Page 26 of Nowhere Good

“Shut up, you sick fuck,” Dillon snapped. “I never hit Claire.”

“Never said you did.” He tapped the photo of Kelsey. “Kelsey, though. Like you said, she looks like Claire. You got the looks without all the drama. Did you go to Kelsey when Claire annoyed you? I’d get it. It’s not a crime to have a type.”

“I did not kill Kelsey. I never even touched her.” He crammed his palms into his eye sockets. When he lowered them, he had the façade of a man about to break. “The only thing I ever did with Kelsey was fool around and send pics. We never did anything in person—it was all online.”

Seth leaned back in his chair, grateful he could drop the act—and that he was getting somewhere. “You sure about that? Someone in your trailer park saw you with another woman.”

“Fine, we banged like, three times, but that was it, I swear.”

“Got it. What drew you to Kelsey? As you said yourself, she looks like Claire. Did you like that about her?”

“No, she’s different in like, other ways. Kelsey has better like… features.” Dillon’s cheeks dotted with red, like he was embarrassed. “Look. I like girls with tits. Does that make me a murderer? What, I deserve jail for liking what every sane guy likes?”

Seth found himself at a loss for words. If this was Dillon’s way of misdirecting the conversation, he got points for creativity. He felt vaguely stupid as he jotted those words verbatim in his notebook.

“Okay, so you liked Kelsey because of her… features. Got it. What about Eliza Johnson? Let’s not waste time with the memory loss bit, I know it’s bullshit.”

“Yeah, okay, I knew her when we were kids.”

“It didn’t end there though, did it?” Seth took out the photo of Eliza’s tattoo and dropped it on the table. Dillon’s breath hitched. “These are your initials, Dillon. Did you keep seeing Eliza?”

“No, man, I hadn’t talked to her in years. We dated in high school, but no one knew about it, okay? We kept it a secret.”

“Why?”

“Why’s it matter? We just did, okay?”

“It matters to me. Why was it a secret?”

“I—I guess I didn’t think she was good enough for me. She came from a trash background, no money, sick mom. I broke up with her to be with Claire. We still talked for a few years after that, but then she started getting hard into drugs and turned into a junkie whore, and I was done with her.”

Junkie whore. Very nice. What did Claire Dyer see in this guy?

Despite his words, Dillon’s hard exterior cracked. His brown eyes were wide and pleading. “Man, you’ve gotta believe me—I didn’t do this.”

Seth paused, taken aback. Not only by Dillon’s sudden brevity, but for the sensation that washed over him—the sensation that he might be telling the truth. It had all unspooled like yarn from his lips, answers that explained every theory, answers that made sense.

No, everything pointed to Dillon. It had to be him.

Except the murder weapon wasn’t found at Dillon’s house. The refills for the boxcutters he had might not be a match—still waiting on the lab for that one. The timeline was admittedly tight; Dillon would’ve had to leave the trailer right after Claire, kidnap Kelsey, kill her, carve words into her, and dump her on the street, all within an hour. It was possible. But the thorniest issue of all: the vehicle used to transport the bodies still hadn’t been found.

“I want to believe you, Dillon, but I’m having a hard time.” Seth removed a photo of the dime bag and slid it toward Dillon, then watched his face. Something flickered across his harsh features—fear, maybe—but it was quick to fade, and Seth nearly missed it. But it’d been confirmed by forensics this morning; Kelsey, like Eliza, had one of these in her pocket when she died. “Tell me where this came from.”

“I’ve never seen that.”

“It was in your car. It got in there somehow. Your girlfriend didn’t describe you as a drug user, but we know black tar heroin has been making its way around Fairview in dime bags exactly like this one. Both Eliza and Kelsey had one in the pocket of their jeans when they died.” He tapped the photo again. “Who was the heroin for, Dillon?”

“I don’t know, man. Someone must’ve left it there, one of my boys maybe, I dunno.”

“What ‘boys’? Are you friends with known users, and are you willing to identify them?”

“No! I mean, to the first part—my boys don’t do that, but maybe they like, had something on them.”

Seth leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head. “I have to say, you’re not convincing me.”

Just then, the door to the interrogation room opened, and Chief Wells poked her head in, apathy on her face. “Winslow. A word?”

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