Chapter 7
It was six o’clock, and Anna only had an hour of her shift left when Sheriff Adams stormed in, his weathered face like thunder as he pulled off his hat to reveal thick, unkempt black hair that was taking every direction out of town at once.
He sat heavily on a stool and sighed, aggrieved, before unfolding a sheet of paper on the counter.
“Someone’s put these up all over. You heard anyone talking about it?”
Jeannie and Suzy got closer to take a look, and Anna found herself curious too.
She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t the pair of smiling faces in front of her.
Lila Clarke and Bonnie Buchanan. The two dead girls.
Lila was the youngest, sixteen when she died, and Anna figured Bonnie had been maybe twenty.
They were both pretty, Lila blond, and Bonnie dark like Anna.
Both full of life in the reproduced photos.
Seeing their faces was like looking at Insta or Snapchat photos of herself before.
They glowed with the thrill of so many years still to be lived.
All that excitement for whatever fate had in store for them, not realizing that fate had a cruel sense of humor.
She felt a pang of solidarity. Something bad had happened to her, yes, even if Grandma—and Mom sometimes—not so quietly thought it was probably her own fault.
But what happened to these two girls was so much worse.
So final. Underneath their pictures, printed large in a shaky hand, loud and accusatory, were the words:
6 YEARS SINCE LILA, 3 YEARS SINCE BONNIE.WHO WILL BE NEXT?
“People are struggling enough right now without this kind of paranoia. This is a closed case.” Sheriff Adams looked over at a smartly dressed old man who’d been reading in a corner for an hour or so and was now getting up to leave. “You seen any of these up by your surgery, Doc?”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t see much past a few feet unless I switch my glasses over.” His voice was gravelly, and his words reassuringly slow, as if he thought about each one before speaking. He looked down at the posters, sorrowful. “Guess it’s no surprise. It’s that time, after all.”
“Michael Cairns was shot barely twenty miles from here five days after Bonnie’s murder.
He’d been spying on teenagers around this town every year he worked here.
His phone was full of Peeping Tom photos of girls getting undressed—including both Lila and Bonnie.
State police called it over and done. What more do people want? Michael Cairns killed those girls.”
“You know that and I know that,” the doctor answered. “But there’s no convincing everyone. If I see any posters, I’ll take them down. You’re right. The town doesn’t need this dragging out again. Not fair for Bonnie’s family either.”
“Shame there was no hard evidence,” Miles muttered. Anna heard him even if the sheriff didn’t. Her stomach turned. Seemed Holly Greenbough wasn’t the only person who thought the murders were far from solved.
“It’ll be forgotten again in a month.” The doctor squeezed the sheriff’s shoulder as he passed him to leave.
“Let’s hope so,” Sheriff Adams said with a sigh as a young deputy came alongside. “I need the restroom. Damn prostate. Order for us.”
“Sure.” The deputy was good-looking in a clean-cut way, and Anna noticed Suzy standing a little taller than she had been.
“I’m going out of town that weekend anyway,” Suzy said. “Just in case.” She glanced at Anna. “You might want to think about it too. We’re the kind of girls he’d go for. Young. Pretty.”
“This town and its superstitions.” The deputy smiled. “No one’s getting murdered, Suzy, you know that.”
“If you say so.” Suzy didn’t look convinced. “You’d better promise to keep us safe.”
“I’ll do my best.” He leaned forward to look through the hatch. “Two double cheeseburgers, hold the pickles on one, and two coffees, cream and sugar, to go, please, Miles.”
As he glanced across at Anna, something close to recognition flickered in his hazel eyes. “Hi, I’m Todd Greenbough. You must be Anna.”
Anna stared at him, heart thrumming. How did he know who she was? Her wariness must have showed because he quickly clarified.
“Your name’s on your badge. And I think your kid sister, Caroline, is in the same class as mine. Holly?”
“Oh yeah, I think they’re friends.” She didn’t elaborate, not wanting to encourage conversation or friendship, but Todd grinned.
“It’s strange having a sibling so much younger, isn’t it? No one gets it. It’s like half being a parent.”
Anna shrugged. “I guess.” He was right, though.
It was odd to be so much older with no other brothers or sisters in between.
Sometimes she felt close to Caroline, and other times they were like strangers.
No cultural reference points to share and constantly resenting being left in charge like an unpaid nanny.
Suzy stepped in front of Anna, blocking her, to put down the to-go coffee cups. “You coming to The Shamrock tonight, Todd? I’m doing a couple of hours bartending, but I get off at ten thirty. Killing Time is playing. Could be fun.”
“I’ll see how I feel when my shift ends.”
“I’ll look out for you. Maybe you could see me home.”
“Still getting wet for Todd Greenbough while he brushes you off, huh, Suzy?”
The voice was loud, and then there was the click of a lighter and the acrid scent of cigarette smoke, and they all turned to looked at the speaker. “Nothing changes in this town.”
Anna hadn’t noticed the girl come in, and she hadn’t ordered anything but was standing and smoking by the jukebox, making her selection.
Todd flushed, and Suzy looked slapped. “You’re such a bitch, Melissa.”
The jukebox burst into life, some country remix of “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray” playing, and this young woman, maybe Anna’s age, swayed to the music, her own cigarette hanging from her lips.
She was wearing denim overalls with only a bra top underneath and had a slim armful of brightly colored plastic bangles that clacked together as she moved, and her eyes were lined with thick smudged kohl.
Her hair, darker even than Anna’s, was high on her head in a scruffy ponytail.
It wasn’t so much how she looked that fascinated Anna, but the way she unsettled everyone around her. The air fizzed with a new tension.
“Cool it, Melissa.” Sheriff Adams, out of the restroom, joined his young deputy at the counter. He took the lid off his coffee and sipped it. “And you know smoking inside’s against the law.” He didn’t look at her, but his voice was no-nonsense, the patient tone of an exasperated father.
“I’m going anyway, Uncle Zach.” She took a long drag of the cigarette as the rest of the diner watched, then sauntered past the sheriff, a smile on her face, flicking her ash in his coffee and blowing the smoke in Todd’s direction.
Anna watched, smiling herself, until the diner door swung shut. The sheriff shook his head, pushing his cup away as Jeannie put a fresh coffee down in front of him. “Family or not, you shouldn’t let her behave like that to you. It’s disrespectful,” she said.
Sheriff Adams waved away her concern. “She doesn’t mean it. Bad time of year for her, you know that. She loved Lila.”
Miles came out of the kitchen with the burgers wrapped in foil. “That’s the no-pickle. Gave you extra cheese.”
“You’re a good man, Miles Brannigan. I won’t hear a word said against you.” He got to his feet. “Come on, Todd, we can eat in the car. Those new speed cameras won’t check themselves.” Todd Greenbough paused as he followed and looked back at Anna.
“You should come to The Shamrock sometime. Can be a good night.”
Anna gave the slightest tilt of her head—a completely noncommittal, disinterested nod—and he flushed again, embarrassed, and followed his boss out. Anna wiped away a few drops of spilled coffee, scrubbing much harder than necessary. She’d go to The Shamrock when hell froze over.