Thank you for all your comments yesterday, and thank you to those who reminded me that Merle would make a better protector of Beth than Rick in these circumstances.

...

Beth sat in Sheriff Rick Grimes' office, a blanket draped round her shoulders. She seemed to remember she'd been shaking uncontrollably, though she hadn't felt cold.

Leaving the prison was a blur. She remembered Daryl talking to her, holding her hands, pleading with the guards to give them just a few more minutes, but she'd been hauled up by her armpits and escorted from the room. Just before she'd been taken outside Daryl had thrust a piece of paper into her hands.

'Take this to the sheriff,' he'd said. 'Right away. It's important.'

So she had, driving the hour and a half in a daze. Sheriff Grimes had taken one look at her face when she'd appeared at the station and hurried her through to his office, sat her down and tried to warm her up.

She dug the piece of paper out of her bag and handed it to him wordlessly.

'What is this?' he asked, examining it. It was a map torn out of a book. It showed the woods next to Beth's house, and an area had been circled in blue pen.

'It's where Maggie's body is buried,' Beth told him.

Sheriff Grimes had a lot of questions for her but she found she couldn't answer any of them. She didn't know how Daryl knew. He'd seen something, remembered something, she thought. But he was certain that Maggie was dead, and this was where she was buried.

'What are you going to do?' she asked him.

Rick was silent a moment. 'This circled area covers a square mile or so. I'm going to take some cadaver dogs and a few officers and we're going to search the area.'

'Cadaver dogs?'

'Sniffer dogs, but for human corpses.'

She nodded.

'And I'm going to call your father. When he arrives I want you both to wait here. All right?'

Beth was left alone. An officer came in and left a cup of coffee by her elbow, but she didn't want it. More time passed, and then she heard the sound of her father's voice outside. The door opened.

Hershel sat down beside her and took her cold hand in his. 'Bethie, what's going on? Rick said this was about Maggie.'

'She's dead, daddy.'

Hershel sucked in a breath. 'What would make you say a thing like that?'

'It's true. Sheriff Grimes has taken cadaver dogs up into the woods.'

Hershel was silent after that, holding her hand tightly. The seconds ticked by on the wall clock.

'Daddy, what did you two fight about?'

Hershel's eyes were red-rimmed, and he spoke slowly. 'She was seeing a man. Someone I knew to be a bad sort. She wouldn't believe me when I told her. Told me she was going to run away with him. We'd had the same fight over and over, and I lost my temper and told her that if she ran off with him then she needn't come back.'

'Was the man Phillip Blake?' she asked.

He nodded. 'His boss told me the police were closing in on him. Said he was a thief and a manipulator. Warned me for Maggie's sake, as he'd seen them together. I couldn't tell Maggie the truth in case she told Blake and he ran.' His voice shook. 'I should have told her. She would have kept it a secret. She's a good girl.'

Hershel was silent a moment, and then his face crumpled. 'She'd hurt me, you see. Told me she'd been having second thoughts about running the farm after I was gone. Said it was worthless, and she wanted more from life. It wasn't like her to say such things.'

'No,' Beth agreed. 'It wasn't.' Beth remembered how her longing for Blake and her sudden dislike of the farm seemed to be tied up with each other in the diary. It seemed like Blake must have poisoned her mind against her family and the things that made her happy

When the light was fading from the sky Sheriff Grimes came back into his office. He pulled a chair close to both of theirs. Beth noticed that his boots were covered in mud and leaf litter.

His voice was tight with emotion as he spoke. 'We found a body.'

Hershel listened, and Beth could see him nodding as the sheriff spoke, tears collecting on his lower lids. Beth heard only a rushing in her ears, like the sound the wind made as it passed through the tree canopy in the woods in high summer.

'What's happening now, daddy?' she asked when Sheriff Grimes had gone.

'We're gonna wait here just a bit longer, sweetheart,' he said, his shaking hand patting hers.

Several hours later the sheriff came back. He held something silvery in a plastic evidence bag. 'Do either of you recognise these?'

Beth took the bag, running her fingers over the bracelet Maggie had got for her sixteenth birthday. The ring she'd bought two summers ago in town on the day of the fair. Beth curled over the little bag, her head bowed as she clutched her sister's jewellery to her belly and sobbed.

…

It was past midnight when they finally left the station. Sheriff Grimes said he was going to come out and see them first thing in the morning, and the best thing they could both do now was get some rest.

Beth and Hershel walked out of the station like the wounded, their arms around each other, holding the other up. When they got to the car, Beth stopped and turned to her father.

'I still don't understand, daddy. Why did he have to kill her?'

Hershel shook his head. 'I don't know, sweetheart.'

Beth made her way to the passenger side of the car, but something moving out of the corner of her eye made her stop. There was a figure leaning against a car, and something about his shape and the way he was standing made her think of Daryl. She walked over to him.

After studying the man for several moments, she said, 'You're Merle.'

'That I am,' the man said, not moving. He had his arms folded across his chest.

'What are you doing here?'

He scuffed his heel against the ground. 'That boy o'yours was worried for you since the other day. Guess who got baby-sitting duty.'

'You've been following me?'

Merle nodded. 'If Blake can get a note to you while he's in prison ... well, you know. Go back to your daddy, girl.'

Beth hesitated. 'Thank you.'

Merle shrugged. 'S'nothin'. Though if you wanted to leave a sandwich outside your bedroom window every now and then I wouldn't say no.'

Despite everything that had happened that day, Beth smiled.

…

Daryl walked into the visitation room with a pounding heart. Beth hadn't said a word when he'd broken the news to her about Maggie, and he'd got no letter from her since. He'd lain awake at night, haunted by the look on her face, feeling like he'd killed Maggie himself.

But it wasn't Beth who came to the table several minutes later. It was a sheriff. He tamped down his disappointment and stood to greet him.

'Sheriff Rick Grimes,' the man said, standing and shaking Daryl's hand. 'I'm the officer investigating Maggie Greene's murder. There have been a few developments.'

Daryl didn't like the sombre expression on Grimes' face. He said quickly, 'What's happened to Beth?' Where the fuck was Merle? He was supposed to be keeping an eye out for her.

Sheriff Grimes held up a placating hand. 'Beth's safe. Her and her father.' They sat down, and Sheriff Grimes took a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. It was Daryl's map of the woods. He'd torn it out of his walking trails book. 'Is this yours?'

Daryl said nothing.

Sheriff Grimes gave a wry smile. 'Don't worry, this is all off the record. I'm gonna keep you out of it if I can. Beth asked me specially.' He gave Daryl a long look, like he was trying to work him out. 'Beth's a real nice girl.'

Didn't have to tell him that.

Sheriff Grimes went on, 'I'm aware that your dealings with Blake have been ... exceptional.'

'Is that a fancy way of saying you know I beat the shit outta him?'

Sheriff Grimes gave a short laugh and scratched the side of his head. 'Yeah, I seen his face. Between you and me I can't feel much sympathy for him. I do have a couple of questions for you though.' He became serious, leaning forward and placing his clasped hands on the table top. 'I fucked up on this case, and I want to do my level best to correct it for Beth and Hershel. Mr Dixon-'

'Daryl,' he corrected. If this sheriff had Beth's interests at heart then he was OK with him. The guy had clear, honest eyes. He had fucked up and failed the Greenes, but he was prepared to admit it and fix it and Daryl liked that.

'Daryl,' Sheriff Grimes said. 'I want to work out a timeline with you, if I may. Again, off the record. Can we do that?'

Daryl was prepared to help in any way that he could. He'd go on the record if need be, get more jail time, whatever, if it'd help the case. He nodded.

'Can you tell me how you discovered Phillip Blake had something to do with Maggie's disappearance?'

Daryl considered this. 'It was both of us. Me and Beth. She started writin' to me and straight away I knew somethin' bad had happened to the girl. Don't know why. She sent me bits of information, diary entries, stories about Maggie. When Beth came in to see me she recognised my cell-mate. Then I kept having this dream. I thought it was because I missed the woods and Beth had put them back in my mind after all these months. Dusk was falling, and I saw this couple on the trail, holding hands. I saw them, over and over, until one night I realised that they weren't holding hands at all. He was draggin' her.' Daryl fixed him with a look. 'Ain't much to go on. That's why I had to do what I did. To be sure, for Beth.'

He'd never hurt anybody in cold blood before. Stalkin' them, plannin' what he'd do once he got a hold of them. He hadn't decided to take his eye, he just knew that if he needed to make Blake feel pain to get the truth out of him he would do it. When he'd said that part about being able to get to Beth on the outside, he'd rammed that shiv into Blake's lyin', murdering face. He could still feel it going in. Hated that memory.

'You left the woods for north Georgia the next day? How long did it take to get there?'

'Two days.'

Sheriff Grimes nodded. 'Will Dixon died on September 16. Maggie went missing on September 7. If Maggie was the girl you saw, and everything points to the fact it was, then she was held somewhere by Blake, alive, for a week before she died.'

Daryl felt anger burn in his chest. 'Fuckin' creep. What the fuck was he doing all that time?'

'I searched his house, top to bottom. Didn't need a warrant. He invited me right in, all concerned, sayin' he'd seen Maggie the night she'd disappeared but then she'd had taken off somewhere. Said she needed some time alone.'

'He had people on the outside. He saw Beth visitin' me and within hours someone had dropped that letter in her letterbox, tauntin' her.'

'That's the explanation I've come up with, too. Someone else was holdin' her for him. I'll find them, in time.'

Both men were silent a moment, staring at the table top.

Daryl palmed the edge of the table. 'Somethin' don't feel right about all this, sheriff.'

'No? What's that.'

'Blake's got some crazy power thing goin' on. Can't seem to help himself, usin' people and seein' em squirm. Don't seem like he'd kill for fun, though. Don't seem like a rapist or other sort of sicko either, unless maybe it was a means to an end.'

'So why kill Maggie?' Sheriff Grimes asked.

'Yeah.'

The sheriff nodded, his eyes appraising. 'I read him the same. So I started diggin' around, reading old police reports. Blake's not from my part of Georgia. Moved here with his daughter about eighteen months ago. Wife died in a car accident.'

Daryl nodded. That fit with what Blake'd told him.

'Trouble is, so did his daughter.'

Daryl stared at the sheriff. 'His daughter? Story round here was that his daughter had been taken into care when he got sent in here.'

'She was. Or, the girl he told everyone was his daughter. A few months after his wife and daughter died a four-year-old girl went missing from the area where Blake used to live.'

'Sonuvabitch,' Daryl muttered.

'Couldn't cope with his daughter's death, I suppose. He loves that girl. Even now, in custody, he keeps asking for her. She's back with her real parents.'

'Maggie wasn't allowed to go to his house,' Daryl said, putting things together. 'She must have gone anyway, that night she ran away. Talked to the girl and got suspicious.'

'Or saw some photos of his dead family. I found some the second time I searched his house.'

'So he killed her.'

They were silent for several minutes.

Sheriff Grimes spoke up. 'But the thing is, Daryl, I ain't here just about Beth and Maggie. I'm here about you. Your sentence. Beth told me about what happened that night Will Dixon died. She told me what he did to you as a boy.'

Daryl felt his body stiffen. That shit was private. He didn't like people knowing about it, seeing the pity in their eyes. Beth was different. She didn't pity him or give him empty words. But it was his private shit, and he never imagined she'd go blabbing about it to other people. 'Beth told you?'

…

I cried writing this chapter :( I hoped you liked it. We're nearly done with the story. But not quite.