Page 155 of What She Saw

Her eyes narrowed. “Right.”

“Not joking. And I think you know that.”

“If she was alive, how did you find the bodies? She doesn’t know.”

“Why do you say that?”

Bailey paused. “No one knows where the bodies are.”

“I do.” At least, I was pretty sure I’d figured it out.

“Bullshit.”

“You and Colton must have met during the festival planning.”

Her smile faded. “We did. He came by the house often to meet with Daddy.”

“He’s charming and, back in the day, hot. I could see a teenager falling for him. Did he convince you to help him get the girls?”

She stood still, her stare lingering for several beats. “My goodness, you do have a real good imagination.”

“First Laurie, right? She’d have been easy. She wanted into music so badly he could’ve sold her any story to get her alone. She’d have followed him anywhere.”

“Laurie wanted to sleep with him. I saw the way she was looking at him.”

“Laurie goes to the trailer with Colton. Sex might have been consensual, but he liked to strangle women. Maybe it got out of hand, or maybe he’d planned to kill that night.”

Bailey’s smile faded.

“Then Patty, and Debra. They weren’t as easily lured. A scream in the woods would’ve sent both running to help. And then Colton grabbed them. By now, I bet he had a taste for the violence and wanted more. He got them all except Amy. The one that got away. Did he try to take Amy in the woods near the tents before or after Patty and Debra?”

Bailey shook her head. “Poor drunk and battered Amy wandering in the woods. Low-life girls no one would ever have missed.”

Anger clawed inside my chest. “Tristan was high during the festival. It wouldn’t have taken much to lure her into a trailer.”

“But don’t let her fool you,” she said. “She wanted Colton. It wasn’t rape.”

“Because you were standing in the corner watching.”

She smiled. “She liked it.”

I’d sensed Susan had been lying. Did she blame herself for going with Colton all those decades ago? That choice tore her family apart. “Until he strangled her.”

“You got it all figured out.”

“Did you watch Colton rape Patty and Debra?”

Her gaze grew distant, as if staring back into the darkness. “It was oddly hot.”

Disgust coiled in my belly. “You drove the bodies out?”

“What bodies? There are no bodies, right?”

“You must have panicked when you opened the trailer and realized Tristan was missing. And then Colton was arrested.”

“I don’t panic.”

“You lay low. When Colton was arrested, your daddy said he wasn’t sure if he’d be convicted without the bodies. Colton knew that, too. So you kept your mouth shut.”