Be a Good Girl

by Tess Diamond

  “Are you kidding me?” Now she was the incredulous one. She stomped down the steps of the porch, standing on the third to last one, so they were eye to eye. God, she’d always hated how much taller he was when they were kids. He used to pick her up and swing her over his shoulders until she got sick from laughing so hard.

  “I am a journalist,” she hissed right in his face. “Your life may be all about justice, Paul, but mine’s about truth.”

  “What the hell kind of truth are you looking for in there?” he asked, his voice rising, his eyes getting bright under the flickering porch light. “We know the truth. Cass’s killer is rotting in prison where he belongs. What could there possibly be left to investigate here?”

  She took a deep breath. It was now or never. He probably wouldn’t believe her. It would likely be the straw that broke the camel’s back. But she had to try. He was her Hail Mary.

  “Howard Wells did not kill Cass,” she said. “The other girls? The twelve young women before her? Those women, he killed. But he never saw Cass’s face until Sheriff Baker showed him her photo in the interrogation room.”

  There it was. That look. It was concern. It was confused. And it told her that he thought she was out of her mind.

  “What are you talking about? Of course he killed Cass. There was dirt from the Martins’ orchard mixed with O positive blood in his truck when he was discovered.”

  This was her tipping point. She could crumble under his disdain, his confusion. She could let herself be swayed.

  But then whoever really killed Cass was still walking free. And if Abby’s suspicions were right, he was going to hurt another girl.

  She had to rise. To stand strong.

  She had to do the one thing that she knew he couldn’t resist. Because Paul Harrison was a lot of things, but he was also still that little boy who used to tug her pigtails and chase her through the orchard rows. And he’d walk away from a lot of things. But he couldn’t walk away from a challenge.

  She met his eyes, her gaze steady and unflinching. “I loved Cass,” she said, the truth in her words an almost painful, physical thing, hanging between them. “She was my sister in every way but blood. I’ve lost a lot in this world, Paul. But losing Cass will always be the hardest. I would never do anything to dishonor her or her memory or what happened. I didn’t set out to find this. All I wanted to do was tell Cass’s story. The problem is the story of her murder doesn’t make sense when you have all the pieces spread out in front of you. And if you actually went into my study with an open mind, you would see that. So maybe you should come inside and actually use that big, bad FBI-trained brain of yours to do some real police work.”

  She could see a muscle in his jaw twitching as he ground his teeth together, fighting the urge to walk away.

  So instead of waiting, she walked back up the porch steps and went inside. She didn’t need to turn around to know he was following her.

  She knew him.

  She was still running on anger as she entered her father’s—well, now it was hers—study. She was simmering with it, but when she slid open the double wood doors, something inside her began to settle.

  She was right. And if he was any kind of FBI agent, he’d see that.

  The boy she’d grown up with had been smart. He had a keen mind paired with a protective instinct that sometimes got him into a little too much trouble. He’d taken on bullies and badasses, anyone who picked on the little guy or the vulnerable. Half of the girls in their high school had been in love with him, and when Cass chose him—because Cass was too independent to be chosen, she was the one who did the choosing—it had made sense, the two of them together.

  “Where do you want to start?” His voice was like ice, and his expression was even colder as he stalked into the study, folding his arms across his chest. Every part of him was stiff and guarded, like he expected her to attack with her body, with her words, with whatever truth he didn’t want to believe what she’d found.

  “Two years ago,” she said, going over to the first whiteboard and flipping it over to reveal the other side. The beginning of her time line, the one that had set her on this path. “Mr. Martin died. Did you know?”

  He nodded. “I sent flowers.”

  Of course he did. Along with a handwritten note, she was sure. He probably called Cass’s mom after the funeral, to check in on her. That was the way he was.

  “Mrs. Martin asked to see me, after the funeral,” Abby explained. “She said that out of respect for Earl, she’d promised herself she’d never ask unless he went first.”

  “Ask what?”

  Abby gestured to the chair, an old oak rolling chair from the ’30s, with studded leather and worn arms from generations of her family patriarchs, from her great-grandfather to her father, sitting in it. He sat down, still grim and unresponsive. Abby bit her lip, knowing she had her work in front of her, convincing him. But at least he was listening.

  “She asked me to write Cass’s story,” Abby said. “She wanted me to write a book.”

  “And you decided to take the angle that Wells didn’t kill Cass?” The incredulity was thick in his voice. It made her skin prickle with irritation. Like he thought she was some pulp writer out to get a scandalous story.

  “I set out to write a book about how Cass lived, not how she died,” Abby said. “But in order to do that, I had to know everything about the days leading up to that night. About Wells. About the case.”

  “So you went digging, and like all amateurs, you think you find something the pros overlooked,” he said.

  She gritted her teeth, telling herself that this had come as a shock. That he was processing. She hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, either. There was comfort in knowing that Cass’s killer was behind bars, that he was being punished. The idea that he was walking free . . .

  It had made her sick to even contemplate it at first. The only thing that got her through it was the knowledge that if the truth still needed to be uncovered, she was the only one searching for it. This was her mission now. It was a promise she’d never made to Cass, but one that was the solemn vow to her memory that now led her life.

  She would find Cass’s killer. And she would make sure he paid.

  “Okay, just tell me what your smoking gun is,” Paul said, yanking his hand through his hair in that agitated way that told her he wanted to be anywhere but here.

  “It wasn’t just one thing,” Abby said. “Not at first. Have you ever looked at the case? The FBI files on him? You must have access to it.”

  Something in his eyes flared, something that made her stomach leap like she’d just missed a step down the stairs and was falling in the worst way. “I worked hard to move on, Abby.”

  So he hadn’t ever looked at them? God, she wouldn’t have been able to resist. But she guessed that was the difference between them. She had that curiosity, that burning need to know, to uncover, no matter the cost to herself. She’d never been very good at self-preservation. It was what had led her to this mess she was in now. But if he’d never even looked at the files . . . that made what she needed to ask him to do even harder.

  “Sheriff Baker is the one who did the initial processing and questioning of Wells,” Abby said. “I got my hands on the video. It took me a few views to see why it was weird.”

  “Show me,” Paul said.

  He probably wanted to just look at the video so he could dismiss it and her theories, but she didn’t care. If he saw the video, he was going to see what she’d seen.

  She hurried over to her laptop on the desk, turning it around so it was facing him, bringing up the video file and pressing Play. She circled around the desk, standing behind him as it began to play.

  The video was old and light was bad, but Howard Wells was sitting there, handcuffed in the Castella Rock sheriff’s station. Sheriff Baker, a tall, lean man with a somber face who always reminded Abby of a melting candle, came into view. He sat down across from Wells, shuffling the paper for long moments
before he finally spoke.

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?” Howard asked.

  Another long silence, more paper shuffling. Even after watching the video what felt like hundreds of times, Abby still felt annoyed at the obvious way the sheriff was trying to intimidate him. It was pitiful, and she could see it on Wells’s face. What he thought of Baker. What he thought of this whole thing.

  He wasn’t panicked. He wasn’t scared.

  No, he was amused.

  Abby watched as the sheriff began to question Wells. As he pushed the photo of Cass across the table, his voice rising as he demanded that Wells admit that he’d killed her.

  “Why would I kill such a sweet thing?” Wells asked.

  “She has the mark on her,” Baker said on the video. “The X. Your mark. And we found dirt from the orchard she lives on in your truck, along with blood. So how do you explain that?”

  “There,” Abby said, pointing to the screen.

  Wells’s face shifted. It was just a flash, so subtle that she’d almost missed it the first time.

  “He made a face,” Paul said. “Lots of people make faces when they realize they’re caught.”

  “Wait,” Abby said, pressing Play again. They watched as Baker basically lobbed question after question about Cass to Wells for a good ten minutes. And then a man in a black suit came into the interrogation room, clearly an FBI agent, and the video suddenly cut off.

  “I’m not terribly compelled, Abby,” Paul said.

  Abby gritted her teeth. “I’m not finished, Paul,” she shot back, wishing they were eight again and she could solve things by pushing him into a mud puddle. “So you’ve seen the Baker interrogation. Now it’s time to look at the FBI interrogation.”

  He sat up straighter in the chair. “How the hell did you get the FBI tapes?” he demanded.

  “I have my ways,” Abby said.

  “You do realize your ways are illegal?” he asked.

  Such a Boy Scout. Even now. It would annoy her if it wasn’t so damn him. Instead, it made her feel warm inside, like something familiar and good was wrapped around her. Which was rich, considering he was glaring at her for illegally procuring FBI tapes.

  “Just watch the tape. And tell me what you think.”

  Instead of watching the video this time, she watched Paul. His face. She watched, listening as the FBI began a much more nuanced interrogation, and she wondered if he’d see what she’d seen.

  Wells was no longer silently amused, as he was with Baker. But the FBI didn’t put him on edge.

  No, the FBI was Wells’s stage. And he was performing.

  He was telling them everything.

  Paul’s eyebrows snapped together when Wells mentioned Cass’s soccer uniform. Cass had to quit soccer at the beginning of the year because she’d strained her Achilles tendon. But the picture that Sheriff Baker had shoved toward Wells had been one of Cass in her soccer uniform.

  Then Paul’s eyes narrowed as Wells talked about leaving Cass’s body back in the orchard, his breath changing when Wells talked about laying her beneath the almond trees.

  Cass’s family grew olives, not almonds. But Sheriff Baker had mistakenly said almond orchard in his interrogation with Wells.

  Baker had given Wells all the information he needed to claim Cass as his victim.

  When it was done, Abby reached over and closed the laptop.

  Paul was quiet, his fingers tight around the arms of the chair. Abby let him stew in his silence for a moment, because she knew what he was feeling. He was fighting against it, because the idea that Cass’s killer had been walking around free all these years?

  That was a bitter pill to swallow.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “It is weird. But his confession—”

  “Is not real,” Abby said. “You saw exactly what I did, didn’t you? He manipulated Sheriff Baker into giving him all the information he needed to claim Cass’s murder as his—and then he turned around and used that information to convince the FBI he was the killer.”

  “It could just be a coincidence. Or one of his games,” Paul said.

  Abby took a deep breath. “It’s not. I know. Because I went to see him.”

  “What?” He was up and out of his chair so fast, so smoothly, that she nearly startled like a deer. He wasn’t looming over her in an intimidating way, no, instead, he reached out, fingers closing gently over her hand, like he needed to suddenly reassure himself that she was whole, that she was here.

  That Wells hadn’t taken her too.

  Heat spread through her at the simple touch. There were calluses on his hands, but not in the places she remembered. They rode rough on his trigger finger now, instead of on his palm. His tool was a gun now, not a shovel.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded.

  “I was thinking I needed confirmation,” Abby said, her chin jutting out stubbornly. “I needed to be sure. And now I am.”

  “How did you even get access to him? I have explicit orders that anyone visiting him has to—”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, so I’m the ghoulish one for researching this, but you somehow control who he does and doesn’t see? How did you manage that?”

  His cheeks turned ruddy, his blue eyes sweeping down. “I’m one of the FBI’s top supervisory agents, Abby. I have a lot of friends.”

  “I can’t believe you,” she said. “How can you . . .” She made herself stop and take a deep breath. She had to stay in control. “My conversation with him was illuminating. It confirmed that he had never seen Cass before that day Sheriff Baker pushed her photo across the interrogation table.”

  “How can you be sure?” Paul asked.

  “Her hair,” Abby said.

  His frown deepened. “Her hair,” he echoed.

  “During our meeting, he was looking to get a rise out of me, and I wasn’t giving it to him,” Abby explained. “So he started going on about what drew him to Cass. He kept talking about her curls.”

  “Her curls . . . but she straightened her hair.”

  “Exactly,” Abby said. “Look.” She went over to her board, flipping it again, revealing the photo of Cass in her soccer uniform, her many-ringleted ponytail hanging behind her as she smiled at the camera. “She has curls in this photo. The photo Baker showed him. If he saw her in real life—if he stalked her like he did with his other victims?—he would’ve known she wore her hair straight. He would’ve known she didn’t play soccer that whole year. He would’ve known he put her body in an olive orchard, not an almond orchard. There’s a giant sign on the Martin Orchard gate that says MARTIN FAMILY OLIVE ORCHARD, for goodness’ sake! He played them. All of them. He played us. He did not kill her.”

  She looked at him, at his handsome face that seemed to be warring with his mind right now. She needed him to believe her. She needed his help.

  She needed someone who had loved Cass as much as she had. She needed him to fight for Cass as hard as she was.

  “Then why did he confess?” Paul demanded. “It’s all well and good to say that the confession is a bit weird. I acknowledge that. But why would he confess?”

  “Because he’s protecting someone,” Abby said. “Cass’s real killer.”

  Chapter 9

  This one looks so sweet.

  They always do, at the end. So peaceful, as he shovels the dirt carefully over them.

  This is a reverent time. Where they join with the earth again, finally returned, because of him.

  They’re rarely grateful, even though they should be. This one wasn’t. The fierce little thing fought him.

  But he always wins. Just ask Dr. X.

  He’s French-braided this one’s hair, weaved it in double plaits pulled over the shoulders the way she used to wear it. He reaches out, stroking his finger down the length of the braid, the ends curling around his finger.

  It’s so bittersweet, saying goodbye.

  But the fruit is ripened on th
e vine. The leaves will yellow soon, the days growing shorter and colder. Soon, snow will fall, and the ground will be too hard to dig for months.

  It’s a time for new things. New growth. A new plaything.

  He already knows exactly which one he’s going to pick. He’s been watching. He’s been waiting.

  He pats the dirt down with the shovel, smoothing it over as he begins to hum. Tossing the shovel to the side, he makes his way over to the pile of stones, taking them one by one and laying them carefully over the lonely grave, in the middle of the forest, where no one will ever find it.

  “Oh, Danny boy.” His voice floats up, rising among the tall trees . . .

  He continues to sing, assembling the stones in a large X over her body.

  The harvest is coming soon.

  He needs to be ready.

  Chapter 10

  Paul felt like he’d been hit by a truck. Like he’d just done an Ironman. He’d done the triathlon in his twenties, and the way his body felt right now was similar: exhausted, shaky, and sliding into a numb state of overwhelmed shock.

  He had thought Abby was just living in the past. He’d been so angry.

  And now . . .

  Now he was staring at evidence. It wasn’t hard, but it was real. He couldn’t deny that now. Any agent worth his salt would find Wells’s confession suspect when compared side by side with Sheriff Baker’s interrogation. He was betting the agents in charge of the original investigation had only glanced at Baker’s transcripts—they may have never even seen the tape or realized that Baker had unwittingly fed Wells information he hadn’t acquired yet.

  Christ. This was a disaster. The idea of Abby breathing the same air as Wells—of him even looking at her—filled him with a raging anger that almost obliterated everything else he was feeling.

  Another killer. A partner? Is that what she was talking about? His mind began to work through the possibilities, shifting through and rejecting options and ideas. If Wells had a partner he was trying to protect, that meant Wells was the leader in the relationship. That meant his partner was the follower.