Page 77 of Wildwood

Joan nods her head, though I can’t tell if she’s agreeing with me or appeasing me.

“Something doesn’t totally make sense, though,” Joan says slowly. “Let’s say the Brooks did accuse her, why is that so damning? I mean, it’s bad, don’t get me wrong,” she says quickly. “But it was so long ago. Their ancestors made a terrible mistake, like so many others. Why can’t they just acknowledge the past?”

“Great fucking question,” I say with a grim smile.

But Joan does have a point. People want to bury the past all the time. But to go to these lengths to hide the truth? There’s something more to the story. I’ve always felt that.

“Wait, you never actually told me. Why were you breaking into Wildwood?”

Joan chews her lip before responding. “I thought we were being punished. I couldn’t understand why I kept losing the babies. I was devastated. I felt like I needed to figure out what happened here, help bring closure to the dead, and maybe then, I’d be worthy of being a mother. Your uncle knew about our secret. He said he had proof. I thought maybe he knew where the bodies were. I had overheard an argument one night between Julian and Madeline. And they were saying something about needing to find the bodies. So I figured maybe Ezra knew where the bodies were and if I could find them, I could make sure they were properly buried. Their deaths acknowledged.”

She laughs at the end, humorlessly. I think she thinks she sounds crazy. She doesn’t realize how much I relate.

“I should leave him.” Joan nods to herself, eyes narrowed.

Part of me wants to say, yes, leave that bastard. But it’s all so complicated.

“Would you?”

“I don’t see how I can’t. Now knowing what they are willing to do. That they would kill a dog—” She stops herself but not quickly enough and it feels like a knife slicing through my gut.

“They killed Hugo?” It comes out a question, my voice small, even though I knew it all along. But now that Joan is confirming it, I almost can’t believe it. “They murdered my dog?”

“I don’t know anything for certain,” she says. “But I’m fairly certain he’s dead. I’m sorry. I think they wanted to intimidate you, once you started asking questions.”

Rage simmers below my skin. But it’s not explosive. Instead, I invite it. I wrap myself in it. I’m going to get them.

Now I let the words out that I held back a moment ago.

“You are going to leave that bastard. You don’t need him. You built your own business. Not him.”

Joan squeezes my hand and gives a tiny nod. “We just need to find the bodies.”

Something doesn’t make sense, though. It had bugged me then, I realize, when I first found the letter.

“I don’t get it. I had found this old cemetery in the woods, with these old, unmarked graves. Those unmarked graves must be for the bodies everyone is looking for. Why didn’t my uncle just, I don’t know, do something? Call someone out there? And the Brooks must have known about the cemetery, too, right?”

I’m rambling, trying to figure out why something so obvious was not the answer.

Joan smiles and almost looks sympathetic at my naivete. “Trust me they tried to get the bodies. The Brooks did. But nothing is there. The bodies were moved long ago.”

Chapter 69

“They were moved?” I think of the unmarked graves. Fragile and crooked, like misshapen teeth.

“Yes. Julian came back one night, covered in dirt, angry. He wouldn’t tell me where he’d been. Later, in the middle of the night, I heard him on his cell. I assume he was talking to Madeline. He said something like ‘the bodies weren’t there, and the ground was completely overgrown.’ ” She pauses. “So Ezra didn’t know where the bodies were either?”

“I guess not,” I say, slowly.

“But he said he had proof.” Joan’s looking at me with wide, hopeful eyes.

“Maybe he was bluffing. Or, at least, if he did know where the bodies were, he didn’t leave me any clue.”

Joan’s face falls.

Again, it all feels like too much. Too many loose threads, too many pieces to the story. As soon as one puzzle is solved, another one emerges, opaquer than the last.

I fold my hands on the table and take a deep breath. We can do this. “Okay, so I think we can assume Ezra was not the one to move the bodies. I found this angry letter from my grandmother, just after I went missing in the woods. She was saying that Ezra was a coward, that he should have just ‘done it’ already. And there was this other piece of paper, it looked like the start of a letter back from him, saying that without the bodies, there is no proof. So, if he didn’t do it, who the hell moved the bodies? And why?”