Chapter 20
Fern didn’t dare try to talk to Billy for the next few hours, even though ignoring him formed a tight ball of guilt and regret in the pit of her stomach.
Whatever Cal was doing downstairs, she could only hope it was leading toward the moment when she could take down the board and coax the boy out of the crawl space.
She’d said she’d get him some water but hadn’t.
Maybe he thought they’d abandoned him. Or maybe he’d pressed his ear to the wall and overheard their discussion.
He might already know what the plan was.
The window opened easily—she’d wanted to be sure it would.
The curtains danced in the breaths of sweet evening air.
Fern ignored the gnawing ache of hunger as she alternated between pacing the room and standing in front of the window, contemplating the escape route along the slanted porch roof.
Sitting on the bed was out of the question.
The mussed sheets and dented pillows reminded her that Tom and his wife had woken up that morning without any reason to believe they would not be falling asleep again under those blankets tonight.
She didn’t want to think of them. Didn’t want to think of what would happen if she and Billy were caught.
If they made too much noise trying to escape, and Cal’s distractions weren’t enough.
Cal.
Fern pressed her fingers to her lips as the moon rose.
Whatever Cal had told them about why she was staying in the bedroom, they must have believed it.
Maybe he’d said that she was tired. Or scared.
Or embarrassed after what the others thought had taken place in the bedroom.
More than a kiss. The idea of it, so new and bewildering, made her pulse flutter.
Downstairs, the men’s voices were rising.
They’d been drinking for a little while now.
Cal had said he would create a distraction, and earlier, he and Vinny had gone out to the barn.
They’d emerged with two quart-size jugs of what could only have been gin.
They had also moved the cars, driving them behind the farmhouse and out of view from the road.
The Jacky Boys wouldn’t see them when they arrived. Only Tom’s truck remained visible.
Francis and Tink had returned from their task of burying Tom and his wife. Now, laughter and boisterous voices resounded from the first floor.
It was almost time.
There was only a hook and eye on the bedroom door, but at least it would temporarily bar the others from entering the room and buy her and Billy more time to escape. Fern dropped the hook into place and then went into the closet. She crouched down next to the knee wall.
“Billy?” A soft thud answered. “I’m going to open the crawl space door. Stay quiet.”
Fern felt along the nearly invisible seam. Her fingertips dipped into a worn edge where other fingers had pulled at the board to access the secret spot time and again. She moved slowly and winced as she pulled it free. It didn’t make a sound, though.
Stale urine and sweat clouded up her nostrils. It was too dark to see Billy, but Fern heard his fast breathing.
“Billy? We’re going to be leaving soon.”
“I heard you talking to the big man.”
“His name is Cal, and he’s going to help us.”
“We can’t climb down the trellis,” Billy whispered. He came closer to the opening in the wall. “I climbed up it before, and it broke.”
Fern bit her bottom lip, a pulse of panic throbbing through her veins. What now?
“But there are iron rungs on the chimney,” Billy continued. “We can climb down those.”
He sounded excited, as if he was more than ready to set out on an adventure. She felt only a sick coil of dread. If they were caught… No. Fern couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let Rodney hurt this boy.
They removed their shoes and waited, listening for footsteps on the stairs.
She could quickly tuck him away again, if necessary.
But no one came. About fifteen minutes passed.
Fern needed to use a toilet, but there wasn’t time for that.
She pushed the urge down and tried to decide when the voices downstairs were loud enough and the sky dark enough.
The radio that had been playing for a little while downstairs ratcheted up in volume, and she touched Billy’s shoulder. Now.
He climbed out through the open window first. Holding her shoes, Fern followed, her thin cotton stockings snagging on the rough roof shingles.
She breathed in the cool night air, thankful to be free of the suffocating bedroom at last. They crossed the porch roof, stepping high, testing each placement of their feet.
Billy was more confident; he’d been up here before.
The loud radio music concealed the few small squeals of the roof joints under their weight.
As they rounded the corner of the porch toward a shorter section on the side of the farmhouse, there was a flicker of light on the road.
Headlights. Fern stopped on instinct, her nerves tight as a wire, but there was no threat.
It was probably just a passing car or truck. Looking again, she saw nothing.
The roof ended where the chimney began. Billy reached it first and stopped to put on his shoes.
He swung his leg out with expert agility and notched his foot on the first rung.
He quickly dropped from view. Fern stepped into her shoes, and another flicker of light from the direction of the road distracted her.
She glanced up, and again, the headlights were gone.
Was there a car out there? The breeze was light, but it could have been enough to sway the cornstalks, revealing and then blocking the oncoming headlights from time to time.
A crack of laughter from one of the downstairs rooms shivered up her spine. She had to move. Whatever Cal was doing to distract them, she had to trust in it.
The moon disappeared behind a stretch of clouds, though not before Fern saw the first rung on the chimney.
She reached her foot out to it, grabbing hold of the side of the chimney and feeling with her other hand for another rung.
Her sweaty palm grasped it, and the rung below held her weight.
She took too long descending, stretching each foot down with tight caution.
By the time she reached the ground, Billy was gone.
He’d already dashed into the cornfield. Fern couldn’t blame him, though now she would have to find her own way.
At least she knew in which direction to go to reach the abandoned barn where she hoped to meet Cal later.
Dim light came through the windows of the first floor.
It looked like any ordinary house, as if a farmer and his wife and son could be inside eating supper and listening to a radio show.
She was sure that’s what Rodney wanted the Jacky runners to think when they arrived.
Luckily, the curtains were still all closed.
Fern ran, holding her breath, toward the wall of cornstalks.
Moonlight glinted off the windshields and hoods of Cal’s Roadster, the Buick, and the Ford, all of which had been backed up into the rows of corn and covered with downed stalks.
The leafy blades on the stalks rustled as she passed through, and even though it would have been impossible for anyone inside the house to hear it, the sound was raucous to her ears.
The cornstalks grew close together, but they’d been planted in neat rows.
She moved swiftly through them. Without a doubt, Billy was far ahead of her, and it gave her some sense of relief for his safety—and one less thing to worry about.
She made a wide arc around the back of the hidden cars, intending to creep through the corn in the direction of the road.
From there, she could move parallel to the road toward the abandoned barn and remain concealed from view.
Cal would meet her. If he could, he’d be there.
He wanted to be there. His kiss had left Fern with no doubt.
However, the reason why still eluded her.
Why did he feel this way for her? And why did she feel what she did for him?
It was unreasonable. Unjustifiable. They were nothing alike, and yet, when she was with him, she saw herself more clearly than she ever had with anyone else.
Like a magnet near metal, just the thought of Cal threatened to pull her back to the farmhouse.
Fern turned to check if the house lights were out of view yet.
They barely bled through the stalks, but she had to keep going to get farther away.
She took another step and heard a rustle in the cornfield nearby.
To her right. Toward the farmhouse. She paused, holding her breath.
Billy? She couldn’t call for him to check.
Her eyes strained through the dark. A quick flash of light, hardly there at all before it disappeared, came from her right.
Another flash, to her left. The flashes were too big to be lightning bugs.
A cornstalk snapped, followed by a muffled voice.
A man. Two more single flares of light came from her right, then left, closer to the farmhouse now.
There were men in the corn rows, signaling to one another with flashlights.
Ice flushed through her veins and slowed her heart. The Jacky runners were already here. Somehow, they’d known and were closing in on the farmhouse.
Cal and the others weren’t ready.
Fern couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. She should be running away from the farmhouse, but Cal was in there. Whatever happened to Rod or the others didn’t matter to her. But Cal did.
She had to warn them, though she had nothing that would make a noise loud enough to pierce the radio music Cal had turned up to mask their escape.