AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Um, well, he can be fussy sometimes, so I was hoping… I guess I wanted to take advantage of—”
“I’m sorry, did you just say you wanted to ‘take advantage of’ the fact that your son seemed to not be waking up?”
“No, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that… I just meant—”
I rip the headphones off and place them on the table, pushing my head into my hands.Goddamnit.I knew those interviews had been bad, but now, listening to them back, they’re even worse than I remembered. I can still feel the adrenaline coursing throughmy veins, the fear making my fingers shake like a junkie during withdrawal.
Detective Dozier’s eyes drilling into mine, trying to pierce me so deeply that I would finally crack.
I try to piece together what this all means—Waylon having a copy of the case file already; listening to these recordings of Dozier grilling me, hard. Logically, I know this could all be research for the podcast. It seems unusual that he would hide it from me, but at the same time, this is his job.
Either way, it’s not incriminating enough to approach him with. I need something more.
I look at his laptop next, glancing back to his closed bedroom door, then down to the keyboard, tappingReturn. It isn’t password protected, miraculously—maybe he was just on it, and it hasn’t been asleep long enough to lock—and I watch as the screen and keys illuminate in the dark. My heart thumps hard in my chest as I start moving my fingers across the track pad, navigating first to his desktop. There are various folders organized alphabetically:Finance, Interviews, Personal, Research.I don’t have time to scour his entire computer—he could walk into the hallway at any second and catch me here, snooping through his files—so I click onResearchfirst.
After all, it seems like Waylon has certainly done his research.
I find various subfolders inside, each one labeled by episode and season. My eyes skim across every one until I reach the bottom of the list—to the very last folder, simply labeledX.
I click on theXfolder, my eyes bulging when I see what’s inside. There are pictures of me—dozens of pictures—in various stages of life. There’s my headshot fromThe Gritand a wedding photo of Ben and me; our first family picture, with Mason between us, and even a few selfies of us I had posted to Facebook years ago. At the very bottom, my eyes linger on a candid of Ben and me at a bar; it was taken from across the room, the two of us caught in an intimate moment together, leaning in close. Unaware.
My hand hovers over my open mouth, shock bolting me in place.
Suddenly, I hear a creak from the guest room and I jump, twisting around fast. I half expect Waylon to be standing behind me, watching me in the dark, but still, I’m alone. I hold my breath, my eyes on his closed door, imagining his unconscious body flipping over on the old mattress and sinking in deep, making the box spring groan.
Finally, after a few seconds, it feels safe enough turn back around.
I click out of theResearchfolder, ready to shut the laptop and leave it just as it was, until I decide to check one more thing. I launch a browser window and navigate to his Search History next, knowing I only have a few more minutes, and quickly skim down the list of his most recently viewed websites. Most of them are innocent—email, news—until I come across the same TrueCrimeCon article I had been reading last week.
I suppose it isn’t unbelievable that Waylon would be reading it—he is working on my case, after all, and he wasthere—but now, I think about that comment again.
He’s in a better place.
It disappeared just after our first meeting together: before our dinner at Framboise,it was there, but when I got home, it wasn’t. I file the thought away and keep skimming, getting ready to call it quits, when all of a sudden, I can feel the air exit my lungs.
This is it. This is themoreI was looking for.
It’s an article fromThe Beaufort News, my hometown newspaper. Waylon was reading it recently, just yesterday, and my hands shake as I click on the link and watch as it loads. The article is old, scanned and archived from 1999, and I feel a prickle of tears as the headline appears.
DAUGHTER OF CONGRESSMAN HENRY RHETT
TRAGICALLY DROWNS IN MARSH
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THEN
I hear the slam of a door and leap from my bed, run down the hall, and lean over the staircase. I can see them through the front door window: Dad and Chief Montgomery, huddled close on the porch, talking. Then I run back up the stairs, two at a time, and unlatch the window at the front of the house, pushing it open slowly.
“I appreciate you doing this, Henry. I know it wasn’t easy.”
A warm blast of early afternoon air hits me along with the chief’s slippery voice, traveling through the hall like oil on water. I crouch down low and listen.
“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Dad says, exhaling. I can’t see his face, but I imagine his thumb and forefinger rubbing the bridge of his noise, the way he does when he’s stressed out or deep in thought. “I know you’re just doing your job.”
“I’ll write up the official report later today,” he says. “Accidental drowning.”
“Thank you.”
