Page 61 of We Already Dug the Grave

We needed Burt to be locked away for what he’d already done. If Burt was in prison, he couldn’t kill my sister. She could disappear and live the life she deserved.

“You said Burt’s at a conference. When does he get home?”

“Yes. He’s at a men’s prayer conference in Atlanta. His flight lands tomorrow.”

“I have an idea.” I tapped Andrea’s license against the counter, more pieces sliding into place. “We need something that is linked to him without question. Something that could get lost.”

“Why? What are you thinking?”

I grabbed my keys from the bowl on the counter, hardly able to believe what I was about to suggest. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way to your house.”

“Wait. You want me to go back there? Milly. No.”

“Only to grab a few things. We won’t stay.”

“What if—” Frances wrung her hands. “What if Burt’s already back? What if I can’t leave again?”

“You’ll have me, and I’m not letting him keep you. No matter what.”

When she looked at me, she was the little girl waiting on the bench outside the principal’s office again. I remembered something Aunt Hattie used to always say. “Neither hell nor high water will keep me away.”

Frances smirked. “Maybe bring a shovel.”

I narrowed my gaze at my sister. “Not cool.” But for the first time in a long time, I smiled my real smile.

Because in a messed-up way, it was actually kind of funny.

Chapter 23

Then

The Rust Bucket kicked up dust when I punched the brake, sliding to a stop a few yards from the porch, where Bunny’s arms were draped over Ruth’s shoulders as if slow dancing to the crickets and whippoorwills that sang from dusk to dawn.

I was still clutching the gearshift when Frances threw open her door and toppled out.

Horror replaced the previous calm as Ruth took in Frances running across the yard, stepping beneath the porch light, sprayed in blood. Her hand flew to her mouth when she saw my sister’s neck, where the bruise stood out against her fair skin.

I cut the engine and stepped out of the truck.

“Hattie-May?” Ruth called out, turning to the screen door. “Hattie-May, come on. We got an emergency to deal with.”

Hattie-May scuttled out of the house, a damp ring circling the neck of her peach housedress. “What you mean an emergency? What is it, Ruthie?”

When she saw us, she gasped. “Lord have mercy.”

Everything stopped. The silence was deafening. Bunny’s nails dug into Ruth’s arm as if trying to hold her back. Hattie-May’s lips parted, her sparse brows pushed together, her hand at her chest. She stared at something the rest of us couldn’t see.

Then, Frances began to speak, the entire sordid story pouring from her blood-speckled lips. Me discovering her, our fight, sneaking away. What came after.

The hands at her throat, the swing of the shovel. Shaking me awake.

As she spoke, I relived the crunch of bone. The shock waves through my arms. The euphoria. The relief. The overwhelming terror.

When Frances finished the story, Ruth bit out, “We need to go. Right now.”

Hattie-May stared a moment before setting her jaw and nodding curtly. She shoved her feet into her clogs and mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out, something about fate finding the Robbins women. Perhaps that’s where her gaze had been—on all the Robbinses who had come before, saddled with this legacy.

I broke every speed limit rushing toward the logging road as Frances pointed out the turns. Hattie-May was squeezed into the Rust Bucket with us while Ruth and Bunny followed in Ruth’s truck.