AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes! Right now!” Aubin screamed into the phone. “Murder!”
We left the farm after the sun had risen and the scene there was even worse in the light of day. People in uniform had swarmed everywhere. They’d taken Valerie away in one of the ambulances but my sister and I had gone before they removed the bodies. There were three of them, like Valerie had said.
I looked over at Aubin as we raced along the roads, and she looked back at me.
“Thanks for coming,” I told her.
“You sound like I showed up at your party,” she answered, “like you’re being a gracious host. Good Lord. What a night!”
I nodded. It was hard to believe that it was real. “It was real,” I hazarded, and my sister nodded.
“Are you going to the game tomorrow?” She looked up at the sky. “I mean, today?”
“I can’t miss it,” I said. “They need me there.”
She nodded again. “That’s right. You have to show up for your team.”
“You showed up for me, Aubin. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me!” she snapped. “I don’t want to hear that. I should have put an end to this a long time ago. We know that Dad’s useless, but Grandma Diane shouldn’t have had to take care of that little bastard Ward. I could have, if I’d been paying attention.”
“I don’t think that even you could have convinced me to leave him. I had to figure it out for myself and get everything straight in my own head. I had to have a safe place to go and I needed to realize that what Ward and I had together wasn’t love. That isn’t what love is.”
“And now you know.”
“Now I know,” I echoed. I looked over at her again. “Are you going to be ok? Do you need my help?”
“Me? You’re asking about my problems? No, I don’t need help. I made a mess and I have to fix it. I will.”
But I recognized something in her voice that I hadn’t ever heard there before: doubt.
“Aubin—”
“How are you going to do your hair today? In the last game, it looked a little flat to me,” she said, and that sounded a lot more like my sister. So, as the sun rose higher on game day and we drove away from the scene of a double-murder and suicide, we discussed my hair and my flexed feet, and Danni’s job as the captain, and a rumor that Aubin had heard that Rylah was getting lured away to another team. She sat at the curb and waited for me to get inside my building before the BMW drove away.
The apartment was empty, of course, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t walk around thinking that every shadow was someone hiding, that a hand would reach from under the bed to grab my ankle, that he was in the bathtub or the closet or somewhere, anywhere, waiting to get me. I realized that I was crying as I walked to turn on the shower. I was sorry that Ward was dead, because I really didn’t wish that on anyone. I was sorry for Valerie and Kevin and how they’d have to go forward without their son, the one they’d waited nine years to have.
And I was so relieved that it was over. I could go outside without fear, I could go to school and work without looking over my shoulder. I wouldn’t have to worry about Bowie, Aubin, or my dad. No, I would, because I loved them. I got my phone and texted all three of them, even though Bowie wouldn’t see it until after the game.
“I love you,” I wrote. Then I sat on the edge of the tub and put my face in my hands.
∞
“Uh, Sissy? You ok?”
I looked up at Danni. “What?”
“Are you standing here asleep?” she asked me.
Had I been? “Maybe,” I answered. No, I was awake—I was just completely in another dimension. I’d been checking a lot, and the news about Ward and his family hadn’t spread yet beyond a few local reports that there had been police activity at a home and that at least one person was said to be deceased. Aubin, always thinking, had tried to get assurances that our names wouldn’t be connected to anything, but again, this wasn’t a big city. Things like what Diane had done didn’t happen here very often, if at all, and the people who’d rushed to the crime scene would have recognized Aubin for sure and maybe even me since I’d gotten married to Bowie. When I thought of him, I felt a longing to see him so strong that it made my stomach flip.
“Sissy?” she repeated.
“I had kind of a crazy night,” I explained. Then I had to put my fingers in the corners of my eyes to prevent the tears that might ruin the careful makeup job I’d done with Aubin’s concealer. “I got a call around two and it turns out that my ex-boyfriend is dead. His grandmother murdered him.”
Danni’s jaw dropped. “What did you just say?”
“She was always so mean,” I continued. “I had no idea that I should have been afraid for my life, though.”
