Chapter 22 #2
Wells’s lips pursed as she focused on her hands on the table, her expression growing cloudy.
“After everything with Norm, my judgement’s a bit shot.
I don’t want to believe Ron Dyer could be hiding anything, but I didn’t want to believe Norm could be either.
” She looked at him. “I won’t say a word. Just get it done.”
Seth let out a breath of relief. “Thank you. I’ll go call them now.”
Claire sat on her couch and skimmed through the reel on her old digital camera, little windows into her past life—a life when she was eleven and living on the farm.
A life when she’d been punished with the cage before, but hadn’t known water torture yet.
How generous of her dad to wait till she was older to whip that out, she thought glibly.
There were pictures of herself as a little girl. Her old room, which was Sully’s room now, painted pink with butterfly stickers on the wall; her white paint-chipped dresser, piled up with rope bracelets she’d made at school. Some of those bracelets were still on her wrist most days.
Finally, she came to some shots of people—“portrait shots,” she remembered. Marty, younger and less stressed, smiling with a curly-haired Dylan with a Y. Right—Dylan was a bit younger than Marty, had dark hair and thick eyebrows, but he was also sort of heavyset.
Claire flipped to another photo. Trevor, wearing overalls in front of a cornfield.
He was thinner, but also dark-haired and pale-faced.
Furry brows, sort of like the composite sketch.
He had round-ish features. Claire had forgotten that Trevor was actually cute, in his own way, but seeing his dark eyes again, she remembered the way he’d sometimes stare.
She glanced at the living room window. Dillon’s car was long gone, along with her dad’s truck.
They should be out all day, so she’d have time.
She pulled up Seth’s number, unsaved in her phone, and let it ring.
She bit into her thumb and tapped her foot on the floor, rattling the pictures on the walls.
Finally, his voice came through. “Claire, I was just about to call you.” There was some noise in the background—chattering—but it quieted with a slam. Him getting into his car, maybe.
“Hi,” she peeped. Embarrassment burned her cheeks, thinking about last night, but she held it together. “Um, is now a bad time?”
“No, just got accosted by fucking reporters,” he grumbled. “Nothing brings in the press like the word ‘serial killer.’ Sorry. What’s up?”
“I found my digital camera. I have some pictures you might want to see. And I’m remembering more now. About the boys on the farm.”
“That’s great. Can we meet?”
She stiffened. Her dad’s presence still lingered like a poltergeist in this room. He could see her, smell her, breathe down her neck. “Sure, but where? I don’t want it to be too public…”
He was quiet for a moment, before he said, “Listen, about last night…”
Claire held her breath. After a beat, Seth went on.
“I dropped a bomb on you, and I’m sorry for that. If you’re willing to talk about what you’ve found on the record, then I want it to be on your terms. So you tell me what’s comfortable for you, and I’ll make it happen.”
On the record? Oh, boy. Claire’s head spun, dangerous images flitting through her mind.
This was a risk, but talking to Seth always had been. Three women were dead now. Three innocent women who had nothing to do with any of this.
It wasn’t just about her life anymore.
It was another steamer that day, clouds draped like cloth over the too-bright sky.
After changing into a tank top and shorts, Claire had waited for Seth to pick her up by the gate, grateful no one was out to see her get into his car.
Although there was probably nowhere on the planet she wouldn’t fear her dad was watching, Claire had agreed to sit down and talk if he found a spot outside of town. The car ride had been mostly quiet.
That brought them here.
Sue’s Diner was only twenty minutes outside of Fairview, but it felt like another world to Claire.
It’d been so long since she’d been somewhere new, so the checkered green décor might as well have been some sort of exotic plant.
Nestled off a county road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, the air was thick with the sugary smell of cinnamon and pancakes.
The fryers sizzled in the back while a pot of coffee sputtered as it brewed.
It’d smell like heaven if Claire’s stomach wasn’t so tied up with knots.
Still, she wished The Stalk and Barrell had this kind of homestyle charm—more restaurant, less dive.
They sat in a booth at the very back corner, where the noon light poured in like table syrup.
It was strange to sit here across from Seth almost like they were two normal people, just stopping for lunch.
There were only a few others in the restaurant, scattered on the far side and by the diner’s bar.
A portly woman in a green dress came over to check in with them, and her nametag read Sue, Herself! When Sue propped a hand on her hip and smiled big, her cheeks rosy and plump, Claire wished she had it in her to smile back.
Seth gestured to Claire. She hadn’t seen him look this exhausted and stressed since she found him drunk in his motel room, but it didn’t take away from how nice his face was. “You know what you want?”
She hadn’t thought much about it, too anxious to talk. “Um, I don’t need anything.”
“Are you sure? We can grab lunch first. I’m buying.”
But Claire shook her head. It was nice of Seth to accommodate her and all, but the sooner they got this over with, the better.
Seth nodded and subtly showed Sue his badge. A cautious understanding flickered over Sue’s face. “You just holler if you need anything,” she said, then excused herself.
Alone with Seth again, Claire bopped her knees together.
He pulled out his phone and notebook, and she eyed his hands, remembering how they’d felt on the skin of her arms last night, then wrapped around her wrist. He had big hands, the kind that would engulf hers if they were to compare sizes, but they weren’t rough, not like Dillon’s were.
She measured the width of his index finger next to his middle finger. Oof.
Stop that.
When he caught her looking, she averted her gaze, hoping her thoughts weren’t written as plain as day on her face. He didn’t seem to think much of it.
“I’m gonna record this and take some notes, and if at any point you need me to turn it off, say the word, okay?”
Claire’s nerves frayed; this was getting real. “One thing. Who’s gonna hear this?”
“For right now? Just me, but it depends on what you tell me. I’ll need to share some of your statements with Chief Wells. Down the line, prosecution, but again, it depends. It’s all strictly need-to-know.”
Damn. She was worried he’d say that. Chief Wells was awfully chummy with her dad.
“If you’re worried about Chief Wells, don’t,” Seth clarified, as if reading her mind. “She won’t compromise the investigation. I know how important your anonymity is.”
Chewing on her lip, she nodded, though she was still wary. He didn’t know what kind of pull her dad could have on people, probably even Chief Wells.
But again, this wasn’t just about her life anymore.
“Okay,” Claire said. “I’m ready.”
And just like that, the point of no return.
A few minutes in, and Claire was feeling woozy.
Seth had asked her the basic questions, confirming her relation to her father and the farm, how long she’d lived there, all that.
Now they were getting into the meat of things.
She’d seen his strictly-professional side before, but it was jarring to be questioned by him, even with the way he looked at her sometimes—like she was more than a witness.
“We had several farmhands over the years,” she was saying. “I have photos of two of them here on my digital camera. I’m starting to remember more about them.”
Claire fished her digital camera from her side purse and turned it on.
She flipped through till she found the picture of Dylan with a Y and showed him.
He took a printed-off picture of the composite sketch from within his notebook and compared the two.
Claire didn’t fully see the resemblance, but it was possible he’d lost weight since she saw him last.
“This is Dylan with a Y,” she said. “We started calling him that years after he left, once my Dillon started working on the farm, but it sorta stuck. I can’t really remember what his last name was—something common, like Jones or something like that.
Yeah, it was Jones, I’m pretty sure. He was only with us for a year or two at most.”
“And would you say he got along well with your father?”
“From what I remember, yes. Dylan was brawny, and my dad liked that. He helped out with the manual labor.”
“Any idea why he left?”
Claire furrowed her brows, memories coming back to her; sunny days on the farm, overhearing the boys fighting outside her bedroom window, peeking the window open to listen, catching the odd heated phrase.
“Yeah… it was actually about Trevor. I remember that now. Trevor didn’t get along with Dylan. They were always fighting.”
“Trevor?”
“The other farmhand. There were three at that time—Marty, Dylan with a Y, and Trevor. But Trevor had been with us the longest. Here, I’ve got a photo of him too.”
Claire flipped to the picture of Trevor, staring right at the camera. Seth compared it with the composite. She watched his face closely as he studied it.
“Can you send me those photos?” he asked.