Page 103 of Nowhere Good

“Let me talk to Chief Wells. Your dad’s already under suspicion for his connection to Trevor and the heroin thing. Your statement about what he did to you as a kid only adds to that. If I can loop Chief Wells in, she can get a headstart on the investigation.”

“Please wait. Let me just… calibrate. It’s a lot to take in.”

Although his face was disappointed, he nodded, then trapped her in a hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he lifted her. “I want to see you again before I leave, okay?” he said. “Give what I said some thought. We can talk more later.”

“Okay,” she croaked. She didn’t want to leave him.

“I’ll be thinking of you, beautiful,” he spoke into her hair, and she hugged him even tighter.

“I’ll be thinking of you too.”

As he finally set her down, she managed to hold her tears in. He planted a soft kiss on her mouth, then pulled away, brushing his thumb over her bottom lip. She couldn’t help but smile up at him, all teeth.

“Don’t get started on that again,” she teased. “I’ll go first.”

“Okay.” He kissed her again. “I’ll text you later.”

As much as it pained her, Claire pulled herself from him. They exchanged one last smile before she opened the door and slipped into the bright morning. Stepping out of who she was with him last night, and back into who she had to be today, made her feel a type of longing she’d never experienced before.

It’ll all be okay, she tried to tell herself. I’ll see him again soon.

THIRTY

Seth unpinned the last photo from the board—Eliza Johnson’s yearbook photo—and took a moment to stare at it. Before all the chaos, it was Eliza who had first brought him to this town, Eliza who he’d first wanted justice for. It was hard to feel satisfied when the story behind her murder felt like it was still only half-written.

It’d been over a week since he’d first entered this room, fully convinced he’d find someone with a personal grudge against Eliza, working against Haylock’s theory that a drifter killed her. In the end, they were both right in their own ways. There had been a personal element to the crime, just not against Eliza herself. And Trevor Sloane had, in a way, been a drifter.

Then again, maybe Haylock knew who he was looking for all along.

Seth would never know unless Ron Dyer confessed.

And that irked him to his soul.

He’d expected this case would be a new experience, but he hadn’t expected it to affect him the way it did. He definitely hadn’t expected Claire. Or his feelings for her. His feelings that now felt so validated, they’d be impossible to ignore moving forward. He couldn’t imagine it ever being that good with anyone else.

He didn’t want to find out.

As he tucked the photo of Eliza into a case box, a flare of evening light through the blinds created a line across the conference room table, where everything he’d been working on was now neatly put away. He reminded himself there was no reason to be melancholy; this wasn’t over yet. It was just over for now.

And he’d get to see Claire again before he left. He’d have another chance to convince her to handle this thing with her father another way.

Someone knocked at the door, and Seth looked up to see Chief Wells. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it. “That’s the last interview finished up.”

“You talked to Clementine?” He’d tried to visit her earlier, but she’d been asleep. Ron wasn’t there, but Marty was, so he’d interviewed him instead.

“I did,” Wells said. “She’s doing well. Going home today, apparently, providing Ron supplies some at-home care. She said she was making sweet tea in her kitchen when she heard a sound, and by the time she realized Trevor had broken into the sliding door, it was too late. She tried to fight him off, but he injected and subdued her. She doesn’t remember anything concrete after that.”

“What about Trevor himself? Did she elaborate on the history at all?”

“Her story’s more or less the same as everyone else’s. Trevor used to work on the farm, on and off for years till he went away when he was sixteen. Clementine never heard anything about him after that, but she remembers being friends with him when they were kids.”

“So none of them knew about Belleville. Why would Ron not tell anyone?”

“Maybe they never asked. It doesn’t seem like anyone was particularly fond of Trevor. He was sort of invisible, by the sounds of it. As far as we can see, none of them had any reason to think he’d come back to Fairview or do something like this.”

Which lined up with what the Sloanes had to say too.

Seth had tracked them down earlier and went to visit their house on the countryside. They were a kind couple in their sixties and were still foster parents. They were open with as much as they could remember about Trevor. He was a sensitive, quiet boy who adored Ron’s farm, but suffered from night terrors. They didn’t foster children over the age of thirteen, so Ron took Trevor in at that age and kept him. They’d lost touch after that.