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Chapter 31

A t Alice’s house, Mere hugged me so tightly I thought I would break. Alice gently extricated her from my grip.

“I swear I’ll keep her safe,” she whispered to me.

“Thank you. For everything.”

Mere struggled away from Alice and wrapped her arms around my legs. “Mama,” she wailed. “I want to stay with you.”

I held her head, her tousled hair. “I know, baby. I know. I have to do some grown-up stuff, though, and I need you to stay with Alice while I do that.” I leaned close to her ear, whispering fiercely into it. “Listen to me, Meredith Hope. I don’t care what Mr. Cleburne said. You do not have to love this town. You love what you want to love, you hear me? It is your choice. Always your choice.”

She nodded, sniffling. “I love you, Mama. That’s my choice.”

“I love you, too.” I hugged her again, and Alice put a hand on her shoulder. I let her go, but when Alice shut the door, I felt like a huge fist had taken hold of my heart and ripped it out of my chest. I climbed back in Emmaline’s Mercedes and clenched my fists as she wound through the streets off the square and headed toward my house.

I’d forgotten to leave on any lights, even on the porch, and the house looked menacing—a monster perched on the hill, wings folded, beady eyes following every movement of its intended prey. I stared up at it. There were secrets on this property. George Davenport had discovered some of them. So had Wren Street. Now it was my turn.

Emmaline told me to call her again if I needed a ride. “There’s something else I haven’t told you.”

I stared at her.

“I know where the gold mine is. Like, the exact coordinates.”

“What?”

She nodded briskly. “Wren figured it out and showed it to me before she left town.”

A frisson of excitement set every hair on my body at attention. At the very same moment, a low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. “Tell me.”

“Climb down the bluff and head to the creek. There’s this tree, an old oak with moss all over it. From there, use the compass on your phone. Sixty degrees northeast. The old entrance is covered with vines and stuff. But I’m pretty sure you would need some heavy machinery to dig through the embankment.”

I nodded, thinking, then thanked her again and watched her drive away. I turned on my phone’s flashlight and went around the back of the house to the shed. It was as dark as the house. Darker and definitely more foreboding. I’d been inside it a few times, to store extra bags of soil, fertilizer, and garden tools, but I’d never sifted through the junk heaped in various corners by George Davenport.

Thunder boomed, making me jump. I pulled the door open and shone my light around the bare-earthed space. It was a large wooden box in the back I was interested in, locked with a metal clasp. After a brief search, I spotted an old ax leaning against the wall, grabbed it, and went to work. The lock held surprisingly well, considering its age, but eventually I bashed it hard enough that it broke and fell away.

I lifted the lid and was rewarded with the sight of George Davenport’s stash of explosive ingredients: pool shocker, ammonium nitrate, Drano, nail polish remover, cold packs. There were also matches, boxes and boxes of fireworks and nails. I surveyed them, wondering how the hell I was going to assemble this thing. I had no idea how to do something like that, and George certainly hadn’t left me any set of instructions.

And then, in one corner of the box, tucked beneath a stack of neatly folded burlap bags, I spotted the solution to my predicament.

* * *

The nearly full moon illuminated the way, but the storm clouds were rolling in fast. I needed to hurry. At the edge of the bluff, I slid down on my rear end, holding a burlap bag carefully out in front of me. Finding the creek wasn’t hard either, and in minutes, I’d located the oak tree. I turned this way and that, trying to find sixty degrees northeast, and once I had it locked, started walking at a deliberate pace. I hit the bluff at a particularly sharp rise, where the rocks formed an arch.

This had to be it. If it wasn’t, I was shit out of luck. There was no time for second chances.

I lowered the bag to the ground and gently lifted out a trowel, then George Davenport’s three small hand grenades, each wrapped in additional bags I’d found. I set to digging into the mass of vines and dirt of the embankment, and after about twenty minutes, I had three holes arranged in a triangle, each hole deep enough to wedge the grenades about an arm’s length into the earth. I inhaled and exhaled, trembling. Was it like in the movies, where you pulled the pin ring and had a few seconds before the blast? I certainly hoped so because that was the extent of my experience with grenades. I hadn’t had time to google. Sweat poured down my face and back, soaking my shirt.

Just do it, Billie. Do it. waste.

There was no time to waste.

I drew in one last breath and held it, reaching into the first hole and pulling the pin. My heart ricocheted around in my chest, and hands shaking, I moved to the second hole when I pulled the next pin. At the third hole, the shaking was so bad that I could barely shove my hands in the hole. Sweat was blinding me, and I was quaking all over. With a cry of desperation, I pulled the final pin and stumbled back, falling, then picking myself up again and running away from the bluff. I splashed into the creek and up onto the other side, then crouched behind a fallen log. I held my breath. My heart continued to thunder.

Please, please, please . . .

Three successive booms shook the woods, instantly starting my ears to ringing and giving me a sharp, agonizing headache. I slumped against the log, panting in shock and relief, then broke into wild laughter. From my spot on the other side of the creek, it was too dark to tell if I’d adequately opened up the entrance, but still, certainly I’d done some damage. I unfolded my body. Strained to hear any sound over the ringing, but there was only silence.

Silence and the rumble of thunder. Or . . . or was that a car engine in the far-off distance?

Shit.

That was a car. Isaac Inman was already at the house. Had an hour already passed? It didn’t seem possible. I waded across the creek then clambered back up the bluff, using vines to scale the steep incline. As I took off running across the field, hoping he wouldn’t turn around and leave when he got there, the rain started to fall. I flew over the field, cutting around the back of the house as the car rumbled slowly up the drive. I peeked around the corner of the house, the rain pouring now, soaking me. Was it him? The car was idling, the headlights shining directly in my eyes, but it was hard to see. I threw up my hand to block the light and rain with a sinking feeling, realized I hadn’t asked Inman what he drove.

“Mrs. Hope?” Isaac Inman’s voice called through the rain. “Billie?”

I straightened, and for one moment I saw the dark figure of a man and he saw me. We both seemed to relax in relief.

I was about to call back to him, but before I could, a dark form flew at him, hurtling itself at Inman, tackling him to the ground. I cried out as the two figures rolled and struggled in the puddles, but I was frozen. I couldn’t move. I also couldn’t make out through the rain which was Inman, and which was the other person. It was just a tangled knot of bodies until suddenly it wasn’t. The grappling stopped, both of them gone still, and then one of them cried out, a dull grunt of pain.

Everything slowed. The rain pounded. Another crack of thunder reverberated through the air. I saw the other man, the second one, struggle to his knees and raise his fist, which gripped a knife. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of that knife being thrust into Inman’s body and the corresponding grunts, over and over again. The process was so quiet, so mundane. There was no accompanying soundtrack of shrieking violins or crashing cymbals like in a movie. Just the rain and rumble of thunder and my own pounding heart.

And then the dark form, the man who had wielded the knife, stood and slowly turned in my direction. I took one step backward. Then another.

“I can’t see,” said the man, and the porch lights on the house switched on.

Backlit by the harsh light, I saw the row of still, dark figures. Five of them in all. Four standing, one sitting in a wheelchair. By their relaxed postures, it appeared they’d been there a while, watching everything that had just happened, waiting for this final moment of revelation. For the moment when all was made clear to me.

I couldn’t see their faces, but I recognized their forms. Dixie and Major Minette. Toby Minette. Ox Dalzell and old James Cleburne. The old guard of Juliana, present and accounted for. I could feel their attention on me, rapt and yet somehow eerily cold. Dispassionately anticipating what was about to unfold. This was a show, it occurred to me in horrified disbelief. And I was the audience.

“Billie,” said Jamie, standing by the still-running car and crumpled, motionless form of Isaac Inman. He was breathing hard, but he spoke in a gentle voice, as if I was a skittish horse. “Don’t run.”

His voice was like a starting pistol, springing me into action. I scooped up the burlap bag with the trowel, pivoted, and ran back the way I’d come, skidding around the side of the house, splashing through the mud and puddles. I could hear their feet clattering across the porch and down the steps. I could hear their shouts of “Come on!” and “Get her!” They were following me, at least the ones who could.

I sped up, heart slamming against my chest, heading through the downpour back to the bluff. A high-pitched noise keened in my ear, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was me, moaning. I shut my mouth and pushed my legs to move faster. I was younger than all of those assholes. I could outrun them. I just had to push harder.

I hit the edge of the bluff and without hesitation flung myself over the edge, landing about a third of the way down then sliding and tumbling through the mud, head over heels, the rest of the way. A rock stopped my momentum, one of the rocks the grenade blast must’ve dislodged. I could still hear their shouts through the storm, but no shadowy forms appeared along the bluff. Not yet. I scrambled up, grabbing the bag and headed for the hole in the earth that I’d just blown open.

For the gold mine.