Page 77 of Nowhere Good

A few minutes in, and Claire was feeling woozy.

Seth had asked her the basic questions, confirming her relation to her father and the farm, how long she’d lived there, all that. Now they were getting into the meat of things. She’d seen his strictly-professional side before, but it was jarring to be questioned by him, even with the way he looked at her sometimes—like she was more than a witness.

“We had several farmhands over the years,” she was saying. “I have photos of two of them here on my digital camera. I’m starting to remember more about them.”

Claire fished her digital camera from her side purse and turned it on. She flipped through till she found the picture of Dylan with a Y and showed him. He took a printed-off picture of the composite sketch from within his notebook and compared the two. Claire didn’t fully see the resemblance, but it was possible he’d lost weight since she saw him last.

“This is Dylan with a Y,” she said. “We started calling him that years after he left, once my Dillon started working on the farm, but it sorta stuck. I can’t really remember what his last name was—something common, like Jones or something like that. Yeah, it was Jones, I’m pretty sure. He was only with us for a year or two at most.”

“And would you say he got along well with your father?”

“From what I remember, yes. Dylan was brawny, and my dad liked that. He helped out with the manual labor.”

“Any idea why he left?”

Claire furrowed her brows, memories coming back to her; sunny days on the farm, overhearing the boys fighting outside her bedroom window, peeking the window open to listen, catching the odd heated phrase. “Yeah… it was actually about Trevor. I remember that now. Trevor didn’t get along with Dylan. They were always fighting.”

“Trevor?”

“The other farmhand. There were three at that time—Marty, Dylan with a Y, and Trevor. But Trevor had been with us the longest. Here, I’ve got a photo of him too.”

Claire flipped to the picture of Trevor, staring right at the camera. Seth compared it with the composite. She watched his face closely as he studied it.

“Can you send me those photos?” he asked.

“Sure thing.” She turned off the camera and set it aside.

He leaned back in his seat. “Tell me more about Trevor. You said he’d been with the farm the longest. How long, do you think?”

“Must’ve been nearly eight years he was with us, on and off. He was there before my mom died and left when I was twelve. I remember that ’cause I was in the eighth grade.”

“Wait, Trevor worked on the farm before your mother died? He actually knew her?”

“Yeah, he would’ve. There were rumors my dad might adopt him, but it never happened, then when I was twelve, he was just gone.”

“Okay.” Seth rested his elbows on the table and leaned in. “What else can you tell me about the farm, when the boys were there? Did you ever witness your father asking them to do anything they might not want to do?”

“Not that I personally saw, but…” Claire chewed on the inside of her cheek. These questions were getting more and more incriminating for her dad. “The thing is, I’ve aways been sorta kept in the dark when it comes to the details of the farmwork. My sister too. We were raised to never ask questions. ’Cause we’re girls, I guess.”

Seth gave her a measured look; she didn’t know what it meant. It ticked him off, maybe. “You felt you were treated differently because of your gender?”

He didn’t know the half of it. “Yes. I can’t speak for my sister, but yes. The boys would have meetings with my dad, and my sister and I were strictly forbidden from asking questions or getting involved in any way. My dad said it was men’s business. It was like that my whole life.”

“But to be clear, you don’t know what those meetings were about?”

“I have suspicions, but I can’t say for sure.”

Seth jotted something down. “And what are the suspicions?”

Claire swallowed hard, trying to focus on the color of his eyes—dark, endless blue—and not the reality of what she was doing right now. Digging her own grave, possibly. “Something illegal. Drugs, maybe. But I never actually saw anything like that.”

“You never saw any paraphernalia? No needles, dime bags, anything like that?”

“Never at the farm,” she said weakly. When somebody walked past their table, she jolted, looking to her left, but it was just an elderly lady walking to the bathrooms. She tried to keep herself together. “But Dillon’s had a dime bag before—you already know that. Sometimes he goes on these midnight drives with my dad and my brother-in-law. There’s this barn on the farm that’s always sealed shut with a lock, so I’ve never been in it. Plus, these seedy bikers come to the bar sometimes. It’s sketchy.”

“Of course,” Seth said. “If it’s not something illegal, why all the secrecy, right?”

“Exactly…”