Page 29 of Poison Wood

Dear Diary,

Ohmygod.

Ivy

Dear Diary,

So, yeah, we’ve got a complete psycho living among us. Her boyfriend from St. Matthews broke up with her and they’d only been dating like a week or something and he told her she was crazy and he’s got a glass eye and B.O. got a call about his eye being at Poison Wood. His eyeball! So they did a sweep and they found it.

Under her pillow.

Chapter Eight

Piedmont, Louisiana

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

12:42 p.m. CST

By the time I get back on the interstate north to Riverbend with my box of contraband, I’ve added Dr. Janet Fontenot to a list of people to find.

I pull up Dom’s number and press it. When he answers I say, “I just spoke with Detective Mulholland in Miami.”

“I told you—”

“She calledme. Listen, Laura Sanders was an alias. It looks like she might be the girl I went to high school with. The one who went missing and was presumed dead. This is completely tangled up, Dom.”

“You bet your ass it is. Erin’s on the ground in Miami. She’s meeting with Mulholland now.”

“This is going to be bigger than Laura Sanders. And it’s happening fast. I don’t know if Erin will be able to keep up.”

“She’ll keep up just fine.”

I sigh. “I need to give you some details so Erin will know what she’s walking into.”

I tell him about Heather. About how she disappeared one night years ago, presumed dead based on evidence found in a caretaker’s cottage. The same caretaker who confessed to killing her, then recanted his confession. And then I send him the article Laura Sanders sent me.

As much as I share with Dom, though, I still hold something back, something I’m still not ready to give up. The fact my father is the man who allowed that confession to be admitted.

This could be the straw that breaks Dom’s back when I finally do tell him, but I need to get a few more answers before I’m ready to serve my father up to my boss. Some things still need to be protected right now. But Dom is being so quiet, I wonder if he’s already decided to no longer be my boss.

Another few seconds tick by.

“Dom?”

“You are on thin fucking ice,” he says.

“I know.”

“I’ll call you back,” he says before I can say anything else, and he ends the call.

I tap Carl’s number next, but it goes straight to voicemail.

The headache that started a few minutes ago feels like a sledgehammer now. I squint through the glare on the road in front of me and squeeze the steering wheel a little tighter.

I need to think like a reporter right now, not like a scared schoolgirl.

I open my voice-memo app and start talking.