Page 68 of Nowhere Good

“Christ, we don’t have the manpower for this, but we’ll try.”

Seth turned to the gas station, just as his phone began buzzing in his pocket. An unknown number was calling him. He frowned and stepped away from the crime scene so he could answer it, facing the dark field across the street.

“This is Detective Winslow,” he said.

Silence. A breath, maybe a sniffle. The sound of crickets—Seth thought it was from the fields around him, at first, but there was an echo.

“Hello?” he pressed.

Then, finally, that voice. “When I found your card in that house downtown, I couldn’t believe it might actually be your personal cell.”

Seth’s heart stalled. Him. As quickly as he could, he turned on the recording app on his phone so he’d have the conversation saved. “I was hoping I’d hear from you again. Where are you?”

“I didn’t have time to leave my message, but something tells me the point has been taken. He knows who I am. He knows why I’m doing this.”

“Who does?”

“You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“I will.” Seth held the phone firmer. “I will believe you. Let’s meet, you and me, tonight. Your terms. Just say the place.”

But the caller didn’t seem to register his words. “I know I’ll burn for what I’ve done, but he’ll burn with me. Not without the body. Why haven’t you found it?”

“Celine Dyer’s body, right? I found the map you drew in Detective Haylock’s garbage bin, but when I followed it, the building was burned down. What was I supposed to find there?”

There were several long stretches of silence, in which Seth was sure his pulse might snap free from his throat.

“No,” the caller whined. “No, no, no. Of course that’s how he’d get away with it.”

“Who? Tell me who you’re talking about.”

“You don’t understand. He’ll get away with it—he gets away with everything. It won’t work unless he comes out himself. Or unless you find the fucking body.”

And there it was—the anger.

“Whose body? Celine Dyer’s?”

The man exhaled, relaxing himself. “It won’t work. He has to come out of hiding. How many will he let me kill? I might have to… up the ante, as they say. Bring it straight to the place it happened.”

“The place where what happened?” Seth couldn’t help but sound pleading and desperate, because he was. None of this made any sense. “Tell me who you’re talking about. Please. We’ll figure it out together.”

“Yes, we will, Detective. I’ll make him come out. This time, he’ll listen.”

“Wait—”

The line went dead.

Claire had hated the way Marty looked at her ever since that night ten years ago. Those damn guilty eyes, like he was pleading for forgiveness without ever actually apologizing or acknowledging what he’d done. They’d barely ever been alone together since, not till now.

And Claire had fully expected Marty to call her dad right away. But he didn’t.

He’d asked her to sit with him and listen. “Just listen.”

And so, she had.

Despite the world darkening outside the windows—despite the fact that she needed to get back to the fair—she’d sat down at the kitchen table with him.

“I haven’t been able to forget it,” Marty was saying, hanging his head low, “and ever since we had Sully, I…” He rubbed his teary cheeks with his bare wrists. It felt almost silly, seeing this six-foot-two man with his long ponytail and farm-earned muscles unable to articulate a mere apology, but Marty always had been a bit simple. “I only did what your dad asked me to do.”