AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Your shoulders,” Mrs. Tully sang in amazement. “They are wide as my house. How did you even get in here? Are you part Sasquatch?”
“Mrs. Tully,” Bailey scolded. “You can’t go around calling people Bigfoot just because they happen to be tall.”
“And broad,” Mrs. Tully added, “as a barn.”
King couldn’t fight the laugh. He did look rather large in this tiny house, next to these two small women. “You two are brutal. I thought a place like this was supposed to be all peace and love.”
“A place like this?” Mrs. Tully asked, looking suddenly serious. “What exactly do you think Cinderhill is?”
“I don’t know,” King shrugged. “It’s a commune, right? That’s the vibe I’m getting.”
Mrs. Tully turned her back to him under the guise of stirring the stew in her pot. “I know in the city everyone thinks everything needs a label. But I’ve been living here for twenty-eight years and I’ve never felt the need to call it anything other than home.”
“I didn’t mean to presume. I think this place is cool. And for a week, I’ll be calling it home too.”
“A week?” Mrs. Tully asked, her dark brown but very aged eyes turning back to appraise King. “You think this is a vacation destination? You just pop in and kick your feet up for a week?”
“No,” Bailey cut in. “He just needed a place for the night. Now we’ve got a bet going. If he can’t stay here for the week, he’s going to buy us those roofing supplies we need.”
Mrs. Tully’s eyes were filled with mischief again. “Oh, you brilliant girl. He won’t be able to make it here. I bet he’s used to fluffy beds and air conditioners.”
“There’s no air conditioning?” King asked, looking around the tiny space. “It’s pretty hot here during the day, right?”
“Sweltering,” Mrs. Tully reported cheerfully. “And cool at night. And there are rules here. You look like you hate rules.”
“Love them, actually.” King winked at her.
“Up with the sun. Everyone has a job. And new people tend to get the toughest ones. How are you at scrubbing bathrooms?”
“Very skilled,” King retorted. “You won’t scare me off. I don’t intend to lose this bet.”
“It’s good timing,” Mrs. Tully said, her words veiled in some subtext King couldn’t decipher. But Bailey seemed to. It was his first indication that maybe something else was going on.
“What’s so good about the timing?” he pressed, trying to be chill about it.
“I’ll take a bowl to go if you don’t mind, Mrs. Tully. Mama’s barely up for eating these days, but she’ll find it hard to turn your food away.”
King didn’t press for an answer to his question. She clearly didn’t want to answer. And he was more interested in hearing about her mother. Carmen had sent over all the information she had on Bailey and her family. He knew her father had been arrested and convicted of racketeering, kidnapping, and trafficking. There was still another twenty years on his sentence. But there hadn’t been much on her mother.
Many of the records were sealed, but what he had seen was enough to know Cinderhill the way it was four years ago was a toxic and dangerous place. The women were like property. The people working were like unpaid laborers, day and night, prisoners, unable to leave. And her father, Dale Raine, was mastermind of it all. Profiting off of other people’s pain. His daughter, Bailey, bore the brunt of his violence.
By all accounts Dale’s specialty was twisting religion into a weapon to keep the people in line. There were notes about cruel beatings and harsh punishments for those who didn’t comply. It had taken Bailey’s astounding bravery to finally have her father arrested and she’d gone, with Gloria’s help, to Italy while the other people in her father’s network had mostly fled. Bailey was offered a new life. A fresh start, and yet, she ended up back at Cinderhill.
“Of course you can take a bowl, you sweet thing. I don’t know what your mother would do without you. You’re what keeps her going.”
The questions bubbled up in King’s mind, but he knew he hadn’t earned the right to ask yet. Instead he took the bowl of stew from Mrs. Tully, prayed it really wasn’t roadkill, and sat on the small chair she gestured toward.
“Sit down gently. That’s my best chair but it’s not built for a giant.”
He sank down slowly, knowing if he broke this chair, it would only fuel more jokes.
Mrs. Tully went on to explain other points about Cinderhill. “All that food is grown right here. You’ve never had such a fresh potato in your life.”
She was right. The stew was the best he’d had in ages. The life of a bodyguard had left him grabbing dinner on the go. Hanging out in dark parking lots. Watching. Waiting. Skipping meals altogether.
“This is amazing.” King watched as Mrs. Tully filled a glass bowl with stew for Bailey to take with her.
“Tell your mother we’re all thinking about her. Let me know what else she might need. I can whip up anything she has an appetite for.”
