“What?” Dalton says. “Valid question. Percentage-wise, you’ve worked your way through, what, half?”
“At least I’m sociable.”
“That what you call it?”
“Guys…,” I say.
“Percentage-wise, maybe ten,” Anders says. “Which is better than your zero.” He looks at me. “Sorry. One.”
“Ten percent? Math isn’t your strong suit, is it?” Dalton says. “If we’ve got about fifty women here—”
“Whatever. How about the earlier victims, boss? I seem to recall stories about you getting around back in the day. Or am I not supposed to talk about that in front of Casey?”
“Casey is absolutely fine with it,” I say. “Casey is grateful for those women who took it upon themselves to school a young man. And Casey would be equally fine if one or both of the women in question had slept with Eric. While she’d like to point out that this is an inappropriate topic of conversation about victims, Casey also recognizes that this is Rockton. It is actually, as Eric says, a valid question. Were either of you that close to them? Close enough they may have divulged information there that they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“The answer is no,” Anders says. “No pillow talk—or sex—with Nicki or Victoria. I postdate Robyn. And by that I mean I arrived after she vanished. There was no actual dating involved.”
“And they all postdate my youthful adventures,” Dalton says. “But, yeah, let’s talk to friends and lovers. For Nicole and the others.”
The others.
Robyn Salas. Aged thirty-three. Ballet dancer in Toronto, she’d had an obsessive fan who turned into a stalker. When she took out a restraining order, he lay in wait and rammed her with his car, breaking her knees so badly she’d never dance again. He got free on a technicality and came after her to “finish the job.” Someone gave her a line to Rockton and she fled here, where like Nicole, she flew under the radar, just another of the dozens of residents that Dalton knew only in passing. She’d vanished four months after she arrived. When a search party failed to turn up anything, Dalton’s father had ruled it death by exposure.
Victoria Locke. Aged thirty-five. Victoria had been one of the white-collar criminals who bought her way in. She’d run a Ponzi scheme with her sister. The sister took off with most of the money, leaving Victoria to the police, with just enough cash to buy two years in Rockton. After she vanished, they’d found her jacket, clawed and covered in blood, and after more searching, Dalton had to admit it seemed like she’d been killed by a bear.
As for her personality? “An odd one,” Dalton says. “Not like Nicole or Robyn. They just seemed quiet. Victoria wasn’t a whole lot different than some of the guys out in those woods. Reclusive. Kinda paranoid. Just wanted to hunker down and wait out her term. I used to think she’d be happier if we just gave her a damn cave—” He stops himself. “Fuck.”
Fuck, indeed.
Three missing women. Two dead bodies. One man presumed dead. Zero leads.
*
During the murders this past fall, I’d marveled at how the town stayed calm. People trusted Dalton to resolve it. Only when we confirmed Abbygail’s murder did that change as the town mourned one of its most popular residents.
This is different.
We have a woman who was kept captive for fifteen months. We went looking for a missing man and returned with two bodies. People have connected the dots. They know what we have out there. And they are not angry. They are afraid.
We go to the Lion for dinner. It doesn’t occur to the guys that this might be problematic. I keep my mouth shut, wanting hot food made by someone else and hoping this will be the same as before. Sure, we’ll get those brave souls sidling up and saying, So, about what’s going on … but one look from Dalton will send them scurrying.
That’s all we get until we’re midway through our meal, and it’s as if they waited until we were comfortable and unlikely to flee. Then they descend.
Is it true you found two more victims?
Who are they?
What’s going on?
Is it someone out there?
Is it someone in here?
What’s going on?
Where’s Shawn?
Are you still looking for him?
What’s going on?
And what are you going to do about it?
Dalton’s glowers and snarls send them scattering, but he’s like a dog in a rat pit, beset on all sides, snapping at one assailant only to have another leap in from the unguarded side.
I promise a public update at daybreak. Right now, we’re exhausted, just exhausted.
But they are afraid. They don’t say that. I hear it in their voices, see it in their eyes.
Is it one of us?
Are we safe?
How are you going to keep us safe?
Dalton won’t rush through dinner to escape. Like that dog in the pit, he holds his ground. Finally, it’s over, and we get about ten paces down the road before someone grabs my arm. Dalton spins, all the anger and frustration bubbling up as he knocks the hand off, sending the person—Trent, one of our local handymen—stumbling back.