Page 96 of We Already Dug the Grave

I was walking down the greenhouse path when it hit me.

There was someone who could understand. In that moment, I was a kid, and wanted nothing more than what any kid wants when their world is turned upside down. I wanted my mama.

Chapter 36

Now

I opened my eyes. Shit. I blinked away sleep and grabbed my phone from beneath my pillow to check the time. Shit shit shit.

Almost eight fifteen. I wasn’t supposed to sleep until after I’d finished with Casey, but the driving and late night had hit harder than I’d expected. I frantically opened the news app and scrolled to see if there was anything about the arrest of the great grandson of a particular former governor. Anything that would prove I was right when I said we didn’t have to go through with the killing.

Nothing.

A quick internet search confirmed that Burt remained Alabama’s golden boy. My last bit of delusional hope evaporated. We—Frances, Bunny, and I—would have to leave soon for the motel.

Hattie-May claimed she had just the concoction to get the job done: a tincture made of select ingredients that would never show in a toxicology report, unless they were tested for specifically. Bunny had assured us she knew the perfect location for Burt’s “overdose” to take place. “The kind of place where nobody sees anything or remembers anyone,” she’d promised.

We couldn’t be late. Burt’s plane landed at eleven, and we didn’t want to give him a chance to come looking for Frances.

As soon as he got service, there’d be a message from my sister on his voicemail, explaining where she was and how she desperately needed him to come get her. And there we’d be, waiting.

This did not allow me much time.

I scrambled down from the top bunk, somehow (thank you muscle memory) not waking my sister. I grabbed my shoes and sock-footed it to the front door, pausing in the living room long enough to listen for sounds of life. The late night had done a number on everyone, it seemed, because not even Hattie-May, who’d never slept in during my entire childhood, was awake.

I took Hattie-May’s keys from their hook, and on the porch, stuffed my feet into my sneakers and hurried around the house to the backyard.

A shovel was propped against the back of the house. I grabbed it, pausing for only a second, flooded with memories—the heft of the smooth wooden handle in my hand, the vibration of metal against skull, the way the tip sliced through soft earth like a hot knife through butter—before shaking away the intrusive thoughts and jogging toward the edge of the woods.

It didn’t take long to circle the backyard’s perimeter and find the narrow path to the greenhouse.

The path was a bit overgrown. Briars scraped at my legs as I dodged branches and roots.

I thought I’d never again return to these woods, to this path. I hated the reason that brought me, but when I inhaled the scent of damp pine, I was seven years old again, running wild toward the greenhouse. I was ten and catching tadpoles in the creek. I was thirteen and climbing trees in the woods. I was fifteen and shooting Ruth’s crossbow at a target in the backyard.

My toe hit a root and pitched me forward and out of my daydream. I caught myself, but the shovel flew into a briar patch that scratched my arms to hell when I pulled it free. As I made my way down the rest of the path, I moved a little more carefully.

Made me wonder, though.

Frances suspected that Burt had found the body. That he’d slipped away at night and stolen the helmet. The next day he had dirt under his nails. I’d convinced myself it was plausible, but now that I was here again?

How could Burt have found his way to the greenhouse, much less Casey’s grave? And in the dark?

Frances insisted Burt was smart and loved a game. If someone was determined to find the path, I guess it wasn’t impossible. But neither was it easy, or even likely. There was nothing marking your way, outside of the narrow trail worn from decades of foot traffic.

And how had he found Casey? Frances had watched me tug him into the forest, but hadn’t seen where I’d buried him.

It didn’t make sense.

Yet. There was the helmet…

The path ended and forest opened to the small field. The greenhouse sat in the middle.

The small lean-to attached to the end of the structure still held a push-mower and gas can, as well as bags of potting soil and random gardening equipment. Hattie-May had always kept a roll of giant plastic bags for when she needed to clean up her space. I rifled through the shelves in the lean-to. No bags.

Inside, then.

While outside the greenhouse was unchanged, inside was a different story. Once upon a time there’d been tidy rows of healthy plants. Everything labeled and orderly. This place had been precious to Hattie-May. Lush and green and flowering. It had been her church. Her altar.