Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 312(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 312(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
I step back and she enters. The front door is immediately shut tight against the press. Detective Hahn gives a nod to my neighbor and the dog.
“What happened to Grace?” I ask. “Have you found a body?”
The detective gives me a long look before taking a seat on the couch. Her blank face is excellent. “Why don’t we sit?”
There’s no chance of me being still. I commence pacing back and forth in the small space. “I am guessing you don’t have a body. Just the car. But there must have been signs of a struggle for you to be here, right? For this to be taken so seriously?”
Her chin rises just a little. I am taking it as confirmation.
“It’s not even midday. So you found it what…early this morning? The article online said it was left in the same national park as Briana Petersen.”
“Where were you last night, Miss Walsh?” asks the detective.
“I was at a party next door until about ten and then here.”
“Was anyone with you? Someone who could corroborate this?”
“Me,” says Noah.
“And your name is?”
“Noah Allard. I’m her neighbor.”
“You were together the entire time?” asks the detective, taking notes on her phone.
“Yes.” I nod. “Apart from the five minutes it took me to walk home, unlock the door, and take my dog out back to pee.”
“By then I was here,” says Noah.
“Which I can confirm with footage from my security cameras. Though with them being mine you’d expect me to know how to get around them, right?”
“Why leave your own party?” she asks Noah.
“There were still some people there,” he confirms. “I can give you names and contact details if needed. But I left because being with Sidney was more important.”
She finishes typing. “Miss Walsh, how close are you to your cousin, Grace?”
“Please just tell me…is she…”
The detective stares at me. Then she sighs and says, “No body has been found. How close are you to your cousin?”
“And it was last night she went missing?”
“Yes,” she answers in a terse voice. “Grace was seen leaving her motel room and getting into her car just after eleven. Now answer the question, please.”
“You probably already know she arrived here a few days ago. Said it was to get out of town after breaking up with her fiancé. I think that part is true. That they broke up. But she wasn’t so much here to see me as to get information and record conversations with me for the people making the podcast and documentary.”
“The one called Misled?”
“Yes.” I cross my arms over my breasts. Holding myself together seems appropriate. “Grace said she lost a lot of money from deposits for the wedding, and she was obviously desperate to haul her ass all the way up here. Vermont was somewhere she got sent as a kid. It wasn’t somewhere she tended to visit for fun. Or at least, not as far as I am aware. But we hadn’t seen or talked to each other since our grandmother’s funeral eight years ago.”
“You were unaware she was involved with the podcast?”
“I didn’t have a clue. Found her creeping around at some stupid hour of the morning trying to…to find things to give them. Information on me or whatever.”
“What did you do?”
“Told her to get out. That was the last time we talked.”
The officer keeps typing. “There was no further contact via text or messaging or anything else?”
“No.”
She just nods.
“Wonder if one of your people told the media about the connection to me?”
“That must have made you angry,” she says, ignoring my snark. “Grace betraying you like that.”
“We were close when we were kids. But like I said, it’d been a long time. And she did warn me she was broke.”
“But still…”
I just shrug. It’s not my job to help her make a case against me. I’ve probably said too much already. But she has to know she can rule me out as a suspect what with me having an alibi. Hooray for rediscovering sex on this particular night.
“If you weren’t close, why did you let her stay?” asks the detective.
“Because she’s family. I was feeling sentimental. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
Noah pats the dog and stays silent through all of this. His face is a careful blank. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Auggie on the other hand is busy licking a paw. He doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the detective’s presence. At least, he hasn’t growled at her like he did the reporters.
“Have you listened to your cousin’s segment on the podcast?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“How did you feel about her insights into your life?”
“She barely knows me. I don’t know if I would call her comments about me particularly insightful. Though I thought it was nice she pushed back on some of their bullshit.”
“But not nice enough for you to reach out to her?”