Page 18 of Last Seen Alive
He shook his head. “If she was, it’s not like she said anything to me about it.”
“So she left, and then you…?”
“I packed up and moved back to Dumfries, thinking I’d visit our old haunts and see if I could find her. No luck at all. And now, she…sheturns up dead in my house.” Logan let out a deep sigh.
None of what he was saying added up to him killing her. Why had she upped and left Logan when she had? Assuming her past transgression took place before her relationship with him, what had changed or spooked her? Something had to have triggered her not long after marrying Logan. That’s when she first lied about a rich man who wanted her as his private curator, necessitating a move across the country. “Anything happen that you can recall around the time she brought up the move to Nebraska?”
“No.”
“What about when she left? Did you notice any changes in her?”
Logan gave it obvious thought, then said, “Well the timing sucked because I had been in a car accident the week before. I was in a cast, and it was a bitch trying to take care of myself. It certainly would have been easier if she’d stuck around.”
Pile on the mystery. Could that tie into Claire’s running or was it merely coincidental? “Tell me about the accident.”
“Was just driving along and needed to slow for a bend in the road. The brakes failed, and I ended up flipping in a ditch. Claire was freaked out about that.”
Was it just because her husband could have died or was there more to it?“Sounds like you were lucky to walk away.”
“I guess. But things happen. I just took her concern as being because she loved me, and the accident had her worried about the what ifs. Not that any of that would explain her leaving.”
Had it simply been a matter of the accident happening? It seemed oddly coincidental that Claire chose then to leave. And that note about her not being the woman he thought… Did Claire see Logan’s accident as a message? Running with the assumption she was carrying a secret and hiding offline from someone, did she think they’d found her? If so, who was this person? Why were they after Claire? And had they gone for Logan? Then again, maybe Amanda was so desperate to see Logan as innocent of Claire’s murder, she was inventing conspiracy theories.
“You’re going to help, right, Amanda?” Logan asked her.
“I’ll do what I can.” That was the most she could promise.
“The detectives aren’t listening to me. Neither is your boss. That Graves lady. All of them have convicted me already, and honestly, I don’t have faith that the evidence won’t be twisted to meet their agenda.”
Amanda hated she agreed with him on that point. She glanced at the lawyer who had mostly remained witness to her conversation with Logan.
“We’re both on your side,” Peter said to Logan, who kept his gaze locked on her.
“Just let Claire’s sister know, would you? I don’t think those detectives have. They’re all caught up with this Deb Smith ID.”
“Her sister live in town?” Amanda asked.
“She does. Her name’s Michelle. Maxwell is her married name; Ramsey was her and Claire’s maiden name.”
“And their parents?” she asked.
“The father’s in prison, and the mom’s dead. Murdered by the father.”
“Wow.” Amanda exhaled.
“Yeah, her life was crap growing up. She was only sixteen when it happened.”
Amanda witnessed firsthand the emotional roller coaster that Zoe was on having lost both her parents to murder, and the girl had just turned six years old the month before it had happened. Also, the person responsible for their deaths had been a stranger. Claire had been a teenager, old enough to understand the finality of death, and her mother had been taken out by Claire’s own flesh and blood. That had to have messed with the young woman’s mind. But how much did it affect her life choices, and did this loss factor in to why she was killed?
SEVEN
Her mom and dad were screaming at each other when she left. She cupped her hands over her ears—anything to try drowning out their voices and the nasty words they hurled at each other. There would be no retracting what was said. The damage was done and continued to be inflicted. Every time they got into these moods, which was happening more often lately, it was best to get out of their way. When her father tipped the bottle, it transformed him into another man. He wasn’t the soft-spoken son of a farmer anymore. He became a belligerent know-it-all who demanded everything go his way.
Her older sister had her own life going on. Michelle hung out with the “tough” kids, down on the footbridge in the woods, smoking weed, but that wasn’t something that appealed to her. She liked peace and quiet and reading, but her parents never gave her money for books. And she’d read everything she was interested in from the small library in town—twice over.
She grabbed her bicycle from where it leaned against the mobile home and pedaled as fast and hard as she could. Eventually the sound of her parents fighting faded, then disappeared in the afternoon air.
The silver lining to the day was there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. She took herself to the closest bookstore and set her bike in the stand out front. She gave herself a quick once-over and was satisfied she looked presentable enough. Her faded blue jeans were tattered at the knees, but they were clean and her T-shirt, having been yet another of many hand-me-downs from her sister, fit her snuggly, hugging her curves in a complementary way. She’d developed young and was always told she looked older than sixteen. She did what she could to wield that to her advantage.
