42. Alicia

Jessica had parked across the road from the pub, in the police station parking lot. As the three women crossed the road, a beaten-up old station wagon pulled up next to their car. A man in a baseball cap emerged from it.

"Dirk," Jessica said quietly, but there was no one else around, so her voice carried.

Alicia peered at the man. Wow, she thought. It is Dirk.

He hadn't aged well. The hair visible beneath his cap was still red, but there were flecks of gray, and though he was a relatively young man, his posture was stooped. He slammed the door and glanced at them over the roof of the car, smiling quizzically. He clearly didn't recognize them.

"Oh. My. God," Norah said, a few seconds behind, as usual.

"Do you remember us?" Jessica asked. "I'm Jessica. These are my sisters, Alicia and Norah. We're the foster kids that grew up at Wild Meadows."

She sounded so calm. As if she'd slowed herself down to .75, like Alicia often did with a podcast or audiobook. Considering she was normally at least a 1.5, it was a big improvement.

Dirk's smile vanished abruptly and his eyes darted around the parking lot.

Interesting,Alicia thought. He's nervous.

Jessica, strangely, didn't seem nervous at all. "Can I ask you something?" she said. "The little girl the police questioned you about all those years ago. Amy. Did you really not see her?"

Dirk dug his hands into his pockets. "Look—"

"It's important," Jessica persisted, cutting him off. "Think back."

Dirk glanced toward the police station, then back at Jessica. "If I did see her," he said, "why would I lie about it?"

"You tell us," Jessica replied. "Maybe you were rewarded for lying? Or blackmailed? Or maybe you did something to her."

Alicia's gaze, which had been on Jessica, suddenly bounced back to Dirk. She'd always assumed he'd lied for Miss Fairchild; it had never occurred to her he might be covering his own tracks. She hadn't thought he'd be capable of harming Amy himself. Had she been wrong about that?

"I didn't do anything to her," he said, "because I never saw her."

"Bullshit!" Norah called. "If the bones turn out to be Amy's, you'll have blood on your hands."

"Hey!"

They all turned. Detective Tucker was leaning in the entrance of the police station. His relaxed posture suggested that he'd been watching them for a while.

"You ready, Dirk?"

Dirk started walking toward the station.

"If she made you lie," Jessica called after him, "it's not too late to say so."

Dirk kept his head down and his stride swift. Alicia started to wonder if Jessica might be on to something…

They were climbing into the car when they heard someone calling their names.

"Alicia! Jessica! Norah!"

Alicia sighed. Running into old acquaintances wherever they went was one thing about small towns that she would be glad to leave behind.

It was Zara. Her hair was braided in two plaits today, reminding Alicia of a Dutch milkmaid. It was a pretty color—cool brown glinting blond in the sunshine.

"Oh, hey, Zara," the sisters muttered with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

All Alicia wanted was to get in the car with her sisters and call Meera. Not only did they need Meera's help, Alicia needed her friend's voice to soothe her, tell her everything was going to be okay.

"Your turn to speak to the cops?" Alicia asked.

Zara nodded, her gaze fixed on the door that Dirk had just walked through. "Who was that?"

"Dirk," Norah said. "He used to look after the horses at Wild Meadows."

"Why's he talking to the cops?" Zara asked. "Is he a suspect?"

"I'm not sure they have suspects yet," Alicia said, "since they haven't identified a cause of death. Maybe it was natural?"

Zara raised an eyebrow. "A child buried in an unmarked grave under a foster home? Natural causes?"

Zara asked a lot of questions. Alicia started to wonder if she was an investigative journalist.

"What's Dirk's last name?" Zara wanted to know.

The sisters looked at each other.

"Winter-something?" Alicia said, pulling it from some part of her memory that she hadn't known existed. "Or maybe that's wrong. I don't know."

Zara got out her phone and began to type something into it.

"We need to go," Jessica said. "We're back on with our lawyer in ten minutes. Good luck with the cops, Zara."

Zara thanked them, still tapping away at her phone, and Alicia, Jessica, and Norah piled back into the car with the dogs. But as they pulled onto the street, Alicia saw Zara getting back into her own car rather than going into the police station. Why had she lied? Alicia wondered. And who was she lying for?