A surge of resentment welled up inside me. If I had any hope of finding Trey, I had to figure this out. Yes, I’d made the choice to track down Brett’s killer, but couldn’t a girl get a break? The two women closest to him didn’t seem the least bit interested in putting his case to bed. All I had to work with was my shared past with Bram and my family’s accounts, all incomplete and unreliable. In a way, being back in Swanton under these conditions felt like being held captive all over again. But I’d be damned if I was going to let Bram trap me this time.

“Why can’t you just be open with me?” I said, incensed. “Why does everything you say feel like evasion?”

“Why can’t you understand it’s killing me to think of him this way!” Crissy set her jaw and looked away. Her breaths were coming fast, but her body had grown still. “How would you feel if it was Wally out there? Right there.” With a trembling arm, she pointed in the direction of the window, the bay, the refuge beyond. Reflexively, I shook my head. Dad, out there? It was unimaginable.

Her voice was hushed when she said, “He would have loved my boys. I used to tell them about him, how they might get to meet him someday. Yesterday they came home from school and asked if it was true grandpa was dead. Don’t you get it?” Crissy said, her voice breaking. “I don’t care about being open. I don’t want to help you find whoever did this. All I want is for it to be over.”

But it’s so far from over, I thought, trying not to let my pity for my cousin show. Crissy had a hard childhood. She’d cast her mother aside, and her father had suffered a horrible fate.

Bram would make it all so much worse.

NINETEEN

I’d never seen Crissy cry. She would sooner hammer a sap spigot into her hand than show weakness, and I won’t lie: the sight of her wet, red face rattled me. I left shortly after that. My cousin and I may not have been close, but I knew her well enough to let her be.

Where did that leave me? All I’d succeeded in confirming was that Cheryl and Brett had dated. That made Cheryl’s house the next logical destination.

She lived a few blocks from my parents over on Jones Court, a tidy street that in the summer months was jungle-lush with old trees. Those trees were bare and colorless as skeletons now, and the way they lined the street gave the impression of ghostly sentinels stripped of their armor.

I hadn’t called ahead; over the years I’d had some success with getting the truth out of witnesses by catching them unawares. I walked up the path to the narrow porch and peered into the sidelights as I rang the bell. Inside, the house was quiet. Didn’t Suze say Cheryl was home taking care of Erynn? It hadn’t been that long since Suze left to run those errands, but I supposed it was possible she’d already come and left. Maybe Cheryl was napping, or had gone out herself.