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Her mother. She had been that close to her mother. How could she not have sensed something?
Because Lindy had always hated her, and she had always feared Lindy. And because last week she’d still believed Lindy was dead.
Sam dragged his hand through his hair, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “You two don’t leave this apartment for any reason. Lois, you’re staying here. If Poppy needs to go out, you have the officer downstairs take her. Okay?” He took a few steps, then turned back, his gaze connecting with Mila’s again. “You should know… Ruben and the crew discovered another body this morning. Mrs. Baker, out off Pickett Prairie Road. Lindy’s going to be angry that you weren’t there to see it.”
Sadness welled inside Mila for Mrs. Baker, who babysat her great-grandkids every weekend and relied on Mila every Monday to undo the damage they’d done to her garden. And emotion welled for herself, too, and Gramma, Sam, Lois and everyone else.
Mila had survived this awful nightmare once, but her relationship with Sam might not. Lindy was out for vengeance, and if Sam was right, Mila’s absence this morning would have infuriated her. Normal Lindy was a formidable force. Furious Lindy was a tragedy waiting to happen.
Mila prayed that this time she was her own victim.
* * *
Monday was officially a horrible day that should never be remembered again. Jessica had tried to make things as normal as possible, but tears kept coming, and Lois kept wiping them away. They were close in age and seemed as if they’d known each other forever instead of a few days. Watching them made Mila, for quite possibly the first time ever, fully yearn for a best girlfriend, not an idealized, read-about-it version, but the sort of deep connection she watched with Gramma and Lois.
Mila was missing a lot of things this evening. Sam was chief among them, but there was more. Her fledgling sense of normalcy had flown right out the window and wasn’t coming back. The guilt she’d largely managed to avoid for the Carlyle, Greeley and Baker families’ losses. The pride that she and Gramma had salvaged wonderful lives out of the destruction of their own.
The confidence that her mother could never hurt her again. Just the fact that Lindy had survived took some of the shine and accomplishment out of their lives. The idea that she would kill people she’d never even met just to get at Mila…
What was so horribly wrong with her that her parents had become monsters? They’d been okay before her birth, and killers after. Was she somehow responsible for that?
It was nearly nine o’clock when Ben Little Bear arrived, a duffel slung over his shoulder. Lois had left when her shift ended, replaced by another officer. Mila had hoped Sam would at least come for dinner. She’d hoped he would call and say, “It’s okay,” even if it might not be true. Even if he’d just come by, squeezed her fingers and given her the sorriest excuse for a smile he could summon, she would have felt stronger.
But he hadn’t.
Jessica reheated the chicken and noodles for Ben, served him a huge slice of fruit cocktail cake, and offered him the third bedroom. He opted for pillows and blankets on the sofa instead.
Mila dithered for a moment, knowing the polite thing to do was go to her room and leave him to rest in peace. She just needed to know…
Finally, standing on one foot in the hallway, her other foot poised to head to her room, she glanced back. “Is…is Sam…”
Something crossed Ben’s face. She didn’t know him well enough, didn’t know people well enough, to make a guess at it, but it made her want to run to the guest room and hide in the shadows.
“It’s been a long day,” Ben said cautiously, but then he seemed to be a man who always spoke cautiously. “He’s known the Baker family a long time, and he’s still got all the chief things to do, and now we’re coordinating with the sheriff’s department, too, and… He was still at his desk when I left.”
She swallowed hard. “Is he…reading that book?” She couldn’t say my book, not yet. It was odd, how writing it could have lifted such a burden from her, but having someone she loved read it created an unbearable burden of its own.
