Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“Slow down before you sling me into the woods,” Dottie complained while gripping the dashboard of my little Ford Focus like we were participating in a high-speed chase instead of driving ten minutes through the Daniel Boone National Forest.
“I’m going the speed limit,” I argued, though honestly the old Focus sounded like it disagreed with me every time I pushed it past forty. Joel Grassel had assured me when I bought the car that it was “mechanically dependable,” which I’d later learned translated to “starts most days.”
Outside the windshield, the forest had settled into that deep summer darkness that only existed out in the middle of nowhere.
There weren’t any streetlights once you left the campground.
Just winding blacktop roads cutting through thick trees, with my headlights bouncing off sharp curves, tree trunks, and the occasional reflective road sign.
Humidity hung heavy in the air even with the windows cracked. Cicadas screamed from the woods while frogs croaked somewhere down in the hollers below the road. Every few seconds, lightning bugs blinked through the darkness like tiny floating lanterns scattered between the trees.
“Lord have mercy,” Dottie muttered while looking out her window. “This road’s darker than the inside of a cow.”
“You say that every single time we drive through here at night.”
“And every single time, I mean it.”
I slowed slightly around one of the tighter curves, where the road hugged a drop-off sharp enough to make me grip the steering wheel harder. My headlights skimmed over the edge, catching nothing but darkness and trees below.
“You know,” Dottie continued, “if we fly off this mountain, Henry Bryant better not let another woman move into my camper.”
“That’s your concern?” I asked.
“That and whether somebody’d remember to unplug my Crock-Pot.”
I laughed softly and kept driving. Truthfully, I was trying not to think too hard about the strange feeling sitting in the pit of my stomach.
It was probably nothing. Florence, Tara, and Alice had likely stayed back at the Milkery longer than expected.
Maybe they’d changed clothes. Maybe Tara got pulled into a phone call.
Maybe Florence had found another fundraiser volunteer to critique.
Still, Mary Elizabeth’s face before we left bothered me.
She genuinely looked worried.
A pair of headlights suddenly appeared around the curve ahead of us.
“Well, there they are,” I said automatically when I spotted the small rideshare sticker glowing in the front windshield. “That’s probably their Uber now.”
The SUV eased past us slowly on the narrow road. I glanced over just enough to see silhouettes in the back seat, though it happened too fast to make out faces through the darkness.
Dottie twisted halfway around in her seat, trying to look out the back window. “Think that was ’em?”
“Had to be.”
“Then why we still drivin’?”
“Because we’re already halfway there now.” I shrugged. “Might as well check on things and tell Mary Elizabeth they’re on the way.”
I turned onto the long blacktop driveway leading into the Milkery property.
Immediately, the darkness of the forest opened into wide pastureland.
The white Kentucky post-and-rail fencing stretched along both sides of the drive while the massive silos stood ahead against the night sky, with The Milkery painted in giant white letters down the sides.
Lights still glowed warmly from the farmhouse windows.
“See?” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
But even as I said it, something felt off.
Usually after one of Mary Elizabeth’s events, there’d still be movement around the farmhouse. Kitchen staff cleaning up. Guests wandering the porch. Somebody carrying decorations inside. Tonight the lawn sat still beneath the porch lights.
Even the chicken coop looked dark.
I parked near the back entrance of the farmhouse, where I always parked whenever I came to the Milkery. The second I killed the engine, the sounds of the forest rushed in around us. Frogs. Crickets. Cicadas. Somewhere out in the pasture, one of the cows let out a low moo.
The farmhouse lights glowed softly against the darkness while the scent of baked bread and fried country ham still lingered faintly in the humid air drifting from the kitchen vents.
“Okay,” I said while opening my car door. “Let’s go find Kentucky society.”
Dottie climbed out slower, adjusting the waistband of her shorts before looking toward the bed-and-breakfast.
Inside, the farmhouse glowed warmly against the summer darkness with soft yellow light spilling from the kitchen windows, but there wasn’t any movement. No guests lingering on the porch. No laughter drifting through the screen door. Nothing.
“Well,” Dottie muttered beside me as she climbed out of the Focus and tugged down the hem of her rhinestone-studded shorts, “don’t look like anyone is here.”
Dottie snorted while we headed toward the side-porch entrance Mary Elizabeth’s guests typically used after hours. The old wooden screen door creaked open the second I pulled it, and it snapped shut behind us with a loud thwap that echoed through the quiet kitchen.
The familiar smells wrapped around us immediately. Butter. Vanilla. Cinnamon. A faint trace of fried country ham still lingering from breakfast service.
The kitchen lights had been left on over the massive butcher-block island, casting a warm glow across the old creaking wood floors.
Copper pots hung above the stove. A pie sat beneath a glass dome beside the round farm table while Mary Elizabeth’s green recipe book rested inside the old wooden hutch like always.
But the room was empty.
“No Tara,” I said quietly.
“No Alice.” Dottie looked toward the hallway. “No Miss Manners neither.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and glanced down at the time. “Maybe they really were in that Uber we passed.”
I moved farther into the house and looked toward the side staircase just off the kitchen that led upstairs to the guest rooms. Soft hallway light glowed from above.
“Tara?” I called. “Alice?” I didn’t want to sneak up on anyone in case they were reading or off to themselves.
Nothing answered back.
The old farmhouse creaked softly around us while the air-conditioning kicked on somewhere upstairs.
Dottie had wandered toward the dining room entrance and stopped suddenly.
“Mae.”
Something in her voice made every tiny hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I turned quickly. “What?”
Dottie didn’t answer right away. She just pointed toward the entrance, where the big grand-entrance staircase led up to the guest rooms. The only way Mary Elizabeth allowed guests to come downstairs.
At first, my brain couldn’t quite process what I was seeing.
A shoe, a pale-pink heel, lying sideways near the bottom step.
Then pearls.
Scattered everywhere across the hardwood floor.
And then Florence Sparks.
“Oh my Lord,” I whispered.
Florence lay crumpled awkwardly at the bottom of the staircase that led upstairs to the guest rooms, one arm twisted beneath her while the other stretched toward the banister. Her pastel skirt was tangled around her legs, and her silver-blond hair had partly fallen loose around her face.
For one horrible second, neither of us moved.