Page 17 of The Guilty Trial

She found Connie at the chicken coop, her flashlight beam cutting through the gathering dusk. Her small two-story house stood beyond with its windows glowing warm. The property shared the pond with Grams’s land, and the water was visible between the trees.

“Allie, bless you for coming.” Connie straightened, one hand pressed to the small of her back. She’d never been tall, but age had compressed her further, making her seem more compact every year. Her hair, dyed the same medium brown it had been for decades, caught the flashlight’s glow. “These girls have been in a state all day. I should have known something was circling.”

“When did you see the fox?”

“Just now. Heard a commotion out here and came out.” Connie panned the flashlight along the base of the coop. “There. See where the wire’s torn?”

Allie crouched down. The chicken wire had been pulled away from the frame, leaving a gap large enough for a predator to slip through. The edges were sharp where they’d been bent back. “I’ll need to replace this entire section if we’re going to keep them safe tonight.”

“Tool shed’s open. You remember where everything is?”

“Sure do.”

The shed smelled like it always had, a mix of motor oil and sawdust and old metal. Allie gathered what she needed. The wire cutters were exactly where they'd always been, hanging on the third hook from the door. She returned with them, along with the pliers, fresh chicken wire, and a staple gun. Connie had settled onto an overturned bucket, her flashlight propped to illuminate the work area.

“Max always handled this sort of thing,” Connie said reminiscently. “I miss that man every day, but especially when something breaks.”

Allie cut away the damaged section, and her hands quickly fell into the rhythm of the work. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Feels like forever and yesterday at the same time.” Connie shifted on her bucket. “Barbara’s Harold went six months before Max. Then Gladys lost Robert the following year. And your Gramps⁠—”

“Wasn’t far behind.” Allie didn’t look up from the wire.

“That’s when we started calling it Widow’s Way, the four of us. Etta and Barbara and Gladys and me. Used to joke about it, how all our men left us to run this corner of the world on our own.” Connie’s laugh held an edge of something brittle. “Now Gladys is slipping away too.”

“Grams said they brought in hospice.”

“Etta called me yesterday. Said it won’t be long now.” Connie’s voice wavered. “I remember when those men would fish out on the pond. Your Gramps, and Max, and Harold, and Robert. They’d spend whole afternoons out there, catching nothing but telling each other the same stories over and over. Then they’d build a fire in the evening, and we’d all gather. Do you remember that?”

Allie did. She recalled Gramps laughing at something Max said, the firelight turning his wrinkled face young for a moment. She remembered the smell of fish frying and the sound of ice settling in glasses of lemonade and whiskey. Allie had been so fragile back then, still learning how to exist in this new life Grams and Gramps had built for her.

“I do remember.” She stretched the new wire across the frame, pulling it taut.

“You were such a quiet thing when you first came.” Connie’s tone shifted, becoming gentler. “Used to watch you from my kitchen window, playing out there by yourself. I’d see you skipping stones on the pond, or reading under that big oak, always alone. I wished—” She paused. “I wished you’d had a sibling. Someone to share it all with.”

The staple gun clicked in Allie’s hand. Once. Twice. The sound filled the space where words should have been. She focused on the next staple, and the next, letting the repetition keep her steady.

A sibling.

The thought twisted through her chest with pain.

Connie didn’t know—couldn’t know—that Johanna Bishop had been pregnant when she died, that somewhere in another timeline Allie might have had a sister to grow up with. That grief had been compounded by a loss she hadn’t even known to mourn until recently.

And then there was Nicholas Kristoff. Her half brother. Her father’s son with Sadie Talbot. A criminal in his own right, and still out there somewhere, still a threat. The fact sat heavy in her mind, something dark and complicated she kept pushing away. She’d have to face it eventually. Acknowledge what it meant to share blood with someone like that. But not tonight. Certainly not tonight.

“There. All done.” Allie tested the repair, tugging at the wire to make sure it would hold.

“You’re a lifesaver.” Connie pushed herself to her feet with a small grunt. “I don’t know what I’d do without you and Etta next door.”

“Good thing you don’t have to worry about that.”

They walked back toward Allie’s house together, Connie chattering about her plans for the garden next spring. At the fence gate, Allie said goodnight and slipped back through to Grams’s property. The latch scraped closed behind her.

The porch light glowed across the lawn. Her tea would be cold by now, though the book would still be waiting where she left it. Allie crossed the grass slowly, letting the evening air settle over her skin. Somewhere in the trees, an owl called out in a low and mournful voice.

She climbed the porch steps and went inside, closing the door on the gathering dark, while trying to push all thoughts of her half-sibling from her mind.

Chapter Nine