Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Magnolia
R achel held my gaze, her eyes flooded with sadness. “It wasn’t supposed to be Bethany, but she wasn’t totally innocent either.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, my head reeling. Was she suggesting Bethany played a role in her own death?
Rachel flicked a glance toward me, then leaned back in her chair and released a sigh. “Chuck found out about me and Lila, and he was determined to tell the whole town about us. I didn’t care, but Lila did. She was terrified.”
“Chuck Petty?” Dixie asked.
Rachel nodded.
“How’d he find out?” I asked, my voice tight. I wasn’t sure I was going to like where this ended, but I was tired of hiding from the truth.
The corners of her mouth lifted, but she kept her gaze on her folded hands. “At first we weren’t sure. We thought he might have seen us together in a utility closet at school.” Her face flushed. “But like I said, we didn’t know how he knew. Not until that night.”
She fell silent, and after for a few moments, I prompted, “Go on.”
She shifted in her seat, agitated. “I haven’t told anyone about any of this. Not even my husband,” she said with an intensity in her eyes.
“He didn’t know you had a relationship with Lila?” Belinda asked softly.
Rachel shifted her gaze to her. “No. I wasn’t ashamed of lovin’ Lila, and truth be told, I never stopped lovin’ her. But I also knew that Lila could never forgive me for what happened that night. I knew I had to let her go, and the best way to keep our secret was to keep everything a secret. Even how much I loved her.”
I glanced to Colt, then turned back to Rachel. “I’ve tried keepin’ secrets and it never ends well for anyone. All it does is fester, rotting your soul from the inside out.”
I’d lived ten miserable years hiding what the serial killer had done to me. What secrets was Rachel keeping?
She studied me for a long moment. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s why I’m tellin’ you now.”
I nodded slightly, encouraging her to continue.
Rachel took a deep breath. “Lila got a note from someone telling her to meet them at midnight. He didn’t sign his name, but we were sure it was from Chuck.”
“We found that note under Lila’s mattress,” Summer said, “but it was signed by T.”
Rachel released a bitter laugh. “That’s what Chuck called himself. The Terrorizer, T for short.”
“So Lila went to meet him?” Summer asked.
“She wasn’t sure what it was about, but she decided to face it head-on, which wasn’t how she usually handled things. She usually let people beat her down, but bein’ with me had done something to her. It was like she finally believed she had worth. That people like Chuck weren’t any better than her. They were just meaner. She said she could be meaner too. So she decided to meet him.” Rachel swallowed. “But she came prepared.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Rachel held my gaze. “She brought her father’s shotgun.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“She wanted to go alone,” Rachel said with a faraway look. “But I couldn’t let her. She was supposed to meet him at the creek that separated our properties, so I hid in the brush on my side of the land. What we couldn’t figure out was how he even knew about the location.” Her chin quivered. “We were so naive.”
“Bethany,” I said barely above a whisper.
“It was our favorite meeting place. And Bethany knew it.”
“That had to have killed my mother,” I said. But it also explained why my mother was slow to trust, and quick to believe the worst about someone. Including me.
She nodded and wiped a tear. “Lila was waitin’ for him, but he wasn’t alone. Bethany was with him. The look on Lila’s face when she saw her sister with that…asshole.” She took a breath. “It broke something inside her.”
I was pretty sure my mother remained broken until the day she died. I suddenly felt determined that the same thing wouldn’t happen to me.
“Lila was sitting on a fallen tree by the creek, and she asked Chuck what he wanted, totally ignoring her sister. Her shotgun was behind the log where none of us could see it.” Her eyes drifted closed momentarily as she inhaled long and deep. “He said he wanted money. She asked him how much, and I just about hopped up from my hiding place. People like Chuck don’t go away once you pay them. They just keep asking for more.”
Her cheeks flushed. “We’d discussed why he might want to meet, and money was a consideration. Lila was inclined to pay him to keep him quiet. At least until she graduated and left town. I was flat-out against it. As far as I was concerned, we had nothing to be ashamed of. We loved each other. But she was adamant we couldn’t tell anyone. She said her parents would never understand and that her father would likely beat her to death. Honestly, her father was an angry man; I wouldn’t have put it past him. Still…” Regret filled her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She gaped at me, her lips parting, though she said nothing.
“I’m sorry that my mother didn’t have the courage to acknowledge you. I’m not condemning her,” I quickly added. “I understand her fears, but I know how much it must hurt to love someone who refuses to love you enough to fight for you.”
I reached over and squeezed Colt’s hand. I’d almost let him go over my stupid pride and insecurities.
He squeezed back, and I could feel his love pouring through to me.
“Did she give him money?” I asked.
“No,” Rachel said. “First she asked him why he’d picked the creek as a meeting spot, and he said he knew what it meant to her from Bethany. That she had pictures that were now in his pocket. He told her he wanted one hundred dollars, and then he’d give her the photos and keep quiet. Bethany said the money was so she and Chuck could leave town together. But Lila told him she didn’t have one hundred. That she could get him twenty, but then Bethany piped up, volunteering that Lila had money hidden in a box under her bed.” She grimaced. “That lit a fire in Lila. She was furious. She jumped up off the log and started for her sister, saying why go through with this charade when Bethany could have just taken the money in the first place. But then Bethany shouted she didn’t want the money. She just wanted her sister back.”
“Then what happened?” Dixie asked.
“Well, Chuck wasn’t havin’ any of that. He said he wasn’t leavin’ until he had more money in his pockets than he’d had when he showed up. Lila said then she could arrange for him to never leave, and she lunged for her gun on the other side of the stump.”
Belinda reached over and took my other hand.
“I was frozen,” Rachel said. “I was in total shock. Lila was lyin’ over the log, stretched to get the gun, and then Chuck was on top of her, tryin’ to get to it too. I guess Bethany had more loyalty to her sister than she’d realized, because she was on top of Chuck, fightin’ to stop him from gettin’ to the gun.” She swallowed. “And all I could do was watch in the bushes.”
“Fear can do that,” I said. “It can paralyze you.” I knew that firsthand too.
Rachel nodded but didn’t look entirely convinced. She definitely still looked guilt-ridden.
“Did Chuck get the gun?” Summer asked.
“Yes and no,” Rachel said. “Durin’ the struggle, Chuck threw Bethany off and she fell onto the creek bank. That freed Chuck to get his hands on it, but Lila had a strong grip on it too. I couldn’t see much of who was winnin’ that battle, but I did see that Bethany wasn’t movin’, so I finally snapped out of my daze and dashed toward Bethany.”
Tears had begun to stream down her cheeks. “Bethany’s eyes were open, but she was just so still, and blood was everywhere. I screamed, and then to my surprise, Chuck stopped fightin’ Lila and lunged for me. Only he wasn’t lungin’ for me, he was lungin’ for Bethany.”
A small sob escaped her. “But Lila didn’t know that and she pulled the trigger.”
“My mother killed Chuck Petty?” I asked, my voice strangled.
“She thought she was savin’ me. She’d shot him in the side, but he ignored me and he ignored the gaping wound at his side rapidly staining his shirt with blood, and he grabbed Bethany, shakin’ her and tellin’ her to wake up. That he was sorry.” She sobbed again. “He died next to her, tellin’ her he loved her.”
“He and Bethany were in love?” Belinda sputtered.
“We’ll never know the full truth,” Rachel said. “But he obviously loved her. Was she usin’ him?” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“How did Bethany get from the creek to the stock pond?” Summer asked.
“Once Lila figured out what had happened, she lost it. Not only had she killed someone, but her sister was dead too. She kept sayin’, ‘I’m gonna go to jail. I’m gonna go to jail,’ and I wasn’t sure she was wrong. So I sprang into action.”
“You obviously didn’t call the police or sheriff,” Summer said.
“Lila shot him in the back, defendin’ me, and she was poor white trash to boot. White trash girl killin’ the mayor’s son? What do you think would have happened to her?” she asked in disgust.
“So you came up with a plan?” Summer asked.
“ Someone had to, and Lila was hysterical. I grabbed her by the shoulders and said, ‘No, you’re not. But I’m gonna need you to help me. Do you trust me?’ Lila stared at me with those big doe eyes of hers and said, ‘I trust you, Rachel.’ So, first we concentrated on movin’ her sister. I got a sled from my barn, and we put Bethany on it and slid it partway to the pond. Then we carried her the rest of the way with a sheet. We laid her down so it looked like it’d happened there. Lookin’ back on it,” she said, looking sick, “I can’t believe the sheriff’s department fell for it. If they’d looked a little harder, they would’ve found the drag marks from the sled, and they would’ve realized that she hadn’t bled out anywhere near there, but the sheriff wasn’t exactly a brilliant man, and he wasn’t really trying that hard to find out who killed her. As far as he was concerned, she was just one more white trash girl he didn’t have to deal with.”
“That’s terrible,” Belinda said.
“Maybe so,” Rachel said, “but that’s the truth of it. So we laid Bethany there, next to the pond—grateful none of Chuck’s blood had gotten onto her clothes—and then we tried to figure out what we were gonna do with Chuck. The only solution I could come up with was to bury him by the creek. No one would look for him there. So we spent half the night digging a hole deep enough to put him in and covered him up. We also dug up the ground with blood on it and tossed the rock that Bethany had hit her head on into the creek. Then the next day, I found Tim and I convinced him to say that Chuck had been with him the night before, should the police come asking. And they bought it,” she said. “For forty years, they bought that Chuck just happened to run away the same night that Bethany was murdered.”
“But the postcards,” Summer said, “and the letters. How did you send those?”
Rachel smiled sheepishly. “That was all me. I had friends in those places—pen pals—and asked them to put them in the mail. Told them it was part of a practical joke. They never questioned me, not once. Nobody else did either. But Lila? She couldn’t live with the guilt. And she felt so betrayed by Bethany. I think that ate at her more than the guilt over killin’ Chuck. She couldn’t get away fast enough. We were supposed to leave this place together after graduation, but in the end, she didn’t want me to come along with her. She said I reminded her of all the terrible things that’d happened to her in her life. Because I can guarantee you this,” Rachel said, her voice hard, “plenty other bad things happened to her long before I showed up in town.”
“Why’d you stay here?” I asked. “Why didn’t you move if you hated it here so much?”
“Because I made a promise to your mother,” Rachel said. “I promised her I would watch over Chuck’s grave and make sure no one disturbed it. She promised not to sell it, and I would make sure her secret stayed safe. And we both kept up our ends of the bargain.”
I was pretty sure Rachel got a raw deal in that agreement.
“Did you ever talk to her again?” I asked.
“A few times,” Rachel said with a soft smile. “We met once in Atlanta, but we mostly kept in touch with phone calls and letters. Although we never, ever spoke of Chuck or Bethany again, and in the end, it drove us apart. Still…I’m not sorry. Maybe I should be, but I’m not. People like Chuck Petty are cruel and spiteful, and they don’t grow out of being mean boys like people claim they do. They just grow up and continue to terrorize the meek and mild. Chuck Petty would have crushed people everywhere he went. Maybe even gone on to become mayor, God forbid.”
She blew out a breath. “I’ve lived a good life, and I married a good man. He wasn’t the love of my life, but he understood my limitations and we were good companions. We loved each other in our own way. But if you decide that you need to tell the truth, I’ll accept it, and I’ll go to prison for the part I played in all of it. But I won’t, not for a moment, be sorry that Lila killed him.”
Her lack of remorse worried me, but I also understood wanting someone dead. I hadn’t killed my tormentor and torturer—Colt had—but not for one minute was I sorry he was gone.
“No,” I said. “My mother was the one who killed him, and you did what you thought you needed to do to protect her. I’m grateful for that.” I paused a beat. “But I am selling my mother’s land. And if Chuck’s body appears one day, then feel free to claim you don’t know anything. I know I will.”
Rachel looked over at Summer.
Summer cleared her throat and sat up straighter. “It sounds like justice was served. But I will say I’m struggling with the fact the Pettys don’t have closure. His brother would like to know what happened to him.”
“Would he, though?” Dixie asked quietly. “Would he want to know that his brother died blackmailing a girl and fought over a gun, possibly with the intent to kill her?”
“Maybe he’d like to know that he finally loved someone more than himself,” Summer said gently. “Once he was shot, he could have turned his anger on Lila, but instead, he mourned her sister. He died crying over her dead body.”
Rachel got to her feet. “I’ll let you all decide what you think is best. My part in this is done.”
Then without another word, she walked out the door.