Chapter 76
The air was filled with thunder flies and by the time Anna got home her skin itched all over.
The clouds overhead sank lower to the ground as the day’s heat faded into a languid sweat, and she thought her head might pop with the pressure as she headed into the house, her thoughts tick-ticking around in circles.
“Good, you’re back.” Mom was ready to leave, finishing a coffee in the kitchen. She grabbed her bag and car keys. “Grandma’s not great. You’re going to need to sit with her if you can.”
“No problem.” Anna surprised herself with how perky she sounded.
“There’s spaghetti for dinner. You just need to heat the sauce and boil the pasta.”
“I’ll do it now. I know Grandma likes to eat early.”
“Perfect, if she can get to bed soon, she might get some sleep.”
Anna followed her mom back into the hallway, partly wanting to reach for her hand like she’d have done as a little girl, to find safety and security in it, to pull her back, to tell her something bad was going to happen and could she please make it better.
Mom’s eyes were red around the edges from lack of sleep, no doubt worrying about her eldest daughter as much as her mother.
There was no way Anna could tell her about any of this.
“I’ll be back around six in the morning.”
“Okay. Have a good shift. Don’t let them work you too hard.”
Mom was at the door, but she turned around, surprised by the affection in Anna’s voice. She smiled, her face immediately more youthful. Anna felt a sting of guilt. Had she really been so terrible that one nice comment could have such an effect?
“Thanks. And thanks for looking after Grandma.”
“She looks after me too.” More than you know, Mom.
“That’s a lovely way of seeing it.”
Anna waved Mom off, glad that if this was going to be the end, it would be a nice memory for Mom to have.
It was almost a relief that there was only Grandma left in the house.
Anna bolted the door and slid the chain on and after putting the spaghetti on to cook, she locked all the windows.
They could stifle and sweat inside, but the windows were staying closed. No one was getting in the house easily.
She took two large knives from the kitchen and hid one behind the decorative bowl on the hall table and the other in her bedroom, wishing that Mom owned at least a handgun like everyone else around here, but Mom had seen too much damage done by guns in too many emergency rooms over the years to ever buy one. The knives were going to have to do.
Grandma managed to feed herself, even though she did call Anna Claire and ask when George was getting back from work.
Anna played along as she forced a few mouthfuls into her tight throat and said that Dad was having dinner with a client, and that seemed to work and the old woman settled into silence again, trapped somewhere in the past, as the sun finally began to set.
Once they’d finished eating, Anna helped Grandma into her nightclothes and put her in front of the TV.
She stared out at the burnished gold that fought here and there through the clouds.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Pastor Keene.
Now that her initial anxiety and excitement had calmed, Anna was getting a few niggling doubts.
When they’d talked in the church, he’d been so open and told her so much.
Shared how close he had been to both girls.
Why would he have done that if he didn’t want any fresh attention on himself?
And there was something else too. Alexa had said that Bonnie met her secret lover at the dental clinic after it was closed.
Surely that was riskier than meeting in the church.
Any of the staff could come back. The church at least had a private office and the pastor controlled when the main doors were open or locked.
It didn’t make sense. She was getting a bad feeling that she’d gotten it all wrong.
The City Center Garden Hilton. That’s where the Millers were staying; she’d seen it on the poster up in the church.
If the pastor was seeing them, maybe he was staying there too.
She turned the volume up on the soap Grandma was watching and went out into the hall, googled the hotel, and called reception. Her heart was beating hard.
“City Center Garden Hilton, how can I direct your call?”
“Oh, hello.” Anna kept her tone light. Friendly. “I was wondering if you could put me through to Pastor Keene. I think he’s staying with you. Can you tell him it’s Anna Maybourne?”
“Certainly, I can do that.” The receptionist clicked her through to some holding music and then almost immediately she was back. “Actually, he’s right here. Just came into the lobby. One moment.”
So he was there. Before she could hang up, his rich voice—unmistakably his—came on the line. “Hello?”
Shit. Anna was flustered. “Oh, hi. It’s Anna. Anna Maybourne.”
“Anna, is everything all right?” That concern. It was genuine. In the background she could hear children chattering loudly. The Millers. She’d gotten it wrong.
“Yes. Yes, I only wanted to thank you for the talk the other day. It helped me a lot.”
“Oh, I am glad. And my door is always open. I’m afraid I can’t chat now, though. We’re going for barbecue and the kids are a little overexcited. I’ve agreed to take them to the zoo tomorrow to give their folks a day to themselves.”
“That’s lovely. Have a good weekend.”
“You too, Anna.”
She ended the call, her face hot. It was a four-hour drive to Omaha. It was nearly eight p.m. now. Was he really going to eat dinner for a couple of hours and then drive all the way back to kill her, then get back to spend a day at the zoo? No way.
She stared at the bolted door. Who was the phantom enemy now? If it wasn’t Pastor Keene, then who was it? And why bother killing her? It wasn’t like she knew anything concrete or anyone was taking her suspicions seriously.
In the kitchen, she went through the scant videos on YouTube of news reports and interviews filmed around town in the days after both murders.
Most were taken outside the sheriff’s office.
There was Dr. Burdett, already using a cane for his arthritis when Lila had been murdered.
The sheriff, exhausted and diminished, trying to smile and be polite in the face of all the questions, two deputies close by him.
One older, whom she didn’t recognize, and Pete, slimmer and with more hair.
Behind them, a bunch of teenagers loitered, caught up in the drama.
She couldn’t see Melissa or Jamie, but Todd was there.
Maybe he’d had a crush on Lila. Probably a lot of the boys had.
The report interviewed a few people around town, none of whom she knew, although one took place outside the diner, and she was sure she could make out Jeannie watching through the windows.
It was the usual stuff. A small farming town in shock. The police doing all they could.
She watched twice through and then searched for similar on Bonnie.
There were a few more clips, but they mainly focused on reports about Michael Cairns being shot during the robbery and the revelation that he was responsible for the murders of two girls in the nearby town of Harper’s Creek.
There was more of Sheriff Adams and Pete the deputy, both looking tired but smiling at the cameras, glad that justice had been served for the awful tragic loss of two young lives.
Various people around town. The doc again.
Miles and Jeannie. A shot of the school.
She watched it again. Something was bugging her and she couldn’t figure out what.
There was something here that she was missing.
She rubbed her face, exhausted. Think, Anna. Think.
“I’m going to bed now, Claire.” Grandma in the doorway, fragile and ghost-like in her thin robe. “I’m so tired. Can you help me?”
“Of course I can.” She took Grandma’s arm, gently guiding her to her room.
It was because of her that Grandma was so confused and tired, and it made her heart hurt.
They were very different women and they hadn’t understood each other, but Anna had been stupid to ever doubt that Grandma loved her.
Now the old woman had proved it too many times.
Anna couldn’t let that have been in vain.
It was when she was tucking Grandma carefully under the covers that she realized what was bugging her about the YouTube clips. Of course. Suddenly she was pretty sure she knew who’d committed one of the murders. How could she have been so blind?
“I have to go out, Grandma,” she said softly. “I need you to stay in bed. Will you do that? It’s important. I have to get proof.”
“Yes.” Grandma clutched her hand, suddenly animated. “Get out of the house. Stay out. I can rest if you’re not here.”
Anna squeezed back and nodded. She understood.
If she wasn’t here, then she couldn’t get murdered in the basement.
“I love you, Evelyn.” She kissed Grandma’s cheek and pulled the blanket up under her chin, and by the time she reached the door, the other woman’s eyes were already shut.
In the hallway Anna watched the clips on her phone again.
She was right. There it was. Plain as day.
She might not know who murdered Lila. But she was pretty sure she knew who killed Bonnie.
Heart racing, she undid the bolt and chain and pulled the door open, a wave of damp heat washing into the house.
If it didn’t rain soon, the town would implode, she was sure of it.
All this tension had to end tonight. It had to.
She locked the front door, the best she could do to keep Grandma safe inside, said a silent prayer, and headed toward town.