Page 123 of We Already Dug the Grave

These licenses in my hand. These burner phones.

Frances not wanting poison. Her wanting Burt in Puddle Creek. Burt knowing we weren’t at the motel.

Sister sister sister… Was it a cry, a call, or a warning?

The gas station door opened, pulling me back into the moment. Quickly, I shoved everything back to the bottom of Frances’s bag and tossed it in the back seat.

And there was Frances stepping onto the sidewalk, always beautiful, even now under the sallow gas station lights.

The passenger door opened and my sister—my baby bird with claws—slid into her seat. I stared at her, unable to form words.

“Hey.” She tossed me a pack of peanut M&M’s and grinned. “Ready to go?”

I looked at the candy in my hand, then back at her.

“You’re being weird.” Frances frowned, and said as if she were joking, “What’s wrong with you?”

What’s wrong with me?

Everyone I cared about was hurting. Hattie-May couldn’t walk on her own. Her leg might be broken. Possibly, Bunny had said, her hip and a rib too. Elderly people died from less. Ruth, always boisterous, had been unnaturally quiet, her rough edges buffed away in one afternoon. She’d said nothing, blinking rapidly, staring into space even as Mama embraced her for the last time. Her head had lolled back into the headrest. Bunny held back tears as she’d fastened her seatbelt, and Bunny never cried. Ever.

And Mama…

Mama who’d gotten her life back and was already going back to prison and, fuck, I’d not allowed my mind to go there when we’d sat across from each other at Hattie-May’s table, but Tennessee was a death penalty state.

This was all the fault of an evil man. A man Frances had brought into our lives.

How did I know to show up here? Burt had asked. I’d not wanted to believe it, but there was no denying now Frances had told him to come. She’d orchestrated the entire thing, just as he’d claimed. He was evil…but what did that make her?

Because she wasn’t acting like a desperate woman who’d made a plan to save her own life, and that plan had gotten away from her. There’d been no remorse in her words or face.

My brow furrowed. My sister had asked what was wrong with me?

The answer, everything. Everything was wrong with me.

The bigger question, the important question, was why the hell was nothing wrong with her?

You’re ready to kill for her and you don’t even know her. Burt had said it with pride, but now his words echoed like a warning.

“Seriously, Milly. You’re kind of freaking me out,” Frances said, twisting the top off a bottle of water.

“I’m—” Screaming inside, terrified, don’t understand anything anymore… “I’m fine.” The lie was stubborn on my tongue, but I forced a smile.

“Good.” Frances reached across the middle console and gave my forearm a squeeze. “You know, you probably don’t remember, but that night, after you killed Shane, you made me a promise.”

She waited for me to say something, but I only nodded, not trusting my words, though I did remember that promise. Had always blamed myself for breaking it and thought it was why Frances had locked me out of her life for so long.

“You promised you’d never leave me. I’d been so upset when you disappeared that morning without me,” she said.

That morning after Casey died…or possibly that morning she killed him…

“But I understood,” Frances continued. “Eventually.”

I cranked my car and pulled us back onto the highway.

“Part of me always knew we’d end up back together like this. It’s all I’ve wanted for so long. I was such an idiot. You know, I really believed Shane was my forever person?”

“No.” I pushed my brows together. “No. You weren’t an idiot. You were a child. He was a predator.” Of all the things my sister was, no matter what she’d done or become, this at least, was still true.