Page 22 of Bad Intentions

“Right,” I respond.

“So what is it, twenty-five years ago, that you were curious about?”

You know! I want to scream at him. There were many theories, but he probably knows more than the media, the residents, the judge, and the prosecutor during the trial combined.

“Well…” I start, trying to pick the right words. “The bar fire, for one. The…murder. What really happened.” I hold the chief’s gaze. “And then he brought up my father. So…”

Everyone in town knows the story—my mom gave birth to me right after my grandmother was released from prison, left me with her, moved to the city. And then she died of an overdose two years later.

“I was curious,” I say. “Grandma never talks about my father. So I figured, if someone claims they know him, I’m in. Wouldn’t you want to know? If…if you knew my family’s history?”

The chief shifts in his chair. “So it didn’t occur to you that there might be some kind of scam going on? Or that the man might be a predator?”

“Of course it did,” I say, and that’s where my lie comes in. “That’s why I didn’t go to the meeting.”

The chief’s eyes are trained on me. He’s probably trying to read the signs of whether I’m lying, like whether I shift my eyes to the right or the left when I’m thinking before answering. Whether I bite my lip or pick my nails. I hide my hands on my lap under the table so he doesn’t see how nervous I am. You can be a pro and read all you want into a person’s behavior, but when people are being interrogated by the police, ninety percent of them are nervous.

“So.” The chief pauses again. I hate this technique—they show it in movies all the time. He’s trying to create tension, teasing me with his silence, waiting for me to crack. “You didn’t go to the first meeting. And he didn’t text you when you didn’t show up?”

I didn’t think this part through thoroughly. But I shake my head.

“And you didn’t erase any messages on your phone?” he asks, though he asked me that already.

“No.”

“Okay. We’ll wait until the IT team gives us the report. So, let me get this straight. You didn’t go to the first meeting, at the fairgrounds. He didn’t ask why you didn’t show up. But then…” That annoying pause again. “Then, two days later, he texts you his home address and the time for the new meeting, and this time”—the chief pauses again for a dramatic effect, and I swear, I’m going to scream—“you do go. To a stranger’s house. Without any hesitation.”

“I didn’t really want to,” I say. “I was meaning to drive by.”

“To drive by?”

“Maybe to find out who stayed at that house?”

“Okay?”

“I was planning on knocking and not going in. I was going to tell him that I’d stay on the porch and listen to what he has to say. I had pepper spray in my pocket.”

“Right. That’s smart. Okay. Go on.”

“I already told you.”

“Right. Right.” The chief nods, studying me.

“I know you are trying to get more details, but that’s it,” I say. “That’s just it. I rang the bell. I knocked. I tried the door, and I went in, just…” I shake my head, knowing how it sounds. “Just to see, you know. And I heard the shouts for help.”

“Right.”

“Was she…” I take a breath, trying to push away an awful image in my head.

“The woman says he didn’t harm her. She got hit with something blunt, but that’s it.”

“So he did hit her?”

“She’s not sure who it was. When she came to, she was in the basement.”

“So he is violent, that man.”

“I can’t really say anything as of right now. We are running his name, prints, DNA, checking the system.”