Page 113 of Nowhere Good

“See that you do.”

The line went dead.

Lieutenant Delaney was done giving him chances, done giving him the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t blame her. The way he’d been acting over the past few days had been nothing short of deplorable.

The day after Claire disappeared, he’d conscripted Pereira’s help in getting the ring camera footage across from her trailer. It showed her coming home the morning after their night together, going inside, then her dad showing up shortly after. They were in there for hours with the curtains drawn before Claire and Dillon emerged with luggage. Claire had worn a smile on her face as Dillon helped her into his car. To Seth, she looked intoxicated—to Pereira, like she’d just gotten engaged.

After that, maybe he did get a bit unhinged. Maybe he did drive by the Dyers’ farm one too many times, hoping to see something through the windows, even though they’d pulled all the curtains shut. Maybe he did visit the Dyers’ bar again just to glare at Marty, who was filling in as the bartender; maybe he did follow Ron to the grocery store just to see what he’d buy.

But without any jurisdiction, he was nothing more than a man who hardly knew Claire Dyer at all.

And maybe that was true. But what he’d seen in her had been real. No one could convince him otherwise.

He rubbed his hand along his jaw. It itched beneath the facial hair he let grow in a few days more than he ever allowed it, but he’d been too mentally preoccupied to think about shaving.

The smell of the unlit candle on the nightstand beside him wafted through the room. He picked up the sturdy glass jar, admiring the deep red, and flipped it over in his hands. It smelled like her. Like that night they’d spent together. Like when she’d lain herself out for him, raw and bare, like no woman ever had. She’d given herself to him in ways he didn’t know were possible. She’d trusted him, even after so many people in her life had let her down.

Those memories tortured him now.

He’d gone over every moment of that night in painstaking detail, looking for anything he could’ve missed. Was it really possible it was all a lie?

His vision grew watery. Confused, he touched his eyes. Tears dotted his fingertips, catching him off guard. Seth wasn’t a crier. It wasn’t like he thought it was weak, especially as he’d gotten older and grown a mind of his own, but some of the men his mom used to bring home would beat the tears out of him if he ever started whining, and old habits die hard. Maybe he got misty-eyed every now and then, but he hadn’t shed actual tears since Detective Landis’s funeral five years ago. And even those had been subdued.

But the thought of leaving without seeing Claire safe killed him. He felt stupid, embarrassed, and useless. He just needed to see her one more time.

It wasn’t going to happen.

He couldn’t even fathom the amount of therapy he was going to need after this.

His phone buzzed on the bed beside him. He expected it to be Delaney, reaming him out again, but the name on his screen made his heart bottom out.

With bated breath, he answered. “Claire?”

“H-hi.”

Holy shit.

It was really her.

He stood and paced the room, where most of his belongings had been noncommittally stuffed in his suitcase. “Claire, where are you? Are you hurt? Please talk to me. I’ve been looking for you for days.”

“I’m okay.”

She didn’t sound okay. She sounded robotic.

“I’m real sorry for what happened,” she said. “I had so much going on… then Dillon proposed…”

He was already grabbing his car keys off the table by the window. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come pick you up.”

“I’m outside.”

What?

He ripped back the curtains.

And there she was.

Claire stood in the parking lot, completely alone. She wore a pair of shorts and an oversized, light blue hoodie, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but it was definitely her. She waved weakly when she saw him, and he could make out a tight smile on her face.