Page 126 of What She Saw

“I don’t remember much. I was in shock and terrified. I walked for hours and then found a road.”

“What road?”

“Two-lane.”

“Traffic?”

“No.”

There’d been hundreds of cars leaving the site all morning.

“I walked. Finally, I saw a gas station at the corner of Tanner’s Run and Sherman Road.”

I knew the intersection, but the gas station was gone. “Where was the sun now?”

“It was high in the sky. And it was getting hot. I found a pay phone and called my father.”

The intersection was about ten miles south of the Nelson farm. It was also a few hundred yards from the barn that had fascinated Kevin.

“Did you see the truck and trailer?”

“No.”

Her story was plausible. Or well rehearsed over the last thirty-one years. She was a dancer, accustomed to finding perfection. “Did anyone see you at the gas station?”

“No. After the call, I hid in the woods until Daddy arrived.”

“Whoever opened the trailer must have known you were missing.”

“That’s why I was terrified. I told my father what happened. He wanted to call the police and take me to the hospital. I begged him not to. Mommy was sick, and I was terrified they’d come after me.”

“They?” I asked. “You said Colton raped you.”

“There was another person in the trailer. He was watching.”

“He? You saw him?”

“No. But I heard the breathing.”

“Could this person have driven the trailer off-site?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Colton had always denied the murder charges and insisted he didn’t know where the bodies were buried. “You’re sure there was a second person?”

“Yes. I’m positive.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Sloane

Thursday, August 21, 2025, 10:15 a.m.

I left Susan’s house exhausted. I slid into Grant’s passenger seat and laid my head back against the headrest. “She admitted it all. She’s Tristan.” I recapped what she’d told me. “She convinced her father to report her missing.”

“Colton was arrested two weeks later. Why keep the secret for thirty-one years?”

“She said there was someone else in the trailer. She didn’t see any faces. Colton strangled her until she passed out. When she woke, she was alone with the three other dead bodies. She feared Colton or this second person would come after her.”