Page 71 of The Graveyard Girls (Detective Ellie Reeves #11)

SEVENTY

Briar Ridge Mobile Homes

Kat finally escaped dinner with her parents.

Now Mama was busy cleaning the dishes and her daddy had retreated to his workshop which was off limits to her and anyone else who went nosing around.

He claimed he was working on a secret project for her mother for her birthday, but Kat had never known him to be creative or surprise her mother with anything for any holiday.

She had a feeling he had a TV in the workshop—he called it his man cave—where he watched weird sci-fi flicks, along with a worn-out recliner and a stash of moonshine.

Once Mama finished the dishes and putting away the food, she’d settle onto the couch to watch her reality shows where she envied the rich families with money and expensive clothes, things Mama would never possess in her lifetime.

Guilt twinged at Kat’s insides. Maybe if her mama hadn’t gotten knocked up with her, she would have found a way to further her education or at least learn a trade. As it was, she was stuck here and dependent on her daddy’s paycheck.

And he never let her forget it.

She vowed to do better, to never let a man rule her life, and when she decided she’d crawl in bed with some guy, if ever , she’d double up the birth control.

Right now she had zero interest in doing the nasty— her mother’s description when she’d had the big talk that every girl dreaded with their mother.

She settled back on her bed with a bag of chocolate chip cookies, bowing out of kitchen chores claiming she had a history project due, which gave her a valid excuse to be on the computer if one of her parents poked their head into her room to make sure she was tucked inside and behaving herself.

Mama would be especially irate if she realized Kat was reading her high school journal.

Although it felt naughty to spy on her mama, she was enthralled to hear about her teenage antics.

Kat set her water bottle on the side table and opened Mama’s laptop, keeping hers on the bed beside it in case she needed to do a quick switcharoo.

Leaning back against her giant stuffed bunny rabbit, she scrolled to another installment.

Today some of the kids at school decided to sneak over to the graveyard and Hetty and I crept outside and watched them as they spray painted the gravestones.

Daddy was going to be mad because he was caretaker of the graveyard and headstones and would have to scrub and clean them off before the families came to visit.

He’d probably make me and Hetty do it. Or Joe who’d started working with him a while back. I don’t understand why he took the job but I heard he lived with his grandma and probably needed the money.

Hetty and I hunkered in the shadows and tried to see who was up to all the shenanigans. Hunky Clint Wallace was one of them. Every girl in school has a crush on him. I wish I didn’t because he’s so stuck up but I can’t help it.

Then that bitch Ruth was there, laughing and talking about me and Hetty being weirdos because we lived by the graves.

“No wonder they’re so pale,” Ruth whispered. “I heard their daddy makes them sleep in the freshly turned graves.” She sprayed the words devil’s child in red paint across one of the graves. “Maybe they’re even vampires and drink the blood of the dead.”

“Most people are embalmed so they’re blood has already been drained from them,” Jason, one of the baseball players, pointed out.

“Then they’re zombies,” Ruth’s friend Marnie said. “Especially that Hetty. I see her out here digging with her Uncle Earl. My parents say she’s touched in the head, that she might have been poisoned by the toxins and that’s why she’s so strange.”

“Ida is the dumb one,” another one of Ruth’s friends said. “You know she has a crush on you, Clint.”

Kat froze, her mind racing. Mama had had a crush on Clint but Clint was Ruth Higgins’ boyfriend? He was the sheriff now? What had happened?

Hoping to find out, she continued reading.

Clint pulled Ruth up to him, wrapped his arm around her and gave her a lip lock. “But you’re my girl, Ruth,” he said as he kissed her neck.

“I’m not worried,” Ruth said with a giggle. “I know you’d never go for white trash like Hetty or Ida Bramble.”

“That mean bitch,” Hetty whispered. “We oughta kill her.”