Page 111 of Say Yes to the Death

“ESA. Like Barney’s frat from the yearbook!” Claire waved her hands. Why were they not getting it?

The gang had piled into a booth at the back of the bar. The droning country music was quieter back here, but she still practically had to shout to be heard.

Nicole shook her head. “Are you sure? Those two don’t sound like guys who could meet a 3.8 GPA requirement. And just because they were in the same frat and are both douchebags doesn’t necessarily mean they’re in cahoots with Barney. He graduated like six years ago. They wouldn’t have even met.”

“Think about it,” Claire said, gesturing wildly. The absinthe was still coursing through her system despite the soft pretzel Sawyer had procured seemingly from nowhere. “Barney has to be working with someone on the outside. Or at the very least, whoever’s doing all this has an in-depth knowledge of his methods and they’re repeating them. Flowers, creepy notes, mail that’s not postmarked.”

“But you said they didn’t react when they saw you? They didn’t seem to recognize you?” Nicole shivered.

Claire shook her head. “I was mostly in the shadows. It’s just a feeling I got. Like I was face-to-face with evil. I think they’re the ones who are stalking me and leaving notes. You should have seen them with that poor girl. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t shown up.”

“Lots of frat boys are aggressive douchebags,” Kyle chimed in.

Claire groaned. Why didn’t anybody believe her? Internal alarm bells were going off like crazy, and they were all telling her the same thing—ESA and Barney were connected. Sawyer put a hand on her shoulder, and her knees almost buckled. He handed her a fresh glass of water.

“I’m going to tell Jack.” Surely her FBI agent deadbeat father would be intrigued by this turn of events even if no one else was. She dialed his number.

“Claire? Everything okay?” Jack asked. He sounded startled to hear from her.

“Listen, Jack. Something happened tonight.” She launched into the story of finding Barney’s frat in the yearbook and running into the ESA brothers downtown.

When she finished the tale, several seconds of silence followed.

“As interesting as that is, it doesn’t mean they’re working with Barney. I doubt a bunch of nineteen-year-old fraternity brothers have the organization and time maintenance necessary to stalk and murder victims all across the country.”

Claire sighed. “Okay, I don’t know if they’re related to what’s going on across the country. But my gut is telling me there’s a connection. We can’t ignore this.”

Jack paused. “I’ll mention your theory to my superiors, but I don’t know that they’ll look into it. Thank you for bringing it to me.”

“Great. Talk to you later.” He wasn’t going to tell his superiors shit. Why did no one believe her?

“Claire, before you go. My wife wanted me to ask you again about coming over for dinner. We live in Scranton, you know. Not far.”

She paused for what felt like an eternity. Maybe she should run up to Scranton, rip his door off its hinges, and club him with it until he agreed to follow up on her lead. Spending more time with her absentee father was the last thing she wanted. And yet, she was curious. What had caused him to give up his life, give up being a father to her? Who was Trampy Tanya, and what did she have that Alice didn’t?

Finally, she shook her head. “If you insist on doing this family thing to appease your guilty conscience, we’ll do it on my turf.”

“You want to have dinner?” The surprise in his voice was clear.

“Friday night, seven o’clock, my apartment. Bring your wife and whatever other miscellaneous family members you have that I don’t know about.”

“Great,” Jack said, clearly surprised. “I’ll tell her.”

Claire hung up the phone. Maybe if she got Jack in front of her, she could make him believe her. In the meantime, she would do her own investigating. Who else was going to look out for women in West Haven? Apparently not the police.

She slapped at the phone in Mindy’s hand. “Who are you talking to? Everyone you care about is here.”

Mindy pursed her lips and turned the phone toward Claire. A news headline in bold red letters came across the screen. Drunken Widowmaker Survivor Assaults Innocent Bystander.

“Oh no.” Claire grabbed the phone. The article had only been posted twenty minutes ago and already had two hundred shares. This was bad.

She skimmed the article. It mentioned everything—the name of her business, the lawsuit with Wendy, Rachel’s accusations about Claire being an alcoholic. A video of her whipping the trash can lid and vomiting on the ground accompanied the article. The girl in the yellow dress had been conveniently cropped out of the clip. Claire glanced at the comments and quickly gave the phone back to Mindy.

“They’re smearing me for stopping an abduction attempt.” She laughed, but the end of the laugh broke into a sob. What patriarchal bullshit was this? She looked down at her hands like they had acted of their own accord. Two shots and half a beer and she had lost control to the point of assaulting someone on live television. It wouldn’t matter if she came forward with the truth. The story was already spun.

She pulled her phone out with shaking hands and Googled the name of her business. Happily Ever Afters was a company formed around the idea of true love. Now the first ten search results were either about Barney or Drunk Claire assaulting a “bystander.”

“What have I done?” she whispered.

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