by Riley Scott
“We have vending machines out front if you’re hungry,” he said quietly, pointing out into the entryway.
“Thank you. I’ll be fine,” she said. She cast her eyes down to her lap and had to wonder how much of that was a lie. Would she be fine?
The same dopey twenty-year-old emerged in the doorway and shuffled past her chair to place a sticky note on the desk in front of Detective Stark. He nodded and thanked the boy, ushering him out of the office.
“Well?” she asked, wanting to rip the Band-Aid off as quickly as possible.
“It’s a match.” His kind eyes now held a darker hue and hints of sadness, as if he had wanted the results to prove otherwise. He was probably a father and grandfather, or maybe she reminded him of someone he knew. Either way, he hadn’t wanted to have to extend their questioning. She could tell by the way he looked up at the ceiling and leaned back in his chair. “I do have to ask you another question.”
“Okay.”
“What do you drive?”
She felt as if someone had took a hammer to hear head. “Ford Mustang.”
Relief flooded his face, and he smiled. “Okay. That makes sense. We did find smaller car tire tracks that were likely yours. But they appear to have been there prior to the rainstorm that occurred that evening, which means I think we’re done with questioning for the night. We are going to have additional questions in the coming days. You’ll be in town?”
“I never leave,” she said, relief filling her veins. Even if she wasn’t entirely off the hook, at least she was for now.
She shook his hand and headed for the door. She wanted to run but figured that would look suspicious. Never in her life had she felt so much like a criminal. As she got to the front door, she saw Ryan Walden stroll through, escorted by an unfamiliar detective. He locked eyes on her and nodded a greeting. He had aged since she had seen him last, she noted, staring at the way the lines around his eyes had deepened. He shrugged and gave her a sad smile as he turned away, everything in his body language symbolizing defeat. She wanted to shower off this experience, wishing there was some way to make this dirty feeling go away. This whole town was fucked. They couldn’t bear to point the finger where it needed to be pointed because it would tarnish the image of the picture perfect little area they all felt like they had helped to build. Her stomach lurched, and she quickened her pace, finding a trashcan right outside the door. Leaning over, she emptied the contents of her stomach before righting herself again and forcing herself to breathe.
Soon this would all be over, although she doubted justice would be served. If they were so hell bent on bringing her and Ryan back in for repeated questioning, they sure as hell weren’t focusing their manpower where it needed to be. In the parking lot, she fished her phone out of her purse and saw texts and a missed call from Dominique.
She didn’t want to ghost her, but she wasn’t sure she felt like talking to anyone right now.
Checking to make sure nothing was amiss, she typed a quick reply. Sorry I missed your call. I got tied up with some stuff tonight. I’ll call you in a bit.
She labored over whether or not to add a kiss emoji and opted to leave it off the text. She hit send and put her phone back in her purse.
She needed to talk to someone tonight, and she knew exactly where she needed to go. In her car, she headed north.
Chapter Twelve
Fresh sunflowers had proven difficult to find in the fall at almost nine o’clock. After internal deliberation, Amelia had settled for the wildflowers she was able to pick from the side of the road. It was quite fitting, after all, to bring the wildest and most beautiful soul she knew flowers known for their unpredictability.
“You would’ve never been tamed anyway,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek as she set them down in front of Chloe’s newly erected headstone. It was beautiful—at least as beautiful as something so tragic could be. She had heard the town talk about it being put in over the weekend and knew she’d see it one day.
Today, in the wake of her mental breakdown caused by a traumatic reliving of the details of her relationship and the brutality of the murder, had been the day.
Gingerly, she ran her fingers across the engraved lettering and noticed the large, overturned feed bucket next to the stone. No doubt Bill had been out here more than a few times and had set up a place made for sitting and visiting.
Her knees were weak, and she still felt faint. Gratefully she took the seat, careful not to disturb the grave in front of her.
She shivered as she brought her elbows to her knees in an effort to hug herself. It was chilly out, but she knew this had far more to do with internal chill than the weather. Guilt mixed with heartache filled her soul, and her lips quivered as the tears fell.
“I’m sorry, Chloe,” she said, wiping her tears with the sleeve of the sweatshirt she had found in her car. “I’m sorry I missed the funeral. I’m sorry I haven’t visited yet.” She let out a loud sob. “I’m sorry that everything ended when we were on such bad terms. I can’t stand the things I said to you. It wasn’t right. I wasn’t right. You were and I was too damn stubborn to listen. I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry you’re not here. I know it’s all I keep saying, but I’m just sorry.”
She looked around, thankful no one else was crazy enough to be in the cemetery at night. Even so, she kept her voice down. This was between them. It always had been.
“I couldn’t let anyone else see me like this. Hell, I never even wanted you to see me like this. Somehow I think you can, though. I like to think that you’re with me and with your dad. He’s struggling Chloe. He misses you, but I’m sure you know that. I miss you too, in case you didn’t know that.”
The wind picked up, creating the eerie sound of the leaves being scooped up and tossed about in a flurry. She looked behind her. She should be frightened, but she wasn’t. She ran her fingers again over the etched letters and numbers. Such a short timespan between the years. “How did twenty-six years go by so quickly?” she mumbled. She closed her eyes, longing to hear Chloe spout off a smart-ass retort. There was none, and there wouldn’t be one, no matter how long she waited.
She gulped and tried to get back to her reason for coming. Even in the darkness and without Chloe’s physical presence, her breathing was labored. “It’s stupid, Chloe. It’s really stupid. I don’t even know why I’m having a hard time telling you these things when you’re not even here. But this is tough. I think I met someone. You’d like her…Or you might hate her. I’m not really sure. You both have…had strong personalities. But that’s beside the point.”
Fidgeting on the bucket, she let out a sigh. “I think I like her, and I think you’d be proud of me. If nothing else, I’m learning to be me. I know that’s something you always wanted for me, and I’m trying. I guess that’s what I want you to know. I’m trying like hell to be who I need to be for me. We’ll get to that ‘no secrets’ place at some point. For now, though, I think I’m making progress.”
Glancing around, she felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. All around lay the unfinished lives of those who thought they had more time. And right in front of her lay the only one she wanted to talk to. She wanted to bounce ideas off her, even if they weren’t in a romantic setting. She covered her eyes and cried for all the conversations they’d never get to have. “I was so closed off. I needed to be tough and guarded, and I never let you in.” The tears came harder to the point she knew her words weren’t even coherent anymore but she had to speak them. “I should have let you see who I am. I shouldn’t have been so fucking scared. But I was. You suffered the fallout of my stubbornness. And so did I.” She bit her lip until she could taste blood, making the physical pain more of a pressing issue than the emotional pain.
Her hands were shaking as she stood. She couldn’t take any more pain tonight. It was too much. Before she turned for the car, she glanced back at the headstone. “If you could talk, maybe we wouldn’t be in such a mess over this case either. Trent is a
prick still—no shocker there. He’s making a mess of everything, and I’m scared he might get away with this. But I want you to know I’ll fight for justice, if that’s even a concept anymore.”
Having spoken her piece, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and made her way to the car. As she walked through the entrance, she looked up, catching sight of a solitary black bird near the flood lamp. She watched as the bird craned in her direction and then took flight. A smile played on the corner of her lips as she thought of the solitary bird she knew, taking flight without caring what anyone else thought.
She leaned against the car, thinking of Chloe’s passion. This wouldn’t have been an unsolved mystery if she were around to deal with any part of it. Her stubborn determination and strict need for justice would get in the way, make her a nuisance to police and ultimately end up helping to crack the case.
Whatever it took, she was going to do her best to channel that tenacity.
* * *
Televisions were turned up far too loud in at least three of the rooms on this floor, and next door, Dominique could hear the hushed tones of a couple fighting over money. With nothing good on the basic cable channels the hotel offered, Dominique was left with nothing to do but try to drown out the sounds around her. At least the pillows were comfy, she noted, but it did little to quell her frustration.
Craning her neck from side to side for some relief, she felt the catch of her left shoulder—another pinched nerve. Either the stress of the job or the weight of her stupid decisions was beginning to take its toll on her body.
Feigning casual behavior, she told herself she was picking up her phone to read emails. But she knew the truth. After a quick scan of both her email accounts, she flipped back over to text messaging, just to see if Amy was typing a reply. It was the beauty and the curse of the iPhone to be able to tell whether or not she was being blown off completely. In frustration, she set her phone facedown on the bed in front of her. She needed to know if she had completely screwed things up. Yes it had been Amy’s choice. It had been at her urging that their lips had met in the first place, but now she was flaking out. And Dominique had nothing to do but sit around and wait until everyone in this sleepy town decided it was time for morning again.
She stood and walked over to the pile of posters she had made and kicked the leg of the chair holding them in place. In all her work here thus far, she had garnered a total of three people willing to take a stand for more equality, for justice for Chloe. Three out of thousands willing to stand up and say that what happened to one of their own shouldn’t stand here—or anywhere else. And they were all high school kids.
Pressing her fingers to her temples, she gritted her teeth. This was the job, whether she liked it or not, whether everything she touched turned to dust or not.
She put on her jacket, no longer able to stand the sight of this tiny room, and headed for the door. There might not be much to do here, and she certainly wasn’t going to fit in, but she had to try. No more would she lock herself away for the sake of making everyone else more comfortable.
A quick Google search brought up the only bar in town, and her blood went cold at the name: McCool’s. She had read every news story on Chloe’s case a hundred times. The place it all started was her only option for a drink. Her knuckles went white as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Maybe it was dangerous, but maybe it was her only chance at sanity.
She put the car in gear and ignored her heart’s frantic pounding. She rolled down her window for a breath of fresh air while she drove and a short five minutes later heard her tires crunch across the gravel of the parking lot. The old wooden sign out front screamed of decades past, but no one seemed to care. The railing in front of the parked cars was lined with smokers lighting up and talking in excited tones. It all sounded like a blur to her, especially when coupled with the country music coming out from the speakers inside.
“Honky tonk central,” she whispered to herself. She was going to stick out like a sore thumb in this place, with her brown leather jacket, white lace shirt and skinny jeans. Boots, flannel, and faded jeans were all she could see, aside from one woman in a short, cut-off denim skirt.
She couldn’t look that way if she tried. It was a far cry from what she had always deemed “the Walmart cowboy look” she saw too often in Austin, with boots and jeans that had never seen a hard day’s work, often in bright colors and overly fitted. That’s not what these people looked like to her. Boots were scuffed, some still caked with the mud of the fields, and most looked like they had just come from a day of physical labor without too much freshening up. This wasn’t just their look. It was their way of life. She sighed and looked in the mirror. Whether or not she looked the part, she was going to go inside and enjoy herself.
She applied her lip-gloss carefully. If she couldn’t fit in, at least she’d feel confident.
Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the steering wheel to ground herself. She was out of her league here. Back home in Austin, she was never afraid to dine or grab a drink by herself. She was sure that was something these people couldn’t understand, not being afraid in the big, bad city. But here, she was the minority—in more ways than one. And here was where she felt unsafe. Nevertheless, she grabbed her clutch and rolled up her windows.
One step inside confirmed her fears. At least four heads turned in her direction as her heels clacked against the hardwood floor. A scruffy looking man of probably thirty eyed her and winked, taking his time to look her up and down.
“Damn,” he said under his breath but not quietly enough to escape her earshot. “You’re not from around here.”
It wasn’t a question but a statement. She simply nodded and tried to move past him.
“Wait,” he called out, reaching to grab her arm. She dodged his grip and skillfully moved around another barstool, making it more difficult for him to encroach on her personal space. “Where are you from?”
“Austin.” She offered him a smile and turned to the bar. He was still talking but she wasn’t ready to listen. This kind of thing happened everywhere, but in the places she was used to, she at least knew there were others who would join in and come to her rescue—whether they were strangers or not. Here she could already tell this was the norm. It was acceptable “boys will be boys” behavior. Luckily a chipper, blond bartender who looked too young to be behind the bar was waiting for her order. “I’ll have a cosmo please.”
Her smile faded and she knit her brow. “Louie,” she called out to the heavyset man pouring a draft beer behind her. There was no way he could hear her over the noise of the group of guys calling out beer orders to him, and the obvious new girl had no clue. Dominique didn’t want to get involved with handholding, so she waved her hand to cancel the order. “You can make it a whiskey on the rocks.”
The blonde nodded and set to work. Suddenly Dominique felt exposed and glanced to her right. The scruffy man had moved over to the seat next to her. “What do you do in Austin?”
She sighed. This was the point where she would normally tell him she liked women and he could scram. But that wouldn’t do her any favors here tonight. “I work for a non-profit,” she said. Her hands found the only thing she could find to toy with to distract her, a bar napkin. As she listened to him describe work at a nearby oil plant, she fidgeted and pulled at the corners of the napkin mindlessly.
“What are you doing?” he finally asked, taking a second to actually look at her entire body instead of just her breasts, as he had been doing since she walked in.
“Nothing.” She pushed the napkin away.
“You know what they say about behavior like that?” She shook her head. “Pent up sexual frustration is a leading cause of fidgety behaviors like playing with napkins and peeling beer labels back. At least that’s what I read somewhere. It’s science.”
In any other situation, she would have laughed at his confidence in his “science,” but she just shook her head. “Look,” she said, grabbin
g her drink and giving the waitress cash without ever looking away from the man in front of her, “it’s not going to happen, okay? Let’s just drop that subject completely.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked as she stood to walk away from the conversation. She continued walking, as he followed. “What is it?”
“Stop,” she said, her voice deepening. “I don’t want to have this conversation, and I don’t want to be pestered by you all night.”
He straightened his back, pulling back as though he had been slapped. Confusion danced in his eyes and she wanted to scream. Was it news for all men to realize that not everyone wanted to sleep with them?
“Everything okay here?” The heavyset man from behind the bar had made his way to the corner where she stood.
“Is it?” she asked, turning her attention back to the man still standing in front of her.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as his shoulders slumped. “Sorry,” he mumbled before trudging back to his seat.
“I’m Louie,” the bartender said, extending his hand for a proper greeting. “That’s Johnny Ray. He’s a bit of a jackass when he drinks. I’ll keep an eye on him, okay? And if you notice anything I miss, flag me down. I’ll cut him off and send him home.” His eyes went dark and he looked at the ground. She watched as he took a deep breath and gripped the table. “And if it comes to that, I’ll personally make sure you get home safely.”
Putting the pieces together, her heart fell. This poor man. He must have tried to make things better after the altercation with Chloe.
She placed a hand gently on his shoulder and smiled. “Thank you. That means a great deal. I’m Dominique by the way.”
“Nice to have you here. Are you here alone or meeting someone?” He cleared his throat. “I’m only asking to make sure that Johnny Ray doesn’t act up again. He’ll settle down some if you have company.”