Page 21 of We Already Dug the Grave

“Shit,” I whispered, scanning the rest of the obituary.

She’d done it, then. Earline Baker had seen Hattie-May about her pest problem.

“Milly?” Bunny appeared next to me and bumped my hip with her own. She glanced at the paper in my hands and rolled her eyes. “Oh lord. Hattie-May is reading the obits again. She’s the only person I know that buys a paper just to see who died.”

I stuffed the newspaper in the trash and thought about what it meant.

There must be truth to at least some of the rumors.

I thought of Mama pulling the trigger and the light fading from Daddy’s cruel eyes. I thought of Aunt Ruth and her bones on the fence, pulled from inside animal carcasses and hung like ornaments on a Christmas tree. So many deaths at her hands. And now Hattie-May. Maybe she was helping those women. Maybe the men who meet their end truly were pests—vermin.

I loved my family. Nothing could change that. But the reality of who they were slid over me. Because I’d been raised knowing I’d inherited a legacy. But maybe that legacy was more than the Sight.

My mouth went dry, and I grew lightheaded. Because this—this legacy of death—was not one I wanted any part of. Whatever was going on with my sister, she had to get it together, because we had to stick to the plan and get out. We could not become our aunts.

Chapter 7

Now

“It was definitely the boyfriend. What’s his name? Blake Willis? Probably had a fight, he killed her and panicked.”

The telltale knot in my stomach twisted, and I didn’t know if it was because the table was filled with cops or bad people or both.

I gritted my teeth into something resembling a smile and topped off each of their mugs. “Your food shouldn’t be too much longer.”

The cop’s statement was the general consensus around town. Local news outlets had begun plastering the boy’s photo everywhere, listing him as a person of interest. At first I thought there was something vaguely familiar about him, so I’d done a quick Google search, which turned up no reason I’d know his name. I wasn’t surprised, honestly. Lots of people appeared familiar to me. When you work in a pass-through town, you learn everyone has look-alikes and there’s not a unique face on this planet.

Blake was young, a typical baby-faced college kid. Honestly, kind of cute. Shining big blue eyes. Dark blond hair that would’ve been curly with a little TLC. He didn’t look like a murderer. But didn’t I know better than anyone that looks didn’t mean much?

Something was definitely going on: the message, my sister sending me the sign, the Sight. But no way this poofy-haired kid with big familiar eyes was a mastermind who’d killed his girlfriend to send some kind of twisted message to me and Frances.

No way he knew what happened that horrible night. We’d been so careful. Covered our tracks. And Blake would’ve only been a little boy back then.

It did seem likely that he was the culprit behind Andrea’s murder. It was always the boyfriend. But no matter which way I turned it over in my mind, I could find no connection between this college kid and my past.

Yet…

The body. The creek. Our secret message. That impossible name. That long-dormant stirring behind my ribs, warning me…

I refilled glasses of sweet tea and Diet Coke and water, a smile on my face as my mind reeled.

Just because it’s always the boyfriend doesn’t mean it’s always the boyfriend...does it? But if not Blake, then who?

I passed out plates of eggs over easy and smothered hash browns and biscuits and gravy.

I’m missing something important.

I brewed another pot of coffee.

Is it possible these events aren’t related at all?

“Order up!” Larry called from the hatch. Even though I was closest and caught up with my tables, I made no move to run the plate. The hustle and bustle of the diner moved around me as I stood still, turning an idea over in my head.

Could all of this truly be some kind of unconnected, horrible coincidence? A case of the worst timing on the planet: a body turning up in a creek in Moss Grove the same time I received a menacing and impossible message miles away?

I frowned.

Is it possible I’m making connections that aren’t there? That this was nothing but happenstance and that in some sick way I’d knitted together a diabolical relation so I could reconnect with Frances? I missed my sister. Missed our connection…