Page 6 of We Already Dug the Grave

My chest tightened, constricting as if I were lodged in a vise. I reminded myself to breathe, but it was no use.

My toes dug into the insoles of my Keds, and I was determined to keep my feet planted firmly in place. Pit-Bush yelled. Larry’s voice felt like an echo.

Moss Grove and the body buried next to a creek could’ve been coincidences…but this? This was too much.

I’d worked so hard. I’d given up everything. Everyone. I’d lain low in a transient town. I’d kept my nose clean just like I’d been told to do. Stay safe. Disappear. No matter what.

But now? With one news story about one body in one town, one phone call speaking one name, it was obvious my sacrifice wasn’t enough.

The bitch from the booth whined loudly, “What’s taking so long?”

Their voices, the name, Larry’s hand reaching out to my shoulder, it all felt distant and suddenly too much.

My heart continued to thud, and it was like I was watching a scene on television, like I wasn’t in the room.

My gaze flicked down to the message clutched in my fingers.

Long time no see, it read, in Larry’s scratchy cursive. And then the sender. That name.

His name.

The urge to scream built in me. I had to get out of there.

I spun away from my boss as, across the restaurant, Pit-Bush stood, looking ready to pick a fight. “Larry… I need to go.”

Before anyone could stop me, I stormed from the diner and kept going until I was behind the wheel of my ancient Chevy Malibu. It sputtered to life on the second try.

As I drove away, I screamed.

I screamed until my voice ached and was raw and there was nothing left in me.

I screamed, because of all the names that could’ve been on that message, the one person I knew it couldn’t be was him.

He could not call me.

He was dead.

I had made sure of that.

Chapter 2

Then

The bruise on Mrs. Earline’s cheek was palm-shaped. It was fresh and looked painful and was the second one in as many months.

Nobody deserved to get slapped like that, but it was particularly hard to imagine the older woman who sat at my table wearing her Sunday best taking one across the face. Her hair curled around her head in a silver cloud, still fresh from her weekly wash and set at the beauty shop, and her nails were painted a matronly plum that matched her lipstick. It was a pretty manicure but an unfortunate lipstick choice, as the deep shade coordinated with her healing injury, drawing even more attention to it.

Which, on second thought, could’ve been the point. Mrs. Earline was a deaconess at her church and head of the Friends of the Library committee, and her quilts always placed—if they didn’t outright win—at the Puddle Creek fair each year. Always poised and put together, she was a woman who did not make mistakes with her appearance.

That didn’t mean I was allowed to mention it.

If a flicker of anything resembling pity crossed my face, Earline Baker would never darken our door again. Which was a shame for many reasons.

My aunts liked the older woman because she lent an air of respectability to our family business. If Earline Baker was on our schedule, then the rumors about what those Robbins women get up to couldn’t be nearly as bad as they seemed. Her association with us made it okay for others in Puddle Creek to have their leaves read by me or Aunt Ruth or to purchase home remedies from Aunt Hattie-May, even if they did run their mouths the moment they left our house, downplaying what we did as only a bit of fun, or witchy nonsense, or (and I really hated this one) proclaiming their visit as nothing more than charity to keep those “troubled girls out of the system.” Mrs. Earline would never say anything like that.

I liked Mrs. Earline because she was punctual, an easy read, and, okay, a great tipper. I was saving up for a homecoming dress, and I needed to look good. No. That’s not true. I needed to look hot. Casey would be at the homecoming dance, and I wanted him to finally notice me as something besides his best friend.

The thought filled my chest with bees, a new occurrence when I thought of the boy who had been my partner in crime since third grade.