Maggie considered this new information about Dylan as she shifted in her seat, accidentally kicking Ant under the table. She jumped when he poked his head out. She’d completely forgotten he was there.
It seemed Bethany had, too. “Ant!” she barked. “Go play in your room. This conversation isn’t for kids.”
“Then why is Wish here?” he whined.
Bethany held the baby tighter to her chest. “Because she’s too little to understand what’s going on. Now go to your room.”
He stomped from the kitchen. Bethany glared at Maggie and Eva, as if all of this was their fault. Which, Maggie supposed, it was.
“Is this going to take much longer?” she asked. “I gotta get dinner started.”
“Not much longer,” Eva assured her. “Do you know anything about Dylan’s farmhouse, by any chance? Is it here in Greenhollow?”
It was Tyson who answered. “Yeah, yeah, just outside of it, I think,” he said. “Maybe a few minutes north of here. Off Roxton Road.”
“Nice area?” Eva asked, feigning casual curiosity.
“Real nice. Real quiet. Not a lot of neighbors.”
“Must be nice,” Eva said. “I live in Boulder, right downtown, so the idea of no neighbors sounds like heaven.”
“Boulder… Colorado. Always wanted to go there.” Tyson nodded.
“You should. The mountains are something else.”
“We don’t have those here. I’d like to see them someday. What do you think, Bethany? A trip to Boulder for our next vacation?”
Bethany glared. She clearly wasn’t keen on the idea but said nothing. She bounced Wish in her arms. The baby had started to stir.
“Okay, let’s get back to the night in question,” Eva said. “You got to the bar, got drinks. You think Dylan might have been working. Was the bar busy that night?”
“Yeah. I mean, it was a Saturday night. It always gets pretty busy on Saturdays. Not a lot else to do around here.”
“Fair enough. Was there anyone you knew there?”
He paused to think. “I can’t remember anyone specifically. It’s a small town. I know most people, at least to say hi.”
“Sure. You don’t remember if anyone maybe paid more attention to you guys than they should have? Especially to Rosalie?”
Tyson appeared to give the question some consideration. “No, I really can’t say. Nothing stands out in my mind.”
“What about Dylan? Did he seem bothered that she was there? Did he say anything to you about her?”
“Nah, Dylan didn’t care. As long as the bar was bringing in money, he didn’t care who he was serving.”
“Is he still like that? Even now that he’s the owner?”
Tyson grinned. “Oh yeah. Money is money, right?”
“Right.” Eva turned to Bethany. “So, you arrived later, is that correct?”
“Yeah. Probably around ten.”
“And I understand you met someone that night?”
She wrinkled her brow. “No.”
“Yes, you did.” Maggie stared at her. “That’s why you wouldn’t leave when I wanted to leave. You were dancing with that guy. Remember — with the goatee?”
“Oh, God, I forgot about that.” For the first time, Bethany cracked a smile. “I have no idea who that guy was. I was trying to make —” She stopped abruptly, looking down at the baby’s head.
“Make what?” Eva prodded.
“Trying to make Tyson jealous,” Maggie said, as the pieces clicked into place. The reason Bethany had been so keen to stay after Maggie — Rosalie — left was because she’d wanted time alone with Tyson. Had they gone home together after she left? Was that why Tyson had never been firm about what had happened that night?
Bethany and Tyson exchanged a look that was part guilty, part smug. Anger rolled down Maggie’s spine. Eva reached out and put a hand on Maggie’s forearm. There was a warning in her gaze… Maggie thought it said: Don’t blow this, not when we’re finally getting somewhere. She took a deep breath and gave a tiny nod.
“Let’s go back to the moments just after Rosalie left,” Eva said, “because those could be the most important. Did you see anyone follow her out of the bar? Did anyone else leave suddenly?”
To Tyson’s credit, he seemed to think hard about the question. “I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t really paying attention.” He cast another half-guilty, half-smug glance at Bethany, who blushed.
“You two hooked up,” Eva said, perhaps unnecessarily.
“She dragged me to the men’s room,” Tyson said, his too-full lips stretching into a lurid grin. “She was insatiable.”
Bethany flushed again, rocking the baby against her chest. She refused to look at Maggie.
“What about the guy you’d been flirting with?” Eva asked, directing the question to Bethany.
“God, I don’t know. I guess I lost track of him.”
“Was he still at the bar when you came out of the bathroom?”
“I have no idea. Like I said, I barely remember the guy.”
Maggie fought off a frustrated sigh. It was certainly possible that Bethany’s spurned suitor was her attacker, but they had nothing to go on if he was. Her own memories of him were just as vague as Bethany’s.
Eva seemed equally frustrated. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You two let your best friend — your girlfriend — leave the bar and go off all on her own so that you could get it on in a disgusting bar bathroom behind her back. Got it.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Bethany protested, though, of course, it was exactly like that.
“Yeah, we didn’t let her go off on her own. Her dad was coming to pick her up.”
Maggie jolted. “What? No, he wasn’t.”
“He was. You told me. He’d been calling you all night. When you finally answered, he said he’d come get you.”
“No, that’s not what happened.” But fragments of something were coming back to her. Putting her phone on silent, stuffing it in her back pocket, feeling annoyed yet guilty.
“He’d been drinking,” she protested weakly. “He wouldn’t have offered to come get me.”
“I don’t think a little drunk driving ever stopped Leon Decatur,” Tyson pointed out.
He was right about that, Maggie had to admit. It was a sad reality that many people in small towns thought nothing of driving home after downing a few at the bar. The quiet streets and lack of traffic lulled them into a false sense of security. The fact that Greenhollow had a single cab that didn’t work past eight p.m. didn’t help matters. Her father had certainly felt no qualms about driving, even after drinking to excess.
Maggie twisted her memory of that night around in her mind, trying to see details she may have missed. Had her father been calling her all night? Had she eventually given in and taken his call? Had she forgotten?
A part of her wanted to cry. This new information didn’t change anything, not really, but it painted her attack in an even more unlucky light — nothing more than a brutal and devastating fluke. She’d been so close to safety. If she’d gone outside the bar just a few minutes later, maybe her father would have been there waiting. She would have gladly taken her chances with a drunk driver instead of the animal she’d ended up with.
“Did either of you see him that night?” Eva asked. “Rosalie’s father?”
Tyson frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Beth?”
“I didn’t.”
“Okay. And what about Dylan? Was he behind the bar all night?”
“Yeah, as far as I can remember.”
“What about when Rosalie left? He didn’t take a break?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, we were otherwise occupied.” Tyson smirked.
“No, he did,” Bethany said. She sat forward, jostling the baby, who let out a soft squawk. “Right as we were going to the bathroom, I went to set my empty bottle on the bar. Dylan was coming out carrying a big metal garbage can full of bottles. He said, ‘Add it to the pile.’ I threw my bottle in with the rest. I think he was taking them out back. I didn’t remember that until just now.”
Maggie’s stomach fluttered. Dylan… again. Her palms were sweating. She tried to picture the man who’d taken her, tried to match his features up with Dylan’s, but it continued to be nothing but blank.
“You’re sure about that, Bethany?” Eva asked. Maggie could hear barely restrained excitement in her voice.
“Positive.”
“I don’t suppose either of you know what kind of car Dylan was driving back then? Or if he had access to a van?”
Bethany shrugged.
“I don’t know,” Tyson said. “A van? Maybe. The bar might have had one.”
“Okay. Well, thank you both. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Yeah?” Tyson said, his eyes lighting up. “So you think we’ll be on the show?”
“I imagine. I can let you know when it airs.”
“Cool, cool.” He looked pleased with this. Then his expression shifted downward. He turned to Maggie. “So something really did happen to you that night, huh?”
Maggie wanted to scream. “Yes. It did. I never lied.”
“That sucks,” he said, shaking his head. “Hope you catch the guy.”
“Thanks,” Maggie said through a clenched jaw. “Me too.”
Eva turned off the recording equipment and all four of them stood, Bethany bouncing Wish against her shoulder.
“Where are you staying these days?” Tyson asked, making conversation as Eva collected her things.
“About an hour away,” she said, being purposefully vague. She had no interest in letting Tyson and Bethany know where she lived.
He seemed surprised by her answer. “Didn’t realize you were that close. You in Greenhollow for long?”
“Just the day.”
“You been up to the house yet?”
Maggie assumed he meant her old house. She shook her head.
“It looks pretty different these days,” he said. “You should visit. I’m sure he’d —”
“Not really interested,” Maggie interjected. She didn’t care if the new owner would let her in or not — she had no desire to see that house ever again.
“Fair enough,” he said. “I just thought —”
“Are you ready?” she asked Eva, who was swinging her purse over her shoulder.
“Ready,” Eva said. “Thanks again for your time.”
Maggie was already at the front door, pushing open the screen while Eva shook hands with Tyson and Bethany. Now that the interview was over, she felt an overwhelming urge to leave their house as quickly as possible. Her skin had started to itch, too hot and too tight.
As she picked her way across the yard to the waiting truck, she hoped that this would be the last time she’d ever have to see Tyson or Bethany ever again.