Chapter 20
Now
“It’s not Blake fucking with us, Milly. It’s Burt. He knows.”
The words landed like bomb.
“What do you mean he knows?” I shook my head. “Why…”
“It’s all my fault.” Frances’s gaze dropped to the empty space between us.
“I was in denial about how bad it had gotten. In the beginning Burt was amazing. He was bold and exciting and, God, he was just so all-encompassing. I wasn’t used to someone looking at me like I was the center of their world. ”
I felt my whole body constrict. Frances offered a placating smile.
“Everyone loved him, Milly, and he chose me. It was like I’d been invisible my whole life, and suddenly people could see me.
Believe me. I had no idea he’d become this.
” Frances’s lip curled, and she rubbed away the goose bumps that sprung up her forearms. “I thought he loved me and I know I loved him, so I thought it was okay to…”
“To what?” I had a terrible feeling about where this was going. “You thought it was okay to what?”
She lifted her chin and looked me in the eye. “I told him about Shane. One night, after we were married. That secret had been eating me alive, and I had to tell someone. I trusted him. He—”
The room swirled in the edges of my vision. I felt faint, pressing my hand against the wall to steady myself. “How could you?”
“I’m sorry, Milly.” Frances shook her head. “But it’s my secret too, and I’ve never been as strong as you.”
Her secret too?
While she disappeared into a new school with a full scholarship, then college—the kind of life depicted on a Netflix series—I’d disappeared in a rusty truck for good. Living alone with no support and no diploma and no skills. No idea how to be an adult.
But somehow I’d done it. I’d gotten through. And I’d never, not once, let the secret slip, even when it hollowed me out and turned me into someone I barely recognized.
Meanwhile, Frances, my sister who managed to get the life I always dreamed of, told the first boy who called her pretty.
If it was her secret too, how come she hadn’t had to suffer for it?
Her eyes widened, and this time it was she who reached for me, taking my hands in hers. “It was festering in me, and I believed Burt was my soul mate. I thought he’d understand, because Shane was a bad man. He groomed me.”
With that sentence, my anger deflated, because when she said it like that, part of me did understand. And the dark moons of her eye sockets and busted lip proved I was wrong about being the only one who’d suffered. Frances suffered plenty.
“What happened?” I asked softly.
“Well.” She glanced away. “The thing is that Burt did seem to understand. He didn’t freak out. Maybe that should’ve been a red flag, because if anything, he became more attentive after he knew. And not in like a helpful way. But like…it turned him on.”
“What?” My brows steepled. “That’s—”
“Disgusting. I know. He’d make me tell him the story right before we…” She shook her head, closing her eyes. “Then it was like we finally moved past it and everything was normal until one day…well.”
“What?”
“Well. He started dissecting everything about that night. It was like he became obsessed…” Her gaze dropped. “With you.”
This confession hit me like a slap across the face. “What?”
“Not like…oh God. Just. Okay. Let me finish.” The words rushed out of her. “Not in a sexual way.”
I stared, openmouthed.
“Burt said you’d protected me. That you’d killed for me. It was like, a fascination. He’d ask me exactly how you did it, he’d praise you for it. I convinced myself it was kind of sweet…” Her voice petered out, and she seemed to disappear into her own thoughts for a moment.
I nodded to the bruises on her wrists. “When did he start, you know…”
“Abusing me?” She frowned. “I think…I think it probably began in the bedroom. Sex became rougher and rougher, and I told myself it was okay. That I liked it, even though I really didn’t.
Then he went too far.” Her face crumpled, and she swiped at her eyes.
“Choking me until I blacked out. Laughing when I said never again. Hitting me, but always where it wouldn’t show.
I had to be camera perfect for the Anderson family.
” She scowled, then ran her tongue over the healing cut near her lip.
“He took over my social media. Took my keys. It happened slowly…until I was a prisoner.”
She grabbed my hand, laced her fingers through mine, and for a split second, we were five and eight, holding hands in bed at our aunts’ house, the first night we arrived.
Frances continued. “A few years ago he started not coming home. He’d stay away later and later.
Then overnight. That’s when I began noticing things.
There’d be a tiny dot of blood on his shirt or a stain on the knee of his slacks.
He didn’t give a shit if I saw, because, Milly, he’s untouchable.
An Anderson, after all.” She spat the words like a curse.
“It’s embarrassing how I lied to myself. Refused to see what was in front of me. I told myself he was hunting. Or maybe fighting. I realize both of those excuses sound dumb, but who thinks the person they once loved is capable of murder?”
Her words stung, because hadn’t I proven I was capable of murder?
“Then I figured he was having an affair. He’d come home from one conference or another, smelling like another woman, and I’d find things tucked away in his suitcase.
On his nightstand or closet or office—pieces of jewelry or a hairclip.
Once a lacy thong. I thought...” She heaved a sigh.
“God, I’m not proud of this, but I thought those spots of blood meant he was hitting his mistress.
A tiny part of me was relieved, because if I wasn’t the only one he was hitting, it meant I wasn’t the problem, he was. ”
“Frances—”
“Please. Let me finish.” She pulled her hand free of mine and reached into her purse. “It wasn’t until I found this that I understood he was even more dangerous than I could’ve known.”
She inhaled a deep breath and held out the two plastic cards she’d pulled from her purse.
“This is why I had to come. When you mentioned the missing college kids—Blake and Andrea—it all clicked together. Burt left for a men’s prayer conference in Atlanta early this morning.
He always takes my car keys with him when he travels, but this time they were in his desk drawer.
I…I know I don’t have the family gifts, but it was like everything worked out: finding these, you coming by, Burt making a mistake.
It was like the universe was telling me to run. ”
I took the cards and examined them. My stomach sank.
They were driver’s licenses. One with a smiling redheaded girl whose photo had been all over the news for weeks.
The other was a solemn-faced college boy with the same bright eyes as the little kid who used to tag along with his stepdad to ball games.
The eyes I’d recognized when his picture was splashed across the local media. I covered my mouth.
“Burt had these?” It was a stupid question, but in that moment I didn’t trust my own reasoning. It was too much. The threatening phone calls. The body in Moss Grove. Frances showing up.
“I think he killed them,” Frances said. “I…I know he did.”
“But how? Why?”
“That’s what I keep asking myself.” She shook her head, brow furrowed.
“When I think back to everything I found in his things each time he came home from being away—a clip with hair in it, a woman’s tank top—I…
I think… No, I’m sure he’s killed before.
Probably does it for the same reason he hits me: He likes control. He likes hurting people.”
“That’s terrible.” Terrible wasn’t the right word, not by a long shot.
I raked a hand down my face. I’d always figured Burt was probably a rich prick, but what my sister was describing was sadistic.
It was evil. “Why them? Why did he kill someone with a close connection to our past?” I studied Blake’s driver’s license.
Only Andrea’s body had been found. “Do you think he killed Blake too?”
“I think so. The news says the police are blaming Blake for the murder. I don’t think they’ll ever find his body.
He’s the perfect scapegoat. As far as why them…
I think it’s to torture me,” she said. “And you. He knows how much I regret telling him our secret, and he takes every opportunity to remind me the power he holds. God. Who knows how long he planned this or how he tracked those poor kids down? Burt loves a game. He loves being the smartest guy in the room. Those calls… I’m sure he wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the connection.
Wanted you to be as freaked out as he knew I’d be.
” Frances shook her head. “I can’t stop thinking how their death is my fault.
If I’d never told him about what happened… ”
“Then he’d have killed someone else. And if he’s doing it to torture you, then who knows who he’d have gone after?
” I looked over the other license, at Andrea’s smiling, freckled face.
She was so young. They both were. “Frances. If he knows what I did, if he wants to hurt you by hurting me, why hasn’t he told? ”
“I’ve thought about that a lot,” she said. “Maybe because there’s no body? No way for him to back up his claims? Aunt Hattie and Ruth knew what they were doing, not telling us what they did with Shane.” She paused. “Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or maybe he’s biding his time. Seeing how far you’ll bend before he breaks you, because I think that’s what he wants. To break both of us.”
I shook my head, words leaving me. It had been Burt, my sister’s husband. Burt all along. Weaving this web, tangling me in it.
Except there was one thing that still didn’t make sense.
Frances said it had to be Burt who made the harassing calls.
But that was the problem. The phone calls hadn’t been only about Shane. And no one—not even Frances—knew about Casey.
Frances’s purse buzzed.
“You still have your cell.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah. He couldn’t take it away. How would that look when ladies at the club or Mama Anderson wanted to get in touch?” She rolled her eyes. “Appearances are everything.”
“But don’t you think he’s using your phone to track you?” Likely another reason he hadn’t taken it. One my sister, who was always better than me at puzzles, wouldn’t miss.
“I can’t hide, Milly. Burt Anderson would find me even if I tried. Even if I ditched this damn phone. He has a standing tee time with the chief of police, not to mention his daddy practically funds the entire force.”
“Shit,” I said. “You didn’t have to bring it here and lead him straight to my doorstep.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be out of here soon. I’m not staying. I won’t give him a reason to visit.”
“If you’re not staying and you’re not hiding, then why did you come?”
“I…” Frances paused, lips rolled inward, her fingers clenching and unclenching in her lap.
“I need you to read me.” She held up her hand as if expecting me to protest. I wasn’t going to.
“I know what I said about you looking at my future without my consent, Milly. I know I sounded like a bitch. And I stand by what I said. I never intentionally made our signal. But maybe, I don’t know.
Maybe I did unintentionally. If you’re saying I gave the signal, perhaps on some level I was calling out to you.
Crying out for help. Even if I didn’t realize it.
” Her eyes widened. “I know that sounds absolutely insane.”
“No,” I whispered. “No, it’s no crazier than anything else.”
Her shoulders relaxed, sagging forward. “I think peering into my fate is the only way I can get ahead of him.”
I nod. “Of course.”
Then I remembered what was revealed in my own tea.
Death.
Her death? A death? An echo. Something we’ve tread over before. I thought of everything Frances had revealed: her husband not only capable of murder but longing to cause it. A chill threaded my bones.
“I’ve squirreled away a little cash. Once you read for me and I know what to expect, I can make a plan. It’s not much, but it’s the only chance I have.”
“Sister, I’m glad you’re here, and of course I’ll read you. I’ll do anything to help. Burt doesn’t get away with hurting you. But if the only reason you came was for a reading, why not go to Puddle Creek? It’s closer to you. Ruth could’ve read you…”
“I can’t go to Tennessee and risk putting the aunts in danger.”
“But you’ll put me in danger.”
“We’re sisters,” she said. “Besides. You came to me first.”
She had a point, because when she looked at me with fear in her wide eyes, suddenly I was eight and she was five and we were in the back seat of that awful social worker’s car, her bony fingers clasped in my pudgy hand.
I was twelve and she was nine, and I was getting detention for punching a girl who made fun of her hair.
We were teenagers, staring down at a corpse, his blood splattered on our cheeks, and I was telling her not to worry, that I’d handle it.
That I’d always handle it.
Only I hadn’t. Had I?
Because if I’d handled it—handled everything—she wouldn’t be here now, in this situation.
“Fine,” I said. “Let me get the tea.”