Chapter 7
Now
“It was definitely the boyfriend. What’s his name? Blake Willis? Probably had a fight, he killed her and panicked.”
The telltale knot in my stomach twisted, and I didn’t know if it was because the table was filled with cops or bad people or both.
I gritted my teeth into something resembling a smile and topped off each of their mugs. “Your food shouldn’t be too much longer.”
The cop’s statement was the general consensus around town.
Local news outlets had begun plastering the boy’s photo everywhere, listing him as a person of interest. At first I thought there was something vaguely familiar about him, so I’d done a quick Google search, which turned up no reason I’d know his name.
I wasn’t surprised, honestly. Lots of people appeared familiar to me.
When you work in a pass-through town, you learn everyone has look-alikes and there’s not a unique face on this planet.
Blake was young, a typical baby-faced college kid. Honestly, kind of cute. Shining big blue eyes. Dark blond hair that would’ve been curly with a little TLC. He didn’t look like a murderer. But didn’t I know better than anyone that looks didn’t mean much?
Something was definitely going on: the message, my sister sending me the sign, the Sight. But no way this poofy-haired kid with big familiar eyes was a mastermind who’d killed his girlfriend to send some kind of twisted message to me and Frances.
No way he knew what happened that horrible night. We’d been so careful. Covered our tracks. And Blake would’ve only been a little boy back then.
It did seem likely that he was the culprit behind Andrea’s murder. It was always the boyfriend. But no matter which way I turned it over in my mind, I could find no connection between this college kid and my past.
Yet…
The body. The creek. Our secret message. That impossible name. That long-dormant stirring behind my ribs, warning me…
I refilled glasses of sweet tea and Diet Coke and water, a smile on my face as my mind reeled.
Just because it’s always the boyfriend doesn’t mean it’s always the boyfriend...does it? But if not Blake, then who?
I passed out plates of eggs over easy and smothered hash browns and biscuits and gravy.
I’m missing something important.
I brewed another pot of coffee.
Is it possible these events aren’t related at all?
“Order up!” Larry called from the hatch. Even though I was closest and caught up with my tables, I made no move to run the plate. The hustle and bustle of the diner moved around me as I stood still, turning an idea over in my head.
Could all of this truly be some kind of unconnected, horrible coincidence? A case of the worst timing on the planet: a body turning up in a creek in Moss Grove the same time I received a menacing and impossible message miles away?
I frowned.
Is it possible I’m making connections that aren’t there? That this was nothing but happenstance and that in some sick way I’d knitted together a diabolical relation so I could reconnect with Frances? I missed my sister. Missed our connection…
No.
No. She reached out to me. She did our signal.
I needed to think.
The Huddle Hut was packed, and I checked on my tables before pushing through the swinging door into the kitchen. “I’m taking a quick break.”
“Not a good time.” Larry’s dark brows steepled. “Barb’s having a smoke. She’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Deja’s got it covered,” I said, annoyed. I never took breaks. Well, not usually. But I needed to check on something or I would lose my mind, and it was too busy in the restaurant to focus.
“No. Deja’s brand-new and we’re slammed.”
“She’s got it covered. I won’t be long. Less than a minute.”
Before he could answer, I spun on the heels of my sneakers and rushed back through the door and around the side of the building.
Barb stood near the green dumpster, the unofficial cigarette zone, her chin tilted up as she blew a stream of smoke into the sky.
Even with the stink of hot trash wafting from nearby, I couldn’t resist inhaling a deep breath.
Barb’s menthols reminded me of a good part of my childhood.
Aunt Ruth and Bunny would sit on the front porch nursing sweating glasses of iced tea while Bunny chain-smoked and I eavesdropped.
“You can’t be out here,” Barb said, but her tone was playful.
“It’s fine. Deja’s got us covered.”
“Sure.” Barb snorted, because while we both liked Deja, Larry was right. Deja was new, and a weekend breakfast shift at Huddle Hut was a baptism by fire.
Barb’s liner-rimmed eyes narrowed on me. She held out a pack of Marlboros.
“No thanks.” I pulled my phone from my back pocket.
She shrugged and took another pull. “You’re on the phone a lot today. You got you a boyfriend?”
“No.” I entered my passcode and tabbed over to my recent apps.
“Girlfriend?” Barb asked.
“No. I don’t date.”
“What?” Barb sounded as if I’d personally insulted her. “A pretty young woman like you? Why the hell not?”
A flash of russet hair, a dusting of freckles. I shook my head and shrugged. “Dating never ends well for me.”
I clicked open Instagram, pulling up my recent searches.
I thumbed to Frances’s profile. I needed to see it once more. How she’d signaled for me.
Only. “The fuck?”
Her grid was still pristine. Curated. Exactly the same, except every photo where she flashed our signal was gone. Deleted.
They’d been there. I hadn’t imagined them. No way.
There had to be a reason for this. I scrolled deeper into her grid.
Frances must’ve deleted them. She knew I was looking, but must’ve feared someone else was too. Maybe whoever had sent that message to me…whoever had her freaked out enough to send our signal in the first place…
Unease prickled the hairs on my neck, and I opened the search engine and once again entered Blake Willis.
What was I missing? Before I could scroll through the links, the back door swung open, and one of the dishwashers stuck his head out.
“Hey Milly, Larry says you’d better get in here.
The hatch is backed up, and he’s about to lose it. ”
Shit. I needed answers, but I also needed my job.
“Fine. I’m coming,” I said, voice shaky as I slid my phone into my apron pocket.
I did my best to push past the growing anxiousness, and for the next thirty minutes, I hustled, pouring coffee and dropping off food and entering orders.
I smiled at jokes that weren’t funny, flirted with men who turned my stomach, complimented women’s purses and babies, but no matter how busy I was, I failed to shake the dread creeping in.
It had started as nothing but a flicker of worried recognition but now was undeniable. Like when the sky darkens, but there’s no report of rain, much less a storm. Then you notice the birds flying low, and you wonder how worried you should be.
I had just set down the coffeepot when the phone rang. A twisting in my stomach. A flutter behind my ribs.
I reached for the receiver.
“Diner,” I said, clicking open a pen.
Only silence on the line. I scratched my ear, then repeated, “Diner. What can I get you?”
A deep laugh sounded, forced and male, breathy enough to trick my ear into feeling wet. I lowered my voice, my heart pounding. My stomach twisting ever sharper.
“Who is this?”
A beat passed. “Oh. You don’t know who this is?”
“No, I don’t. Stop screwing around. It’s not funny.”
More laughter, gravelly. The pitch somewhat off, like the caller was trying to disguise their voice.
I inhaled, ignoring the tremble in my hands, ignoring how that place inside me had perked up and was paying attention. Calm the hell down, I mentally ordered. Prank calls happen all the time.
I was about to hang up when the voice said, “I think it’s quite funny, Millicent Waters.”
Millicent. No one here in Persimmon Key knew me as Millicent. The name had only ever been dragged out by the aunts when I was in trouble or by the occasional schoolteacher. I’d left the name behind in Tennessee.
Around me, the noise of the breakfast rush faded. I leaned against the counter, and when I spoke, anxiety strangled my words. “Tell me who you are.”
“You know who I am,” the voice said. “And I know what you did. What you both did.”
Later, I’d think I should’ve kept him on the line.
Figured out who he was. The caller ID said Blocked Caller, but there had to be a way to learn who was on the other end.
But in that moment I panicked and slammed the phone down.
My ears roared with the sound of my blood.
Of my heart and lungs pumping, thrwmp thrwm thrwmp.
The name from yesterday, the one scribbled on a message pad. I could see it again, scrawled in Larry’s handwriting. The curve of the S. The way the e hooked, sharp and spiky. Like the edge of a scythe.
Shane.
But that was impossible.
A hand landed on my shoulder, and I flinched.
“You okay?” Barb asked. “You’re shaking.”
“Yeah.” I sniffed, her menthol scent grounding me. With forced cheer, I added, “I’m fine. Just another stupid prank call, that’s all.”
I turned away, blinking back tears. Falling apart wouldn’t do me any good.
I needed to figure this out. Figure it out and stop it.
Because it was now clear that whoever was behind these calls knew secrets I’d buried a long time ago, back in Puddle Creek.
The kind of secrets that I could never let come out.
And if they were connected to the body found in the Moss Grove creek, they were also dangerous.
I grabbed the coffeepot from the warmer and took it to a table in my section. The police officers were the last people I wanted to talk to but possibly the only ones who could give me any new information.
They were still discussing the death of the university student. No surprise there. Cops loved talking about dead girls and what they’d do to find them, how they’d have the case solved by now. I refilled their mugs and asked if they needed anything.
“Only the check, darlin’.” The balding cop smiled beneath his mustache, then turned back to the others.
I drummed up courage and waited for a break in the conversation, then asked as nonchalantly as I could manage, “Everyone’s saying it’s the boyfriend, but how can you be sure?” I offered a saccharine smile. “I guess what I don’t get is, why Moss Grove? Seems out of the way from their school.”
“It’s always the boyfriend. And as for Moss Grove…
Who knows?” The balding cop gave a small shrug.
“Usually these places are chosen for a reason. They always mean something, but we can only guess at what.” He raised his bushy brows at another cop at the table, as if confirming the fact.
“But I can tell you one thing: Getting evidence is going to be a whole hell of a problem. That creek is low ground, and it looks like it floods. Probably washes everything away. This kid might have known what he was doing.”
The other cop rolled her dark eyes. “Here we go again. He didn’t know what he was doing, or he wouldn’t have dumped her so out in the open…”
The two continued to bicker as I walked away, while those words—always mean something—stuck in my mind. It reminded me of one of the rules of Sight. Everything means something… Not everything means something to me…
The Sight had gone quiet on my future when I left Puddle Creek. No matter how often I poured and steeped and drank, it only showed me Frances. But looking into Frances’s leaves, it hinted at something coming. That my sister needed me.
And now all of this felt like fate demanding my attention. Pointing me toward the past I’d run so hard from.
But why?
And why now? The phone calls, the body, my sister: It was a web, connected—it must be connected!—and if I wasn’t careful I’d get tangled up. Hell. I already was.
As I walked back from printing out the cops’ check, I realized…
the college students…the boyfriend. I knew who he looked like.
It was a stretch but not impossible. The photos blasted across social media and in the newspaper, the missing persons posters everywhere…
those eyes that had always stood out. The damn phone call saying I knew who it was.
Saying the name of the one person it could never be.
Oh, fuck.