Page 22 of Nowhere Good

“Let me go, you fuckin’ pieces of shit, let me go!”

Claire’s face fell. They both knew who that was.

“I’ll be right back,” Seth said, then darted out of the room.

Claire sat there with her hands clamped together, her skin covered in gooseflesh. Minutes ticked on, and Detective Winslow was still not back. She hadn’t expected the cop shop to feel so freezing—hadn’t expected this room to feel like her prison. Every second dragged out, scraped against her sanity. Every image of Kelsey’s body made her want to be sick again, so she pinched her eyes shut and hoped that when she opened them, it’d be over.

But it never ended.

Those walls still confined her.

It was a feeling of isolation she hadn’t felt in years.

Then, finally, the door opened. Detective Winslow entered, holding a file folder.

“Sorry about the wait, Claire.”

“I want to go home. Please.”

“Soon, I promise. We found Kelsey Campbell’s phone.” Winslow sat across from her with a new type of fire coming off him. “Were you aware Dillon was in contact with her?”

A zap to her heart.

Dillon and Kelsey.

As in Dead Kelsey, the girl Claire saw tonight, the one whose eyes were like—

No.

“You said you knew about his infidelity,” Winslow pressed. “Did you know about Kelsey? They were talking on Snapchat tonight, hours before she was murdered.”

Dread filled her stomach. If Kelsey’s username was in Dillon’s phone, she didn’t think to check for it earlier. Why would she? “No. Forgive me, but I’m not in the habit of keeping tabs on his Snapchat menu.”

Winslow’s gaze hardened. He was obviously done pretending to be compassionate. “You called me at 12:28 a.m. How long had you been away from the trailer park?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Think, please. It’s important.”

She tried, even though it hurt her head. “Half an hour before maybe. I checked the car then I went to the park and thought about what I was gonna do for a while before I called you.”

He scribbled that down in his notebook. The sound of pen on paper was like fingernails scratching wood. “Which,” Winslow said, “places you outside of the trailer for over an hour. From midnight to one a.m. when we found the body. Does that sound accurate?”

“Maybe? Yes?” Her skull was being cleaved in two by his questions, by the implications of it all. “Why? Why would he do all this?”

Winslow dropped the pen. “Claire, I think Dillon could be targeting women who look like you. Like some sort of revenge fantasy.”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m telling you, he’s been a lazy, selfish sack to me, but he’s never been violent.”

“Only with your walls, right?”

Claire winced.

She’d heard stories about how someone could live with a man her whole life, marry him, have children with him, and never know he’d been a serial killer the whole time. A real Ted Bundy type. But Claire couldn’t wrap her head around it. To be frank, Dillon didn’t seem smart enough, tactful enough. How could he have slipped out after she left, do all that to Kelsey, and still have time to drop her body off on the street?

Then again, Kelsey’s body was found close to the trailer park.

What she couldn’t wrap her head around was why. A revenge fantasy, Winslow had said. Things with Dillon hadn’t been perfect in a long time, but she didn’t think he even cared about her enough to hate her that much.