto the property and made a beeline for the barn.
There were a couple of them, but this one was closest to the house, and ever since she was a kid, she’d been told to stay out of it.
No surprise, that the same rusted padlock still dangled from the latch.
Claire yanked on it, but of course it needed a key. Damn it.
Next best thing was the house. For this, Claire did have a key. She snuck up to the front door, wincing at every creak of the porch, every jangle of her keys as she took them out. She unlocked the door and stepped right into the house.
Inside her childhood home, Claire froze. It smelled like old wood and wax. The farmhouse’s bones moaned against the wind, like they opposed her very presence there.
If it were up to her, she’d burn this place to the ground, so the feeling was mutual.
From her spot in the foyer, Claire could see into the kitchen, and beside the kitchen was the closed door to the basement.
Dread crept up her spine. There had to be something in this house that would tell her what her dad was hiding, but the basement?
Hell no. She could never force herself down those stairs.
She turned back to the staircase leading to the second floor. There could be something in her dad’s room.
On the very tips of her toes, keeping her knees bent to absorb her weight, she crept up the carpeted staircase.
The old wood resisted her and let out a whine.
Sully didn’t cry out, so she pushed forward till she found herself on the top level, face-to-face with her old bedroom, which had been converted to Sully’s room.
Down the hall to her left, the door to her father’s bedroom was slightly ajar, moonlight spilling out of it.
Claire tiptoed over and went inside. It was so nondescript—a king-sized bed and a dresser, paintings of flowers on the wall so old, they must’ve been from her mother, or maybe even her grandmother.
Claire hadn’t been in here since she was a child.
A strange memory nudged at the corners of her mind—her dad, tossing her and Clementine on this very bed, tickling them, laughing with them.
The sudden nostalgia stung her heart. Maybe there had been a time, somewhere in the deep cervices of her past, where her dad hadn’t always been a monster. But it wasn’t enough.
She stepped deeper inside, disturbed by the familiar smell. She started with his dresser and pulled out the drawers. Folded clothes—the showy ones, the ones he wore to make an impression. Nice jeans and tartan shirts, usually red, white, and blue. Her daddy was nothing if not an All-American man.
Something on top of his dresser caught her eye. A glint of silver in the moonlight through the window.
A chain necklace.
Claire picked it up, feeling the loose chain over her fingers. As she lifted it to the window, she observed the charm: a butterfly encrusted with turquoise gems. A woman’s necklace. And a familiar one at that.
A voice shattered the silence of the room.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
It was bullshit, a waste of time, a misdirection.
Seth had been trying to tell himself that for the rest of the night.
Back at the motel, he brushed his teeth in the bathroom, full of yellowing porcelain, his skin and hair still damp from the shower he’d just taken.
The water pressure had been surprisingly good, but it hadn’t rinsed the thoughts away.
That damn call on the tipline. Haylock being in charge of Celine Dyer’s investigation. The victims looking so much like her.
It didn’t have to mean anything. Lieutenant Delaney told him herself that Haylock worked a handful of cases in Fairview—it was no surprise he’d handled Celine Dyer’s case.
On top of that, the man on the phone sounded young, twenties or thirties at most. Why would a twenty-year-old case have anything to do with what was happening now?
Still, it bothered him. Maybe some actual sleep would help.
He finished in the bathroom with mouthwash then moved past the dresser toward the bed. As he passed, he caught a glimpse into the trash can.
There, at the top, was the dime bag. The heroin he’d thrown out.
He hadn’t realized it before, but there was more garbage in there too—some chocolate bar wrappers from whoever had rented this room before him.
This was the only motel in Fairview, but perfect, hotel-style cleanliness clearly wasn’t at the top of their priority list. He was lucky there weren’t any used condoms lying around.
But an idea had sprouted in his mind, growing roots.
He left the motel room, into the night. Just one last thing to satisfy the itch of a hunch that would not seem to piss off.
One thing, then he’d let it go.
Haylock’s former room was a mirror to Seth’s, but it was on the first level of the motel and adorned with different patterns.
Pinstripe bedding and dotted wallpaper. The owner of the motel, Gary Stillwell, was an old man with glasses that made his eyes ten times bigger, and he hadn’t cared enough to question Seth about why he needed to look.
One of the many perks of having a badge.
According to Gary, no one had stayed in here since Haylock. He said they’d cleaned it, but Seth already knew what that meant. The first thing he did was move toward the trash can beside the dresser, like the one he had upstairs.
Sure enough, there was garbage inside. Seth snapped on a pair of latex gloves; it wasn’t the first time he’d dug into someone’s trash.
An old cup from White Castle. An empty pack of smokes.
He dug deeper, past more fast-food wrappers, certain he was acting like a raccoon for nothing.
Until he found something crumpled up at the bottom. A piece of paper.
He unfurled it and flatted it out. A piece of white sketchbook paper with a crude drawing of a road wedged between what appeared to be a cornfield and a forest. The hand-drawn trail led up the road, around the cornfield, and into the woods, where it eventually led to a house—or a cabin, maybe—circled with arrows pointing at it.
The words EAST FOREST, BURSELL FIELD were hastily drawn.
If the handwriting matched the killer’s, carved into the women’s skin, it’d be hard to tell, but both favored capital letters. That didn’t tell him much.
But one thing was certain: this was a map, given to Robert Haylock. Just like the caller on the tip line had said.
Claire jolted so hard, the necklace slipped from her fingers and onto the rug. Clementine stood in the doorway to their dad’s bedroom, wearing her full pink nightgown, gawking at her.
“I said, what the hell are you doing here?” Clem asked, shoving past Claire and reaching down to grab the necklace. She lifted it up and looked at it in the moonlight. “Why are you creeping through Daddy’s things?”
“Is that yours?” Claire asked.
“No, it ain’t mine,” Clem said, putting it back on the dresser.
“Then whose is it? Dad doesn’t date, you know that.”
“Why’s it matter? Are you gonna tell me what you’re doing here?”
Claire chewed on her lip. She hadn’t exactly practiced her if I get caught speech. Maybe this whole plan had been a bit adrenaline-fueled and short-fused. “I… I don’t know, Clem. I’m looking for something.”
“Looking for what?”
Frustrated, Claire threw up her arms. “Something? Anything? Evidence of what the hell they’re always hiding? A damn key to get into the barn?”
Clementine’s face went deathly serious. “Claire, you know how Daddy will react if he finds you messing around. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. This is not gonna go over well, you know that.”
She did know that. More than anyone. More than Clementine.
Before Claire could respond, Clementine gripped both her arms. Her sister smiled sympathetically, but it was forced.
“Hon, our life is good now. Don’t you see that? And so much of that is ’cause you’ve been good. Daddy’s been so happy with you. Why would you wanna mess all that up?”
“Good?” Claire ripped her arms away. “How can you say that, Clem? How can you forget what he put us through to make us ‘good’? Have you seriously forgotten about the cage?”
“Shh!” Clementine shushed her, then harshly whispered, “What’s so wrong with being good, huh? What’s so wrong with wanting Daddy to love me and be happy with me?”
“He doesn’t love us, Clem. He owns us.”
“Maybe I don’t feel owned. In case you don’t remember, I stopped getting put in that thing years before you did. I did my best to keep you out of it too, but you could never stop gettin’ in trouble.”
Claire opened her mouth to retort—maybe even yell at Clementine because how could her own sister be this stupid?—but Sully’s cries cut into the silence.
“Oh, hell, now look what you’ve done,” Clementine said. She hurried down the hall, leaving Claire standing there, stunned. Moments later, Clem returned, cradling Sully in her arms, whispering sweet nothings in his ear.
Claire stepped out into the hallway with knots in her chest. Despite her own fervor, she still pathetically feared the worst. “Are you gonna tell Dad what I did?”
Bouncing Sully, Clem shot her a dirty look. “No, I am not gonna tell him. But if you keep doin’ stuff like this, he’ll catch you himself.”
Claire weakly nodded. That was all she needed to hear. She slipped down the staircase. Before leaving out the front, she took one last glance at the door to the basement, forever closed.
Clementine was wrong.
Just because they were out, walking freely, didn’t mean they weren’t both still in that cage.