Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
The morning settles over the house with an eerie kind of calm, the air thick with a silence that feels almost deliberate, as if the world itself is holding its breath.
I sit on the back patio with one of Whitney’s journals open across my lap, a pineapple mimosa sweating lightly in my hand as condensation slips down the glass and dampens my fingers.
Sunlight filters through the magnolia trees overhead, casting soft, shifting patterns across the worn pages, but the words refuse to hold my attention for long.
Her journals have become something I can’t quite name, both a lifeline and a quiet form of torture.
Every entry feels like a breadcrumb, something small and deliberate left behind to guide me toward the truth, and yet the more I read, the more it becomes clear how much I still don’t understand.
I am close to something, I can feel it, but not close enough to see the full shape of it.
I turn the page, Whitney’s neat, careful handwriting filling the lines in a way that feels almost too composed for what I know now lived beneath the surface, but before I can focus on the next entry, a sharp knock at the front door cuts through the quiet and pulls me abruptly from my thoughts.
I freeze.
It’s early for visitors, and Bennett isn’t home.
The knock comes again, firmer this time, and the sound travels through the house in a way that feels louder than it should, echoing faintly against the walls.
I set the journal aside and stand, the cool stone beneath my bare feet grounding me as I move through the house, though the hollow rhythm of each step only seems to amplify the tension coiling slowly in my chest.
When I reach the door, I pause just long enough to glance through the peephole. A man stands on the other side, his posture relaxed, a clipboard tucked beneath his arm. A delivery driver, I realize, though the sight of him does little to ease the unease settling deeper in my stomach.
I open the door carefully, forcing my shoulders to relax as he offers a polite, practiced smile, the kind that suggests this interaction means nothing to him at all.
“Delivery for McCullough McMaster?” he asks, holding out a large, flat package wrapped in brown paper along with a separate item, a wreath sealed in clear cellophane.
“Yes,” I say, stepping forward to take them, though my hands are not as steady as I would like. “That’s me.”
The weight of the package surprises me as I shift it against my hip, and I sign where he indicates, my signature coming out slightly uneven.
“Do you know who sent this?” I ask, keeping my voice even.
He shakes his head. “No, ma’am. Came through the hub this morning. No return address.”
Of course it didn’t.
“Thank you,” I manage, and he nods once before turning back toward his van, already moving on to whatever comes next.
I close the door and stand there for a moment, the silence rushing back in around me, heavier now than it was before. The wreath rests awkwardly against my arm, and that’s when I notice the scent, faint but unmistakable, something sweet and cloying that turns my stomach almost instantly.
Funeral flowers.
My pulse quickens as I carry both items into the entryway and set them carefully on the table, my gaze drawn immediately to the wreath. Black lilies are woven tightly into the arrangement, their dark petals almost glossy beneath the plastic wrap, and nestled among them is a small white card.
I reach for it before I can stop myself.
The handwriting is bold, slanted, deliberate, the ink thick enough to look almost like paint.
15 years ago today.
The words seem to settle into the room, heavier than they should be, and for a moment I can’t move, can’t think, can only stare as the meaning begins to surface.
Fifteen years.
The debutante ball.
The night everything shifted, whether we acknowledged it or not.
My fingers tighten slightly around the card as I force myself to read the next line.
Your time is up.
The breath leaves my body in a sharp, unsteady exhale, and the card slips from my fingers, drifting to the floor in a way that feels almost slow, almost deliberate.
My attention shifts to the package.
I don’t want to open it.
Every instinct in my body tells me not to, but something stronger pushes through, something that refuses to let me turn away now that I’ve already seen this much. I tear at the brown paper, my movements quicker than they should be, less controlled, until it falls away to reveal what lies beneath.
A thin slab of polished marble.
For a moment, my mind refuses to process it, refuses to assign meaning, but then I see it, carved cleanly into the surface in elegant, unmistakable script.
McCullough McMaster.
My name.
Beneath it, my date of birth.
And beneath that, a second date.
A date that hasn’t happened yet.
A date that is coming.
My knees give slightly, and I stumble back, the slab slipping from my grasp and striking the floor with a heavy, final sound that echoes through the house.
The air feels suddenly thinner, harder to draw in, and I press a hand to my chest as if I can steady the frantic rhythm there, but it does nothing to slow it.
This isn’t a warning.
It isn’t a joke.
It’s something far more precise than that.
A countdown.
Someone knows.
Not just who I am, not just where I live, but what happened, what we did, what we buried and chose never to name again. They know, and they have decided that whatever time I thought I had left is already running out.
I force myself to move, to do something other than stand there and let the realization settle into me. My phone is in the kitchen, and I cross the distance quickly, my fingers already trembling as I grab it from the counter and pull up Bennett’s number.
It rings longer than it should.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Each second stretches, tightening the pressure in my chest until finally his voice comes through, steady and unaware.
“McCullough? What’s wrong?”
“They sent me a gravestone,” I say, the words coming out sharper than I intend, my voice catching despite my effort to control it. “And a funeral wreath. There’s a note, Bennett. It says my time is up. This isn’t a prank. Someone is threatening me.”
There is a pause, brief but noticeable, and when he speaks again his tone has changed, sharpened with something more alert, more focused.
“Where are you right now?”
“At home,” I say, pacing now without realizing it, my free hand gripping the edge of the counter as if it might steady me. “But I don’t feel safe. Whoever sent this knows about that night. They have to.”
“Listen to me carefully,” he says, his voice firm enough that I stop moving, if only for a moment. “Lock every door and window. Do not open the door for anyone. I’m leaving now, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. And call the police. Right now.”
The word lingers between us.
Police.
I hesitate, my thumb hovering over the screen as doubt creeps in, quiet but insistent. What will they do with something like this? Write it off, dismiss it, reduce it to something harmless because it’s easier than considering the alternative?
But this doesn’t feel harmless.
It feels deliberate.
It feels personal.
“Okay,” I say finally, though the word feels thinner than it should.
“Promise me,” Bennett says, softer now but no less urgent. “Promise you’ll call.”
“I promise,” I reply, even as something inside me resists the certainty of it.
When the line goes dead, the silence that follows feels louder than before. I lower myself into a chair slowly, my gaze drifting back toward the entryway where the wreath and the marble slab remain exactly where I left them, unchanged, undeniable.
The words echo in my mind, repeating with a steady, inescapable rhythm.
Fifteen years ago today.
Fifteen years ago, Whitney and I made a choice, one that bound us together in a way neither of us ever spoke about again, as if silence alone could keep it buried.
Now someone else knows.
And whoever they are, they’ve decided that whatever we thought was over is only just beginning.
And this time, it’s my turn to pay.