Chapter 24
Now
Moss Grove was almost six hours away, and the thought of returning so soon was daunting. We were both exhausted, me from lack of sleep and Frances from driving.
But it didn’t matter. We had to act before Burt returned from his conference.
We took my Malibu and left Frances’s BMW in the Publix parking lot.
If he was as crazy as Frances said, he was likely tracking Frances’s car, not only her cell.
We didn’t need him knowing our every move.
My sister would ditch her phone soon enough, and by the time Burt arrived back home, we’d be long gone, and our setup would be complete.
We sped down the causeway and exited the interstate for the middle of nowhere, highways turning to backroads and then back to highways.
We fell into conversation, telling childhood stories.
Remember how butterflies always landed on you, but I had to chase them because they didn’t like me?
Remember jumping rope for hours in the front yard?
Can you still say the rhyme? Remember the mud pies?
Being mermaids in the creek? Remember helping in the greenhouse?
All those plants! All those old books! I didn’t know Hattie-May grew pot until college and realized—I knew that smell! It made me homesick…
Of course, we avoided certain memories, taking cues from each other when we veered too close. It seemed as if the tales would never run out, but eventually we found ourselves sitting in silence—albeit a happy one.
After ten minutes of listening to random radio stations, Frances sighed. “You know. I don’t know what I’m going to do after all this. I’ll finally be free again.”
I smiled as dense pine forest whipped past the window. “Probably anything you want.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “If your plan works, and Burt is arrested, then I’ll have to move. No way I could stay here. God, I can’t even imagine dealing with his family. I’ll need to disappear for a while. Maybe forever.”
“Shouldn’t be hard,” I said. “You’ll have money.” The subtext was clear—if I could do it with nothing, she could easily do it with a padded bank account.
“Yeah. That doesn’t hurt things.” Frances turned to the window as she spoke.
“I’ll sell the house and land. I figure his brothers will buy it all.
It’s family property, and they’ll want to keep it that way.
” She drummed her fingers on the dash. “I have no idea what our accounts look like, or if I’ll even have access to it after everything comes out.
I have some cash saved, and some of my jewelry is in a safe-deposit box—I can sell that.
I’d love to get a job. You know I’ve never had a real career? All that education and for what?”
“Poor thing. Never had to work a day in your life.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
I had a GED and a year and half of community college under my belt, but something always got in the way of me finishing.
That diploma would change my life. If I ever was able to graduate, I’d never pour a cup of coffee or deal with anyone like Pit-Bush again.
“Don’t say that. I’m not some poor little rich girl. I had no choices, Milly. Maybe I didn’t struggle like you, but that doesn’t mean what I went through wasn’t just as bad.”
“Just as bad?” I tried not to scoff. “The abuse and Burt—yeah. That part is horrible, and I’m sorry that happened. I’ll do anything to get you out of it.” I bit my lip, wishing I’d have kept my mouth shut, just this once.
“But?”
“But the rest of it? While you were at college, I was busting my ass trying to get by. You have no idea.” I shuddered, remembering the nights in the Rust Bucket, then the carousel of roommates and roach motels before finding Carla.
“I’m sorry, Frances. I love you, and like I said, I’ll do everything in my power to help you, always.
But, in some ways at least, I can’t feel sorry for you. ”
Outside the window, a yellow sign warned of deer crossing, then another told us the bridges we drove over could ice in cold weather. Another, this one black-and-white and tilted dangerously on its side, ordered us to repent or face hellfire.
“I don’t want your pity,” she said. “That wasn’t my point.”
I felt her gaze on me as we coasted past a farmers’ co-op with darkened windows and slowed as we entered what constituted the village of Moss Grove. At the only red light, I shifted in my seat.
My sister, always beautiful, even with the scabbed-over cuts and tired eyes.
With her unnaturally smooth forehead and professionally plumped lips, who somehow had skin but no pores.
Meanwhile I hadn’t been to a doctor in years and was pretty sure I needed at least two fillings in my teeth. But sure. She had it worse than me.
“What?” I asked, when she didn’t speak.
She nodded out the windshield. “It’s green.”
I pressed the gas. Clouds rolled across the star-littered sky as we passed a twenty-four-hour gas station that was nicer than you’d expect in such a rural town.
“What are you going to do?” she eventually asked me.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the bridal magazines. Your roommate’s getting married. That means you’ll have to move, I’m guessing?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
She wasn’t wrong. Carla’s mom would likely sell the apartment, and my last Zillow search told me rent had skyrocketed in the Key—made sense, I guess. A crappy beach town was still a beach town.
It was looking like I’d have to move farther inland, which meant I’d have to find a new job.
Shouldn’t be a big deal, because waitressing jobs aren’t hard to get.
Thing was, when it came to being a server, I liked Huddle Hut and its sticky floors and sometimes crazy (but mostly harmless) customers.
I knew what to expect, and when your life is cloaked in chaos, that goes a long way.
“Earth to Milly,” Frances said. “You there? I don’t want to die in a car crash, if you don’t mind.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was thinking.”
“And?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do, yet. I have some time, though.” I glanced at her. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you asking me that?” I hated the suspicious edge to my tone. It wasn’t fair to Frances.
“I don’t know. Small talk, I guess?” she said. “I’ve missed you.”
I smiled. “I missed you too.”
“You know, maybe we could be roommates.”
I blinked. “You’d want to live with me?”
“Maybe,” she said. “If you’re open to it. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“I don’t know.” My brakes squeaked as we approached the pristine fenced-in pastureland. My sister’s house wasn’t far. “I mean. Yeah. I think I’d like that. But…”
“But what? You don’t sound like you think it’s a good idea.”
We crossed the bridge over the creek.
“Where would we live?” I couldn’t picture my sister staying a single night in Persimmon Key, much less moving there. I certainly couldn’t afford to pay half the rent on anything like she was used to. “In case it’s not obvious, I’m kind of broke.”
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t care about that. We can live wherever. If I buy a place, then you could move in. Go to work. Back to school. Do whatever.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. This would change everything for me. “I’m not sure you mean it,” I said.
“Oh, I mean it. We have a decade to make up for, and I don’t want to waste any of it.” She pointed to her driveway. “Turn here.”
I wheeled in, not bothering with my blinker.
As we made our way down the long driveway, passing under the wrought iron lamps, Frances’s face morphed into the haunted woman I’d seen on TV, standing on the steps of the Alabama capitol.
We crept along silently until the road was no longer visible behind us, and we reached the house, with its rambling porch and planters overflowing with flowers and greenery.
It was as majestic as it had been the day before.
It hit me, as it had yesterday when I’d made this same trek, exactly how much our lives had diverged.
I slowed and shifted to park. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Frances was dead still and moonlight pale.
“Come on. We need to hurry.” I touched her hand. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here.”
She nodded.
I pushed open my car door and stepped onto the circular drive and waited for Frances to do the same.
“Remember,” I said, a shiver lacing my spine. “We get in and get out. The sooner we finish the plan, the sooner we can dump your phone and crash in a hotel somewhere.”
Another silent nod.
I’d expected Frances to punch a number into a security keypad or some other high-tech, expensive home security system, but she pulled an old key from her purse and slid it into the lock.
“You’re sure there’s no cameras?” I knew there weren’t—we’d already discussed it, as I’d hashed out the plan. My nerves needed to hear it again.
“No,” Frances said. “Burt hates them. He wants nothing that could be hacked or record his comings and goings. When we built the place, I’d thought it was a quirk, maybe from growing up in such a well-known family with his image splashed all over the internet. Now, I worry he has other reasons.”
“Right.” The door clicked open, and I followed Frances inside, where the light flipped on and a peachy glow fell over the foyer. I rubbed the goose bumps from my forearms. There was something cold about this entire place. It was a beautiful home, yet it made my skin crawl.
“Wow.” The word escaped in a whisper. I’d seen the room before in photos, but that didn’t do the space justice.
Rich hardwood floors flowed beneath our feet, so pristine that under other circumstances I’d have felt guilty keeping my shoes on.
High ceilings were propped up with walls painted a muted lavender.
The paint color reminded of the lavender comforter I’d bought Frances as a peace offering so long ago. I’d never actually given it to her, and when I ran away, it had still been in the back seat of my old truck. I’d slept with it until it was nothing but a tattered rag.
There were hints of the girl I’d once known, the old version of Frances.
The oil paintings that hung in thick frames were all of nature.
Moths and butterflies and luscious, green weeping willows.
One painting of a dogwood raining white flowers reminded me of home, of the trees in our Puddle Creek yard and a favorite sketch of Aunt Hattie’s that hung in the living room.
“Come on.” Frances tugged me toward the staircase.
We passed a side table that held two bronze candlesticks that on closer inspection depicted lizards crawling the length of them.
Sitting between the candlesticks was a coffee-table book with colorful geometry illustrations on the cover, titled Elements of Euclid.
I smiled because this house was proof. My sister as I’d once known her still existed.
At the top of the stairs, Frances turned, a nervous look in her eyes. “Burt has this wristwatch that he’s worn in several photo shoots. I was thinking it would make sense for it to fall off at a crime scene if he was digging or burying a body, right?”
I shrugged. “Maybe? Seems like it would be easy enough to say it’s not his. We need something undeniable.”
“His name is engraved on the back. It was a gift,” Frances said.
“I’ll get it from his case in his closet.
” She glanced around. “His office is at the end of the hall. You can look around in there and see if you come across something better. Just, you know, he’s particular and will notice if things have been rifled through. ”
Nodding, I said, “I’ll leave it exactly as I find it.”
Frances walked toward what I assumed was their bedroom, and I headed toward Burt’s office.
“Milly?”
I stopped and turned. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. For believing me.”
“I’ll always believe you,” I said.
The hallway felt like a cavern. The same, uneasy feeling still danced along my skin, reminding me to hurry.
Burt’s office held none of my sister’s touches.
One side of the room was covered in floor-to-ceiling built-ins made of a dark, expensive-looking wood that matched his oversize desk.
Brown leather chairs sat around a cowhide rug while framed football paraphernalia hung from the walls.
The room smelled like furniture polish and cut tobacco.
I looked around, unsure where to start or even what I was looking for.
If Burt wasn’t wearing the watch Frances mentioned, it would be the perfect piece of evidence to plant, but maybe there was something else too.
A backup plan. His shelves held the kind of leather-bound books that were never read and knickknacks that probably made sense to someone, but not to me.
I sat down in his desk chair and began opening his drawers.
The top one held pens and paper clips. In another I found much of the same, but also photographs depicting Burt and my sister dressed in Auburn University sweatshirts with eye black on their cheekbones.
They held foam fingers and grinned widely at the camera.
I kept digging. The back of the drawer held jewelry: some rings, an earring missing its back, a necklace with a broken clasp.
My breathing hitched. Frances had mentioned Burt’s trophies.
Who had these belonged to? Were their owners lying in holes somewhere, with no one looking for them?
The big drawer on the left held a mostly empty filing system, so I moved to the last drawer on the right. Unlike the other, it had a lock, and I was surprised when it slid halfway open with ease.
My anticipation was thrumming.
A voice startled me out of my focus. “Boo.” Frances appeared in the doorway.
I inhaled deep breaths, trying and failing to steady my racing heart.
“You look spooked,” she said, smirking a bit.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “You found it?”
She nodded, holding the wristwatch up by its golden band. “Yeah. Now, let’s get out of here.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” I jumped to my feet. My leg bumped against the still-open desk drawer. I bent to nudge it closed, then froze, feeling sick.
“Milly?” Frances stepped toward the desk. “What’s wrong?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but quickly shut it, suddenly unsure how to form words. The chill that had wound its way around my spine now shot icy daggers through my body, and bile gurgled up my esophagus.
I shook my head and reached down.
No. No this couldn’t be what I thought.
There’s no way it could be here.
It made no sense.
I pulled the helmet free and held it up, locking eyes with my sister.
“How?” was all I managed to say.
Because this wasn’t just some helmet. The stickers that covered it were long worn off, and the Sharpie marks were faded—but there was my name.
Milly+Casey BFF.