Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
It felt like a gong was going off in the back of Seth’s mind, and the hospital’s lights weren’t helping.
The stitches on his forehead still ached as he perched on the edge of the bed in his room, where Lieutenant Delaney lifted her nose up to observe his wounds from a different angle. “At least you’ll still be pretty.”
He laughed, even though it hurt his face.
All last night and all today had been a mix of doctor visits and detailing statements to different officials.
Lieutenant Delaney had shown up a while ago to check on his condition, just as he’d been given the news that he could leave soon.
He’d been so relieved to see a familiar face, he’d almost hugged her.
“You know it’s not too late to take the pain meds they offered,” Delaney said.
“Not a chance, Lieutenant. I’ll be fine.”
She narrowed her silvery eyes. “Will you, though?”
“Well, I did get my ass kicked by an old man, but I’ll live.”
“Not just any old man.” Delaney shuddered and hugged her thin arms over her suit jacket. “The size of that brute. Good lord, Winslow, we’re lucky you’re alive.”
True. Seth had never wrestled such a massive human being in his life. Even well into the next day, he still couldn’t believe he’d survived it.
It was no surprise he’d needed stitches.
And an MRI. He was lucky he didn’t have a total brain bleed.
If Ron had landed even one more punch, his skull probably would’ve cracked in half.
Thankfully, Ron had missed his nose and focused more on the sides of his face.
The white of his left eye was crimson, he had a fat, stitched up scar on his forehead from when Ron belted him with the gun, and he’d lost a right molar.
But his nose would not be crooked and he, miraculously, did not have a concussion.
But Ron hit hard. Every single punch had him seeing stars. Random flashes of memory from his childhood; his bedroom, his old Nintendo, things that made no sense to think of in the moment. He’d been punched before, but never like that, like the embodiment of thunder itself was clapping his skull.
He’d thought he was dead. Many times last night, he’d thought he was dead.
But now he was about to be discharged.
Then, hopefully, he could see Claire.
A knock lifted their attention to Chief Wells, who lingered in the doorway with her hands tucked in the pockets of her police uniform. She’d been wearing that remorseful look every time she’d been in to see him since last night.
“I hear you’re being discharged,” Wells said.
“I am.” Seth stood, but the blood rushed to his head.
Lieutenant Delaney offered an arm, and he tried not to crush her as he balanced himself on her shoulder.
“If you need me to go over the night again while it’s fresh, I can do that, but I’ve already told about six different people.
” Wells herself, some officials from the state, Delaney; the list went on.
At least he had a long-sleeved shirt on now, thanks to Pereira grabbing him something from the motel, but everyone had seen his track marks last night.
His history was in his file if anyone wanted to look back far enough, but it was one thing to know something, another to see it.
“That’s not why I’m here.” Wells closed the door behind her. “Sorry again about your detective, Sheila. I’m ashamed it got to this point.”
Delaney clasped her hands over her skirt. “I think many people owe Detective Winslow an apology, myself included.”
“No,” Seth said. He didn’t want to deal with the discomfort of receiving apologies right now. “I’m not the one he really hurt.”
Their shared shame filled the room.
“I tried to go see her, but she’s still under,” Wells said. “They have her sedated pretty good. Withdrawal’s starting to kick deeper into gear, plus the head wound.”
“Did they say when she can have visitors?”
“Hopefully tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. He didn’t want to wait that long. The last image he had of Claire was her fainting, then being lifted into an ambulance. Every second since had been torture.
“Marty Dyer, though,” Chief Wells said, “did wake up a few hours ago.”
Right.
Somehow, Marty had survived. Last Seth heard, he went into surgery.
“He’s okay?” Seth asked.
“Bullet missed his vital organs, hit his spine. They think he’ll never walk again, but yeah, he’s okay.
He’s been cooperative. He corroborated your story, admitted to his parts in it.
Ron, of course, keeps pleading the fifth, but Marty’s been an open book.
” She paused, her expression darkening. “He admitted everything. Jacobson working with Ron, tipping him off about the direction Trevor went in. Ron and Marty were waiting close by for a chance to get him without any of us seeing them. They’d been hunting for him, coordinated it with Jacobson.
They tracked him to the barn, where Ron staged the suicide.
At that time, Dillon Beamish was standing by elsewhere. ”
“Considering how quickly Ron turned that gun on Dillon’s head, I’d guess he was already planning to get rid of him,” Seth said. “Marty was the one he really trusted. Ron’s a good shot. If he’d wanted Marty dead, he would’ve finished him there.”
“Maybe he still had hope he could turn things in his favor,” Delaney said.
“He would’ve found a way out of it,” Seth agreed. “Ron knew how to manipulate a narrative.”
“He did.” Wells paused. “There’s more. We… found the cage.”
“And Celine Dyer’s body?”
“That’s right. It’s not an easy thing to look at, but you put everything into this. If you want to check it out, I’d like to take you there.”
Seth’s stomach turned over. He didn’t necessarily want to see it, but he had to.
He needed to know everything before he could put this to rest.
For the second time, Seth found himself in the basement of the Dyers’ farmhouse, only now, the boxes beneath the spandrel had been cleared out.
He could hardly believe his eyes when the concrete wall—the same one he’d tapped on days earlier—was shoved aside to reveal a set of stairs leading into a pit below the house.
A bomb shelter of some kind. Floodlights had been set up by the police, illuminating the concrete and brick below.
A few forensic techs ducked past them as Wells showed him the entrance.
“There’s a trick to it.” She pointed to the floor, where underneath a panel of fake concrete, there was a massive plate of some kind. There’d been so many boxes piled over it before. “Weighted pressure plate. Step on this, and it causes the wall to lower, then you can slide it back.”
“Jesus,” Seth breathed out, both horrified and in awe. “This is some Cold War era shit.”
“It’s certainly not in the home’s original blueprint.”
Seth’s chest pulled. She really had been right here, and he’d missed it.
I’m so sorry, Claire.
“It gets worse,” Wells said. “Come on.”
Each step into the deep felt colder, damper. Wells passed him a pair of latex gloves, snapping on a pair of her own as they descended. Unease curdled his stomach. He wasn’t sure he was ready.
The smell was dank and acidic beneath something sharp, like bleach.
At the bottom of the pit, solid ground gave way to a stout doorway.
Past the doorway, Seth willfully ignored what was in his periphery so he could first focus on the shelves on the right side of the door.
Some of them were lined with old canned food, 50s era Campbell’s soup. Most were stacked with boxes.
Inside them, bags and bags of heroin with red stripes across the top of them.
“I highly doubt this is all of it,” Wells said.
Seth swallowed hard, stifling the familiar pull toward the abyss. “Claire mentioned something about bikers going to the Dyers’ bar. I’m sure Ron has friends.”
“The FBI and DEA are on their way to deal with it. It’s far above my paygrade. If Marty Dyer wants to see his son’s tenth birthday, he’ll talk.”
Bracing himself, Seth faced the rest of the room. It was made of all concrete flooring and white brick walls, marked with evidence tags, lit by the floodlights.
First, the body.
On the far left side of the very narrow room, skeletal remains slumped against a wall.
Dark blonde hair fell in scraggles over a knitted turtleneck sweater, where a silver pendant rested across the chest. Butterfly wings embedded with turquoise gems. The head hung at the side, the neck clearly broken, and faced the cage.
When Seth turned to the right, he could no longer ignore the part of this room he was most afraid to see.
A huge cage, probably built to contain a bear, was built into the right corner.
There was a mop bucket inside, a rag on the floor, and nothing else.
Not a pillow. Not a blanket. Nothing. There were streak marks over the metal, as though someone had haphazardly wiped the cloth over it, but did a lazy job. There was still blood. Claire’s blood.
Seth covered his mouth with his gloved hand. Tears stung his eyes, but he tucked them aside; he’d let them out later. “She was his own child, and he treated her like an animal. No human being should ever go through this.”
“I’m at a loss for words,” Wells said. “I’ve let so many people down. What I don’t understand is, why do all this? Why not kill her? He didn’t have a problem killing Celine. Or Dillon and Trevor, eventually.”
Seth considered it. He’d had time to ruminate during his hospital stay.
“I think killing was always a last resort for Ron. He enjoyed the mind games first, the prolonged torture. He wanted to know how to break and control her. He created enough of an illusion of himself—and her freedom—to make her question her reality. But he knew she could never know he killed her mom. I’d guess that’s why he’d been keeping Celine’s body at the cabin, not here.
” He paused. “If this is what he did to Claire, who knows what he’s done to other people over the years.
To Celine. To Trevor too. We just don’t know. ”