Chapter 17 #2
He stared at her with more clarity now, like the last vomit session had sobered him. Even at such a low point, he was concerned about her. A conflicting feeling wormed through her heart. It was his job to care about people, but not all cops were like that.
“I wanted to ask you something about my mom, but maybe now’s not the time.”
“Your mom, Celine Dyer. I know what happened to her. The story, anyway. You can tell me.”
Claire shrugged. “Nah. When I do tell you, I want you to be, well. You.”
Winslow nodded, drifting off—another look of pain passing over him—but it left just as fast. “My mom died too, when I was nineteen. But it wasn’t an accident. “
She turned fully toward him. She hadn’t expected that either. “How’d it happen?”
“She was murdered by a man she trusted.”
A stab straight to her heart. The pieces began to click into place.
“So that’s why you became a detective. You must’ve really loved her.”
“No, not while she was alive. We didn’t have a good relationship. The truth is, I hated her.”
Claire felt the weight in his words, but she didn’t flinch. She understood how it felt, when the one person who is supposed to protect you fails you.
“I sound like a dick, sorry,” he slurred. “Of course I loved her too. It’s complicated.”
“No, I understand. Was it ’cause of all the men she’d bring around? I remember what you told me.”
“Yeah. I mean, two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, waitress’s salary, barely covered anything. And she’d give these guys cash when I needed stuff for school. I had holes in all my sneakers.” He laughed, but it came out dry and hollow. “God, that sounds so stupid now.”
“It doesn’t.” Claire pulled toward him on instinct.
She almost wanted to grab his hand, to tell him it was okay, he could trust her, but she restrained herself because they were still strangers and he was still drunk.
No way would this man be spilling his guts to her otherwise.
Still, she couldn’t help but lean into the chance to connect. “She was supposed to protect you.”
He rubbed at his chin, sluggish and clumsy.
“Nope. She’d let her drunk-ass boyfriends kick the shit out of me.
That was more her style.” A pause, then a sniff, like he was trying to pull himself together, but couldn’t.
“I didn’t put up with it for that long, though.
I ran off with my ex-girlfriend when I was a teenager.
And,” he sang, “that’s how I got hooked on needles. Now you know.”
His self-loathing permeated the air, but Claire wished she could take that feeling from him. Because even if he wasn’t this perfect, level-headed man, he was still a good one.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” she said, voice thick. “That’s awful. You were a kid.”
“A shithead kid,” he corrected. “I’d go back to the apartment sometimes just to fight with her, make things worse, steal. Like a parasite. Till I went back one time and found her, well. Like that.”
“Wait, you were the one who…?”
“Yeah, I found her.”
Claire winced at the visceral image. She couldn’t even fathom how he survived each day with that memory. Let alone how he could turn around and look at more murder for a living.
Maybe that was the point.
She remembered what her dad said the other night.
“Men like him want somethin’ to save, like maybe if they fill their black hearts with good deeds, they’ll feel better about whatever it is they’re runnin’ from.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Claire said. “You know that, right?”
“I know. I have to live with it anyway.”
“Did they catch the guy who did it?”
“Greg Alpert, New York State Penitentiary, life with the possibility of parole after twenty-five years.”
“You mean he could actually be free someday?”
“He could be. You’d be amazed what some lawyers’ll do to make a case.
Court was a nightmare. Seeing her name get dragged through the mud like that.
They called it self-defense. Used my mom’s dating history—even me—against her, as if a guy twice her size needed to stab her eight times.
He could’ve left her anytime, but he didn’t. ”
“There’s always another way, right? There has to be.”
“Always.” He stared at her now. “No matter how messed-up things feel, there’s always a way out. You can always ask for help.”
Claire looked away. She got the sense he wasn’t talking about his mom anymore.
But Dillon was hardly the biggest trouble in her life. Hell, he was just a nasty symptom. Asking for help was always an option—but that didn’t mean the help would always be enough.
It wasn’t like she’d never tried.
As a little girl, her dad convinced both her and Clementine that the cage was an inevitable part of life, as ordinary and expected as getting grounded. And who were they to deny their father’s word? The man who’d give them the world, as long as they didn’t disappoint him?
It wasn’t till the fourth grade that she let something slip.
There was one teacher, Mrs. Bell, who’d taken a special interest in Claire’s art.
When Claire told her one time there was a cage in her basement that her dad would trap her and her sister in, Mrs. Bell was rightfully shocked. Even when Clementine denied it.
Claire remembered hiding in her room as Mrs. Bell came to their house, and her dad, as friendly as always, showed her the basement with no hesitation. Mrs. Bell never saw any cage. She left their house smiling and charmed by her father, like everyone seemed to be.
That night, Claire was put in the cage alone.
Somehow, her dad hid the evidence; she still had no clue how. Her memories going to and from the cage were always blurry. She just remembered being in it.
Maybe Mrs. Bell did still push for more, because there were other memories from after that time—she’d talked to the cops, maybe even Chief Wells, but she mostly remembered not being believed. They should’ve looked harder, done more, but they didn’t. No one ever did.
Her word had never been worth a thing.
To make it worse, Mrs. Bell looked at her differently after that. Like she was some damaged child, a liar, an attention-seeker. Maybe that was the first time Claire truly felt invisible.
She never went to anyone else for help again. She’d try to run away from home a few times after that, always to be caught and dragged back, till the last time.
The only way she could see herself ever being free was if her father was dead. Killing him was obviously not an option, and waiting for him to die could take another twenty years.
But there was one other option. If he were arrested for something the police could never turn a blind eye to. Even drug dealing wasn’t enough.
No, it had to be murder.
Still, the man who’d killed Winslow’s mother had apparently stabbed her eight times, and he still got off with the possibility of parole.
Even with all that fresh evidence. What Claire had been thinking, about her mom’s necklace, seemed like a fool’s errand now.
And Claire didn’t even have the necklace.
But she could get it. The day after tomorrow, during the Fourth of July fair, her dad would be busy at their chili and corn booth.
Claire would have her own booth to look after, but she could get Clementine to cover, make something up.
The house would be empty for real this time.
She’d have a window to bike over, get the necklace, and get out.
Then she could bring Winslow more than her word.
She looked at him again. He was staring at her.
Some of the color had returned to his cheeks, and even though he’d just been vomiting in a trash bin, she couldn’t help but flush at the image of him shirtless on a bed beside her.
He had a lithe frame—lean muscles, smooth skin, nice shoulders.
His dark brown hair was long enough to have the slightest wave to it.
Just to name a few things she didn’t mean to notice.
“Your first name’s Seth, right?” she asked. “I’d like to call you that, if that’s okay. When it’s just us two.”
An unexpected smile accentuated the dimples on his cheeks. “Yeah. I’d like that too.”