“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 the 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 . . .