Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
A steady beeping filled the room—the soft thrum of Clementine’s heart. Claire sat beside her sister’s hospital bed, watching her sleep with a bandage wrapped around her throat and so many tubes sticking out of her, it was hard to tell what went where.
She was so pale. Her fake freckles had been wiped off, but evening light spilled through the curtains of the hospital and brightened up her hair. The dark blonde roots poked through along Clem’s hairline, and they reminded Claire of a sunset, a place where gold and orange met.
It served as a reminder now.
Right now, Sully was being cared for by pediatrics, and last Claire heard, the hospital had finally been able to contact Marty. He was on his way. Maybe then, Claire could go change out of these clothes that still had her sister’s blood on them.
God, Trevor.
The memory of his eyes haunted her. She’d been so close to losing Clementine forever. As many differences as they had, Claire hated to imagine a world without her in it.
She held onto Clementine’s cold hand. “I’m so sorry he did this to you. They’ll catch him. I know they will.”
With a heavy sigh, Claire stood up. She delicately placed Clem’s hand over her other, then stepped out of the room. The empty hospital hallway was quiet at this time of evening. She looked to her left.
Up the hall, Seth stood from a chair pressed up against the wall, concern all over his face. He was wearing a fresh shirt; he’d destroyed his other one to save Clementine’s life.
And he had saved her life.
He was the one who’d slowed the bleeding, who’d stepped in when Claire’s brain could do nothing but scramble. Seeing him overwhelmed her with weepy emotions.
“Hey, is she—”
She cut him off by jumping at him and looping her arms around his neck.
He immediately hugged her back, supporting her weight as the tips of her toes touched the floor, lifting her easily.
The skin of his neck was warm against her cheek, and the woody, masculine scent of his aftershave enveloped her.
He held her tighter and buried his nose into her hair, breathing out like all his stress had melted away.
“Thank you,” she rasped.
For a moment, their faces were only inches apart. When her feet were firmly on the floor, they stepped back from each other. The spell broke, but the feeling of being in his arms didn’t fade. He was the only one who’d ever made her feel small in a good way.
“She’s okay then?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
Smiling through her tears, she nodded. “Yes. She’s okay. The doctors said she lost a lot of blood, but he missed her major arteries. She’ll recover.”
He sighed in relief. “Good. I’m glad.”
“Did you get Trevor?”
Remorse sank his features. When he sat down, she took the invitation to sit with him. This didn’t sound good. They angled themselves toward each other, to the point their knees practically touched.
“We… don’t have him yet.”
Her stomach fell. “How? It’s been hours.”
“I don’t know. We managed to get a helicopter and K-9 units from the state police, but we haven’t had eyes on Trevor yet. He could still be in the cornfield, but considering we haven’t seen him, it’s possible he escaped into the forest.”
“How does that happen?”
Seth ran his hands over his face. “I don’t know.
The whole operation has been a mess. Jacobson never should’ve left his post—I’m still trying to figure that out.
Claire, I’m so sorry we weren’t there for you when we should’ve been.
You never should’ve been in that situation.
Your sister shouldn’t have been hurt at all. ”
Her heart pulled. She wanted to touch his hand. “You were there. You did everything you could. And my sister is alive because of you.”
“Because of you too. You stopped Trevor and held him until I could get there. Not an ideal situation for you to be in danger like that, but… that was brave. We don’t know when he was planning to do it, but I have no doubt he would’ve killed her.”
“I know, but I think you got to him. They told me the cut was superficial. Maybe it was an accident, heat of the moment type thing…”
“Hard to say. The other victims’ wounds were instantaneously fatal—nothing would’ve stopped them from bleeding out. Still, I wouldn’t give him any grace. He’s a killer. He’ll kill again if we don’t catch him.”
A lump formed in Claire’s throat. “You’re right.
The whole thing just… messed with my head.
I know he’s a monster, but…” She paused, her voice growing thick.
“My dad used to say the only language boys understand is violence. I think he was probably a lot harder on Trevor than I realized. He must be harder on all of them. Dillon’ll never report this, but he came home with a black eye a few days ago. My dad did that.”
Seth rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. “And what language do girls understand, according to your dad?”
She swallowed. Hard. “Mind games. Psychological.”
“Not the ‘traditional’ type of abuse, then.”
He was fishing for more information. But Claire didn’t know when to tell him about the cage—she certainly wasn’t going to do it “on the record,” but if he’d lend her his ear, not as a detective, but as something more, then maybe, just maybe, she’d consider it.
“Speak of the devil,” he muttered.
She lifted her head, surprised she hadn’t felt her dad’s burning presence the moment he’d appeared at the end of the hall. A red-faced Marty bounded toward them. Both Claire and Seth stood.
“She’s in there,” Claire said.
Marty pivoted straight into Clem’s room. Her dad meandered down the hall, wearing a plaid shirt, a pair of overalls, and a Budweiser cap. She instinctively shifted toward Seth, but caught herself.
“Ron,” Seth said, his voice flat. “You’ve been notably absent.”
Her dad’s eyes lingered on her before landing firmly on Seth. “Sorry I missed today’s class, Detective, but those river bass ain’t gonna catch themselves. Killer usually hunts at night, I thought. Didn’t mean to miss out on all the excitement.”
“A guy who used to work on your farm nearly killed your daughter, so ‘excitement’ is one word to describe it.”
Under normal circumstances, her dad might chuckle, but there was an air of seriousness around him that he usually kept out of the public eye. “A guy who worked on my farm. Trevor Sloane, you mean. Yeah, I’ve been gettin’ caught up. Surely you’ve got ’im in custody by now.”
Seth’s jaw flexed. “We’re working on it.”
“That so?”
Seth opened his mouth to say something else when his phone buzzed. He excused himself and paced up the hallway, answering it. Claire lingered back with her dad.
Despite the power he’d always had over her, she couldn’t hold back her fury at him. The least he could’ve done was leave Marty to help watch the farm. “So ‘fishing’ is business now?”
“Everything’s business when you’re smart, sweetheart.” When Seth was farther away, he turned to her with his hands on his hips. She tensed beneath the weight of his stare, but tried not to show it. He couldn’t do anything to her here. “You saw him? You saw Trevor?”
“I saw him holding a knife to Clem’s throat.”
“And what’d he say to you? To the cops?” He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “You tell me everything. And I mean everything.”
She stared vehemently into his icy gaze. Normally, she’d give him what he wanted, or at least supply a half-truth to satiate him. But she wasn’t in the mood. “I’ll let the cops fill you in. Do you even care that Clem got hurt?”
He just glared. Her defiance always angered him, but she hadn’t pissed him off this bad in years. She tried not to let it intimidate her as Seth hurried back over to them. The urgent look on his face could not mean good news.
“I have to go,” he said, then turned to her dad. “You and I need to have a conversation at the station later. Make yourself available.”
With that, he locked eyes with Claire once before he disappeared down the hall.
An evening fog rolled in, hazing over the field and seeping into the open mouth of the abandoned barn.
Seth stared down at Trevor’s body, slumped in the corner of the empty building, his brain matter splattered over the old wood like a balloon full of paint. Every secret he knew, gone, caramelizing in the evening heat. Food for the black flies now.
A handgun limply rested in his open palm beside him next to an evidence marker.
Seth glanced back at the doorway to the barn, where the K-9s were barking, wrangled by their officers.
Chief Wells watched, her expression puckered, while a few other officers lingered behind.
A helicopter was positioned a few yards back, stationary.
He turned to the body, still unable to accept what he was seeing. Anger, taut like a rubber band, threatened to snap.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
Trevor’s eyes, devoid of all that vigor he’d shown earlier, were blank and hidden beneath his long lashes.
He didn’t look peaceful in death—he looked frozen in horror.
After what he’d done to Eliza Johnson, Kelsey Campbell, and Melissa Starr, it was hard to say he deserved a better ending than this.
But it wasn’t supposed to end like this.
It was supposed to end with Trevor locked in a cell.
It was supposed to end with him revealing every one of Ron Dyer’s secrets.
“How long ago do you think this happened?” he asked Dr. White. She stood beside him with her forensic team on standby.
“If I had to guess, he’s been dead for a few hours now.”
Seth grit his teeth. Trevor could’ve been dead before the backup from state even arrived, and they’d been chasing his ghost all day.
This barn was located in a field past a forest north of the Dyers’ farm.
Trevor must’ve gone north after the confrontation in the cornfield, escaped through the woods, and found himself on the other side.
“This man had information that could’ve been damning for certain people,” Seth said. “When you do the autopsy, please look for anything—anything—that might suggest this wasn’t a suicide.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Dr. White said, then signaled to her team to move in and resume their work.
Trying to cool his frustration, he made his way back over to Chief Wells. They left the barn side-by-side and trekked through the field of long grass, away from the ears of the others.
“You’re not buying it, I can tell,” Wells said, thumbs hooked to her belt.
“I didn’t see him with a firearm,” Seth ground out. “He was holding Clementine at knifepoint. If he had a gun, why not use it, at least to intimidate? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t know, Winslow. Based on what you’ve shared about the cornfield, the man was having a complete mental breakdown.”
“Yeah, but he was also on a mission.” Regret speared through him. “I had a shot at him. After he dropped Clementine, I hadn’t seen her wound yet. She was out of harm’s way. I had a clear shot at him and I didn’t take it, but maybe if I had, he’d still be alive.”
“Or maybe you would’ve killed him. Have you ever taken someone’s life?”
“No.”
“Neither have I, and I certainly don’t want to know what it’s like. He’d released the hostage and you didn’t see a firearm. You did the right thing by not firing your weapon.”
It didn’t feel like the right thing now that Trevor was dead anyway. But he understood her point.
“This whole operation was a mess,” he muttered. “Jacobson left the Dyers unprotected. What was that about?”
“I’ll be launching a full investigation into that, I promise you. I know we were ill-equipped.”
“It’s more than that. Jacobson was also one of two cops who chased after Trevor in the cornfield. Pereira said he ran off on his own. He was already off his game—maybe he let Trevor get away. Maybe he wanted him to.”
“What, on purpose?” Wells frowned. Seth didn’t like sounding conspiratorial, but that was where his mind had landed, so he nodded. “Jacobson’s days are numbered, Winslow, but why would he let Trevor get away?”
“Did you have a chance to listen to Claire’s full interview?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know what to think yet. The implication’s disturbing, no doubt, but Claire herself sounded uncertain about every word she said, except for the stuff about Trevor and the other boys being on the farm.
Whether or not Trevor was motivated by something fictitious or something based on true events, he’s no longer here to corroborate any of it. ”
“Exactly my point. If Trevor knew something Ron didn’t want getting out, he’d have every reason to silence him.”
They stopped in the middle of a field. The sun dropped closer to the horizon, and a breeze blew in wisps of cottonwood seeds that drifted through the air and irritated Seth’s nose. He leaned closer to Wells.
“Don’t you think it’s odd Ron went completely off the map on today, of all days? Don’t you think it’s odd your force has never been able to get a handle on this black tar heroin situation? You arrest a few dealers, yet it always ends up back on the streets.”
Wells crossed her arms. “Are you suggesting I have officers who know about Ron’s illegal activities?”
He could only shrug. He was in it now. “Maybe they know how to turn a blind eye for the right price. Trevor told me, in front of Claire, that he feared Ron had cops in his pocket.”
Wells scowled, disturbed. “Maybe some things, but letting a murderer get away? I don’t know, Winslow.
That’s a mighty accusation. The ramblings of a madman are hardly evidence that my cops are corrupt.
And I hate to say it, but all Claire Dyer did in her interview was tell us things she hasn’t seen.
You know as well as I do that we’d need hard evidence to convict Ron of anything. ”
“She’s his daughter. She grew up around him. Do you not think that makes her worth listening to?”
“I think there’s lots you don’t know about Claire Dyer.”
“What does that mean?”
Wells let out a frustrated breath. “Forget it. Just—keep this between us while we sort out the evidence, all right? If anything tells us Trevor was murdered, we’ll look at all angles.”
“I can keep it quiet.” He went to walk away. “But I’m not waiting any longer to interview Ron Dyer.”