Page 94 of Nowhere Good

“She’s his daughter. She grew up around him. Do you not think that makes her worth listening to?”

“I think there’s lots you don’t know about Claire Dyer.”

“What does that mean?”

Wells let out a frustrated breath. “Forget it. Just—keep this between us while we sort out the evidence, all right? If anything tells us Trevor was murdered, we’ll look at all angles.”

“I can keep it quiet.” He went to walk away. “But I’m not waiting any longer to interview Ron Dyer.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ron had an air of infallible smugness around him as he sat inside the interrogation room, his hands crossed over his belly. He looked up with a smile as Seth walked in. “Detective Winslow, there you are. I’ve been told you played a role in savin’ Clementine’s life. I want to thank you personally for that.”

The chair screeched against the tile as Seth pulled it out and sat down. “I wish it never came to that at all. We found him, by the way.”

Ron’s eyes flashed. “You did, huh? I don’t suppose I’d get a chance to have a word with ’im?”

“Not possible. He’s dead.”

“No kiddin’. How?”

“We’re exploring multiple avenues.” He adjusted his elbows on the table and stared at Ron, who simply stared back.

You did it.

Or you had someone else do it.

Good luck getting a confession. But that had never stopped him from trying before.

“You understand this is being recorded, right?” Seth gestured toward the camera in the top corner of the room. “And you understand you’re not under arrest and are free to leave at any time.”

“Sure thing, Detective. I am here of my own volition. I’ve got nothin’ to hide.”

“Look, Ron, I don’t want us to waste each other’s time, so I’m gonna get straight to the point. Before Trevor escaped, he made some pretty damning allegations against you.”

Ron had the gall to laugh, but he sat up and mirrored Seth’s posture, elbows on the table, back straight. “This oughta be good. Let’s hear it.”

“I’ll start with the one that worries me the most. Trevor claimed you knew who he was and why he was doing what he was doing from the start. Why would he say that?”

“Detective, I had absolutely no idea it was him. I haven’t seen that kid in months. Last I heard, he was still living out at that looney bin I dropped him off at out of town when he was a teenager.”

“Belleville. The mental health institution.”

“That’s right, I paid for his board there. Had been since he was sixteen years old. My poor bank account can attest to that.”

“Why?”

Ron let out a flabbergasted breath. “Hell, I don’t know, maybe ’cause I felt bad for the little nutcase. He’d been workin’ on my farm on and off since he was a kid, had no real family, only foster parents who didn’t have room for ’im. That’d be the Sloanes. You’ve probably already figured out Sloane wasn’t his real last name.”

They hadn’t figured that out yet at all; the warrant for the medical and juvenile records was still in progress. As of right now, they barely knew anything about Trevor Sloane or where he came from. “How’d you come across this boy? If he was on the farm when your wife was alive, he would’ve been just a kid.”

“Well, the Sloanes lived out in the country, and we’d met ’em through the town fair. Little Trevor was fond of Clementine and fond of the farm, so the Sloanes let Celine and I have ’im help out in ways that are appropriate for boys of that age. Chores, not men’s work. I kept ’im around after my wife died, like I said, on and off. As he got older, he started to show signs of, well… darkness. The type of darkness you inherit from your parents, even if you never knew them.”

“You mean mental illness,” Seth clarified.

“Sure, call it what you want, but the kid had some screws loose. The Sloanes didn’t tell me till a few years in, long after Celine was gone, about Trevor’s real name and his… family history.”

Seth said nothing, waiting for Ron to elaborate, which only made him laugh in disbelief.