Shelia squeezed my hand and Ben gave me a sympathetic look. “Well, we’re here now. And you need us. If you really feel like you have to talk to this Calvin guy, so be it.” She glanced at Ben. “There’ll be three against one. You ask your questions, and then we leave.”
“Fine,” Ben said. “But you don’t tell him who you really are. Lie—make something up. Say you were a friend of Melanie’s in high school or something. Doesn’t matter, just don’t reveal who you really are.”
“Right.” I nodded, then smiled weakly. “Thank you guys. Seriously. I owe you.”
“Slide us a couple grand from that golfer of yours and we’ll be straight,” Ben said, laughing.
“Ben!” Shelia shouted, picking up a pillow and throwing it at him. I laughed with him and then we went out for a quick bite to eat. When we got back and went our separate ways to our rooms to try to get some rest, I took out my phone and there was a text from Roland.
Coming home early. Can’t concentrate.
We really need to talk about where we stand.
Shit. Why was he coming home early? He was going to notice I was gone and I had no idea how I was going to explain any of this when I got back.
If I got any information from Calvin that was useful or proved he may have had something to do with Melanie and Miley, I was going to have to tell Roland about the journals and about the article I found about him.
But not right now.
Right now, I needed to focus on bringing my A-game.
CHAPTER SIXTY
My heart was pounding on the ride to Calvin Thompson’s house. Ben was driving, Shelia in the passenger seat. I was seated in the back, my mind going a hundred miles per hour, thinking of all the ways this could go wrong.
Before I knew it, Ben was parking along the curb of a one-story brick home. The red bricks looked grimy and there were oil stains on the cement driveway. No cars were there, and I had no idea if Calvin had a car.
Ben looked back at me. “You sure about this?”
I nodded and unclipped my seat belt. “Yeah. I’m sure.” Before I got out, I picked up my tote bag and felt around inside it for my knife and pepper spray, then I slid the handle of the bag onto my shoulder. Ben walked up the driveway first to get to the door. The stoop was small, so only Ben stood on it while Shelia and I waited on the sidewalk behind him.
He gave the doorbell a ring and a dog started barking. I held on to my tote bag tighter as Ben took a step back, side-eying me before focusing on the door again.
“Hush, Cannon!” a deep voice snapped on the other side of the door. My heart was beating like a bongo drum now, the blood rushing to my ears when I heard the lock click. The door opened halfway, brown fingers wrapping around the edge of it. I could only see half of the man’s face, but I knew right away it was Calvin from the pictures online.
“Can I help you?” he asked, narrowing the eye we could see. He had a heavy Southern accent.
I stepped forward. “Hi. Are you Calvin Thompson?”
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m Wendy. I was a classmate of someone you knew.”
“I don’t know a lot of people,” he grumbled, and I could tell he was ready to shut the door in my face.
“Melanie Raine,” I hurried to say before he could close it. When I said her name, his eyes went wide and he snatched the door open completely. “Why are you asking me about her?” he snapped. His dog stepped outside, sniffing at us, grunting.
“Well, I’m a journalist, and I’m writing a piece on her case for the papers, since she was local.” I glanced at Ben, who was glaring at Calvin, daring him to try something. “We did a little digging and found out that you were once in a relationship with her mother.”
“Who told you that?” he retorted.
“We have sources.” I smiled, but my hands were shaking. I slid them into the pockets of my jacket to hide them.
“Yeah, I dated Pauline for a while. So what? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Calvin, I have reason to believe you didn’t rape Melanie and that your plea to the judge on the case was honest. After doing a little research on her, we learned some things about her.” I stared into his eyes and kept my composure, hoping he’d believe me about his innocence.
Calvin tipped his chin and looked me up and down. He was lowering his guard. Good.
“May we come in?”
He looked at all three of us, as if memorizing our faces, then he nodded once and turned, going back into the house.