in her throat. Of course he had. She closed her eyes.
“What if Warren is connected to this? He got so violent so fast. All I did was want to talk to him.” She waved her hand around at the vague “this,” feeling ridiculous for not fully knowing which “this” she was referring to. Her sister? Ellie? Ruby? She opened her eyes and studied Wyatt, who had turned his back to look out at the river.
“Warren isn’t a good guy. You can’t just charge around and accuse people of being involved in criminal activity. This is what the police do, but with actual evidence and paperwork.” Wyatt pinched the bridge of his nose and then gave her a small smile. “Please sit, Hannah.”
She sat on an oversize leather couch dotted with chunky white knitted pillows. Wyatt perched next to her, reached out, and squeezed her knee.
“Did you decorate the place? Or was that Liza?” Hannah pulled one of the knitted pillows onto her lap, hugging it.
Wyatt seemed to startle at the mention of his ex-wife. “She did some of it, but honestly, the house was . . .” His voice trailed off, and he looked around, bereft. “One of the things that did us in. She didn’t want to stay in Rockwell at all. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“Why didn’t she want to stay?”
“She was a transplant. Remember when she moved here? I was born and raised here. She came to the town later. We got married; I assumed we’d always just stay here. She . . . well, we should have talked more, that’s all. About everything.” Wyatt gave her a rueful smile, the wrinkles around his eyes the only sign of age. He still had a great smile, all teeth. His auburn hair had grown out in the weeks she’d been in town, and it curled adorably on his forehead. He brushed it back with his palm. “Anyway.”
“I know you can’t talk about open investigations, but what if Warren had something to do with my sister, or even Ellie? I feel like the two disappearances are connected, even though everyone said Ellie ran away and Warren was abusive. What if he killed Ellie, and Julia found out, so she ran away to protect herself?” Huck had laughed at her when she’d floated this theory. Witness protection? Hannah cringed. Then sat up straight and snapped her fingers. “And actually, in there, somewhere, before all this, Ruby died. It’s an awful lot of death for a very small town.”
“Slow down there. Ruby?” Wyatt knitted his eyebrows, leaned back in his chair. He folded a long leg, resting his ankle on his knee. Hannah turned away. Something about the sight of Wyatt in sweatpants and socks—it was all too intimate, the dark patch of leg hair on his ankle. His T-shirt was rumpled, and she wondered if he’d worked late. If he slept in that and maybe had just woken up? Oh God, she felt her cheeks warm.
“Fae’s daughter. She died when she was five. It would have been 1996 according to Jinny.” She focused on the mental math.
“Okay, Hannah, just think about what you’re saying. You’re talking about three deaths in ten years that are only loosely connected. Even for a small town, that’s a negligible number. And Ruby was an accident, correct? She fell out of the second-story window. Ellie ran away; we have some old evidence. A bus ticket, security footage of her buying it.” He continued, “Your sister is the only real unsolved here.”
“What about the skeleton! At Brackenhill!” Hannah would not be made to feel like she was crazy. She would not be gaslighted.
“Of course that’s being investigated. I know I floated the idea of it being Ellie, and that could still be true, but officially, on the books, Ellie is a closed-case runaway. We don’t have an identity, because frankly, these things take time. Even if we had DNA, which we don’t yet, like I said, there’s no giant DNA database where everyone is logged and accounted for. She’d only be in the system if she committed a crime after 1997. But to blanketly just say Warren is connected and these deaths are connected would be irresponsible of me; that’s all I’m saying.”
“Fine, you’re not saying it. I’m saying it.” Hannah huffed.
“I’m not saying they’re unrelated. You get that, right? I’m just saying we don’t know that.”
“Why else would Warren get so mad? Why would he threaten me?”