Chapter Seventy-Five. Melanie
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
MELANIE
When I come back into the room, Mabel is warm and dry but squirming in my arms, her face blotched and red from fussing.
“She’s Carol Sherman’s granddaughter?” Mrs. Whitmore asks gently. She’s curled into a blanket in one of the side chairs, her cheeks pale but her eyes sharp.
I nod, trying to settle Mabel, but she keeps arching her back, rubbing her face angrily into my shoulder. “She won’t quit.”
“Here.” Mrs. Whitmore stretches out her arms. She takes Mabel and flips her around to sit on her lap, facing the room.
“She wants to see what’s going on. Her mother was the same way when she was her age.
” And she’s right, because Mabel calms, her bright eyes darting around at the scattered clusters of people, the strange orange glow of the space heaters.
“Carol and I used to talk about grandkids,” Mrs. Whitmore murmurs, stroking the baby’s arm. “She’s a sweet thing, isn’t she?”
That’s when I notice the room feels off. Thinner. I glance around—half the men are missing. “Where did everybody go?”
“Your dad sent them to check all the doors. Said Abel might be out there with a gun.” Her voice drops low when she says it.
My adrenaline spikes. I scan the room, counting automatically—one, two—the boys are across the way with a group of other kids, folding paper airplanes out of Miss Lone Star programs. But I don’t see Hannah. Or Sarah Lynn. And my heart is suddenly in my throat.
“Can you hold her a minute?” I ask, already moving. “I have to find my daughter.”
Mrs. Whitmore adjusts the blanket over Mabel’s legs, but I don’t wait for her answer. I’m already weaving down the hall, swallowed into red-tinged shadows—the exit sign at the end the only thing glowing down this way. Halfway along, Travis Magnuson appears.
“What was all that noise?” he asks, brows lifted.
“Ben Sherman just showed up,” I tell him. “Put everyone in quite the tizzy.”
His eyes flicker, a flash of interest, and then he strides off without another word.
I keep moving, my pulse quickening. Voices drift from the kitchen—low and furious. I push open the door. Sarah Lynn and Hannah stand frozen in the dim light of a lantern, their shoulders jerking up like I’ve caught them stealing. Hannah’s hand darts behind her back. Sarah Lynn’s eyes go wide.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Hannah says, too quick. She has that look on her face, like when she was a little girl and spilled a box of Lucky Charms all over the kitchen floor, claiming she had no idea what had happened, that maybe it was the dog that knocked it over.
“Hannah Leigh,” I say. “The truth. Now.”
She glances over at Sarah Lynn, but then back to me. Slowly, she pulls her hand forward and opens her fingers. The SD card sits in her palm.
Shock crashes through me, cold and electric. “How did you get this?”
“I’m sorry,” Hannah says.
I feel the world slip out from under me. “Just what in heavens did you girls go and do?”