Chapter 21 #2
Clementine fired off a scowl. “Really, Claire? There I was, sitting like a jackass at your booth, and you’re here?”
“I—I just saw her biking and picked her up,” Marty said. “I just—didn’t want her going around on her own, and I still needed to grab the napkins.”
Claire shot Marty a grateful look. She could never truly trust him, but this was a start.
“The fair’s done for anyway,” her dad said. “Cops found a dead body somewhere and cleared us all out.”
“Do we know who it was?” Claire asked. It unsettled her nerves, trying to fit in with the family when she’d only come here looking for a way out of it.
“Not yet,” Clemetine said. “Gave us a scare, though. Almost thought it was you, but I ran into Officer Yess as the cops were clearin’ out the fair, and he assured me it wasn’t. But you weren’t answerin’ your phone.”
Claire slapped at her pocket, where her phone was tucked into her shorts. She must not have felt it vibrate, too hooked by the adrenaline of being caught off guard by Marty—and his half-baked apology.
“We loaded the rest of your candles into Daddy’s truck, by the way,” Clementine grumbled, pushing past her to Marty, hauling Sullivan into his arms. “You’re welcome.”
“Thanks…” Claire trailed off. Her dad’s eyes burned into her.
A sudden knock rapped at the front door.
Claire’s dad opened it, revealing Seth standing there under the porchlight, his face drawn with exhaustion.
He locked onto Claire past her dad for a moment, and her breath caught.
He looked at her a certain way—shock, or maybe relief—before he turned away first.
“Evening, sorry to bother you all.”
“A girl died, right?” Clementine blurted. “Who was she?”
“We are investigating a suspicious death. That’s all I can say at the moment.” He looked up at her dad. “Ron, you have a minute?”
Her dad stepped out into the night with him. Claire let out a breath, but her anxiety quickly returned.
If a murder just happened tonight, why would Seth need to talk to her dad, of all people, now, of all times?
Claire hurried over to the front door. Clementine tried to protest, but Claire shushed her and peeked out the window.
Seth was talking to her dad at the bottom of the porch, his hands on his hips, his face nothing but serious.
Her dad stood over him, arms crossed. She pressed her ear to the front door, but could barely make out more than a few murmurs.
“… don’t recognize it…”
“…absolutely positive?”
“…never… not mine… don’t know him… someone else…”
Claire grunted and turned back to the kitchen, where Marty and Clementine were rubbernecking. She stormed back over to them.
“Did you catch anything?” Clem asked.
“No,” Claire muttered. “What could he possibly want with Dad?”
“Just leave it,” Marty said. He held up Sully’s weight. “If your dad doesn’t want you to know, it’s probably for a good reason.”
Claire scoffed. “So now you’re on his side again? Of course.”
Clementine shot her a confused look, but Claire zipped her mouth shut.
Everything about tonight had only reminded her, in full detail, why crossing her dad was nothing but a bad idea.
Whether Marty “felt bad” or not didn’t mean a thing—he’d do it again in a heartbeat if her dad asked him to.
She glanced at the door to the basement.
That familiar fear slithered up her spine.
It’s too risky.
The sound of shuffling jostled their attention to the front door, where Claire’s dad stomped in, followed by Seth.
“Sorry, again, to bother you all,” he said. “Just so you’re aware, we’re issuing a public safety warning. I can’t tell you the details, but the killer has broken his pattern. He’s becoming unpredictable. Lock all your doors and windows.”
“We’ve got guns,” her dad said. “We’ll be all right.”
“I have to get back to town.” Seth turned to Claire, causing her to tense up—because her dad looked at her too. “Claire, if you need a ride back, I can drop you off on my way in.”
Claire wanted to take it. More than anything. But her dad’s gaze reduced her to a trembling mess, and she fidgeted with her hands. “Oh, no, that’s okay. I should stay with my family till Dillon can pick me up.”
“No, you should go, sweetheart,” her dad suddenly said, his voice silky smooth. “If the detective is offerin’ a ride, go on and take it. You don’t wanna be cooped up here all night, and Dill ain’t answerin’ his phone. Drunk idiot. I wanna make sure you get home safe.”
Claire gawked at him, a deer caught in headlights. It felt like a trap. A trick. A test.
But she couldn’t breathe in this house for a second longer, so she went with Seth anyway. If her dad got mad at her later, well, that was tomorrow’s problem.
Seth’s skin burned with frustration; he always felt this way when he sensed someone was lying to him, holding back information that could potentially save lives, and that was how his conversation with Ron Dyer had left him.
Ron insisted he didn’t know the voice from the call.
Didn’t know the unknown man the killer was talking about “bringing out of hiding.” Didn’t know anything, even if all the victims looked like his wife, even if the caller had specifically named her the first time he contacted the police. “Must be about someone else.”
Bullshit.
It was hard not to be pissed about it, even as he drove down the country road back into Fairview, gripping the steering wheel in both hands.
“I heard you, um, took a kitten,” Claire said. Right—she was in the passenger seat.
Admittedly, he did have ulterior motives for bringing her along for the ride.
He didn’t trust Ron, but Claire was more honest. “I wanted to ask you something,” he began.
“This detail hasn’t been leaked to the public.
I’m sure you know Eliza’s throat was slit, but that wasn’t the only way the killer tried to kill her. ”
He briefly locked eyes with her in the light of the moon passing through the car’s windows. She was listening, so he pressed on.
“He’d attempted to fracture Eliza’s neck first, but failed. The other day, your father mentioned something about squeamish farmhands. How some people don’t like the feeling of bones breaking. Can you think of anyone like that who’s ever been connected to the farm? Maybe someone who worked there?”
Claire was quiet for several long moments. “Is that what you talked to my dad about?”
“No, it’s a working theory. I’m asking you.”
“But what did you ask him?”
She wanted information, same as him. But he needed hers. “Let’s dial back to my question first. Can you think of anyone like the person I described?”
Claire sank in the seat, thinking. “Maybe… we had a few farmhands over the years. I can’t remember them all.”
Keeping an eye on the road, Seth opened his phone, tucked in the center console. The sketch was already there waiting; it was all he’d been looking at all day. “I’m not sure if you saw the news, but we released a possible suspect sketch.”
“Hmm… I dunno,” she said. “It can’t be Robbie, I don’t think.
He was blond, had real light eyebrows. I might have some pictures of Trevor or Dylan with a Y on my old digital camera, if it even works anymore.
I went through a photography phase when I was eleven, around the time both of them were there. ”
“But like you said, there were a lot of farmhands over the years. Why is it only Dillon and Marty now?”
“I guess my dad’s been satisfied with the help.”
He went back to yesterday, when he was in the Dyers’ kitchen.
He’d had this thought that Ron had “picked” the boys for his daughters.
“This might sound odd, but did you ever feel like your father encouraged you and your sister to date them? Like he wanted Clementine with Marty, and you with Dillon?”
Claire’s entire demeanor changed, stiffened. But she didn’t answer him.
He wanted to tell her what he was thinking. That maybe one of the farmhands had been “picked” for his daughters by Ron too, but hadn’t made the cut, and now this was all about revenge. But there was a fine line to tread here, and he didn’t want to influence Claire’s answer.
However, the seconds ticked on, and she didn’t give him one at all. Instead, she quietly asked, “What’d you ask my dad about, Seth?”
The sound of his name on her lips made his heart stutter, an unexpected jolt that pulled him from being a detective to just a man.
He glanced at her profile. Her cheeks were puffy and red, her eyes shimmering.
He’d had thoughts about her, thoughts he couldn’t come back from.
Thoughts of her on her knees in front of him; her eyes, looking up at him, but not sad like that.
He felt like an asshole for even remembering it now.
He had no right to see her that way. She wasn’t his.
He wiped those thoughts away, trying to regain his professionalism, measuring how much information he could—or should—give her.
“If I tell you, I need your word you won’t tell anyone else. The last thing I need is the press coming up with their own theories.”
“You have my word.”
He found her a little too easy to believe. “A few days ago, the tip line received a call from an unknown man implying something about the location of—what I believe to be—your mother’s body.”
Claire winced. Seth pushed on.
“The other day, I played that recording to your father, and he claimed he didn’t recognize the voice.
He also said your mother never had any stalkers, enemies, or anything like that.
Said the call must be a prank. I could accept that until tonight, when I got another call from the same man.
He shared a detail about tonight’s murder that only the killer could know.
He kept going on about finding ‘the body’ and about how he’s trying to essentially get another man to ‘come out of hiding.’ That’s who the message is for. ”
“And you think that person could be my dad,” Claire breathed out.