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Authors: Brandilyn Collins

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BOOK: Gone to Ground
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But it ain't Austin Bradmeyer, Cherrie Mae, come on, girl.

Maybe Mayor B kept those pictures to remind hisself how much he wanted to catch the Closet Killer. Least that's what he says all the time.

Fine then. What about the ring? The
po
lice might a given him a set a those pictures, but
they
didn't even know he had that ring.

I heard the Bradmeyers' front doh open. My body jerked. I threw the picture file back in the hangin folder and slid the drawer shut. Snatched up my dust rag, heart rattlin in my chest.

"I'm back, Cherrie Mae!" Mrs. B called.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm in the office." Somehow my voice came out normal. I heard Mrs. B's footsteps comin and started dustin like my life depended on it.

Fact was, it did.

By the time I got outta that house, my mouth run dry and my knees wobbled. I loaded my car with all my supplies and the stool, and slid inside to rest my head against the steerin wheel. Surely I was as good as dead. Me, a woman livin alone in Amaryllis, and knowin what I did. What was I gon do? I couldn't keep quiet bout somethin this big. And I couldn't tell nobody neither.

Because who in town's gonna believe the likes a five-foot-high Cherrie Mae Devine when she says the mayor's the one who killed them six women?

Chapter 2
Tully

Just after lunch I fell asleep on the couch and
dreamed I was back in high school. Erika Lokin, a year older than me, was going all crazy over some new boyfriend. I kept saying, "Be careful." Didn't even know the guy, but that's all that came out of my mouth. I woke up on my side, eyes fixed on that Coke stain on the carpet I've been meaning to clean up. Day was warm as toast, but chill bumps ran all over me. My belly felt mountain-heavy, and my head hurt.

"Be careful."

I hated Erika Lokin—later Erika Hollinger—all through high school. She was way more sophisticated than me and so beautiful, with that thick brown hair and doe eyes, long lashes. My mouse-brown hair and too-round face couldn't hold a candle to hers. And she was fierce in her love for my Michael. She made no bones about the fact she wanted him back after he broke up with her and started dating me. In her mind she never let Mike go. Not till her dying day.

Will I burn in hell for being glad she's dead?

When I woke up from my dream the little square clock on the wall read 1:20. Mike would need to be at work at the factory by 3:00. I could hear him under the outside carport, country music cranking out his radio. Tinkering on his old fishing boat, I imagine. I could picture him with his shirt off, his powerful hand holding some tool, steel blue eyes squinting, and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. If things didn't go just right, that quick temper of his would crackle, curses spilling from his lips. My bad boy Michael. My heart since I was in eighth grade.

He'd had that swagger that so got to me. At thirteen, I knew he'd never look my way. I wasn't thin enough, pretty enough. And I was too quiet to
make
him notice. I watched him date Erika all my freshman year of high school. Then came that night at the school baseball game when he happened to sit next to me—without Erika.

Two days ago I was singing. Sewing clothes for my baby boy, due in two months. Nineteen years old and happy to be a mother. Now my mind had near shut down. I could hardly breathe.

You think you know where you're going in life. You think you got it all figured out. I sure did. My parents always expected me to go to college. Ole Miss, where they met. Instead their perfect daughter fell for the town rebel-without-a-cause, four years older. A man who got a job right out of high school, working the late shift at Mayor Bradmeyer's plastics factory, and waited for that daughter to graduate and marry him. My mother still mourns my wedding day. Thinks I threw away my life. "You're too smart not to go to college!" she cried when Mike and I got engaged. "Valedictorian of your class!"

Couldn't she see how he made me feel? How he'd acted like there was no other girl in the world? I refused to listen when she said he was no good. That he couldn't be trusted. I told my mother if I couldn't have Michael Phillips, I wouldn't
have
a life.

Now look at me.

Erika Hollinger thought she had it all figured out too. Married right out of high school, although college was never in her future. Then three days ago she up and tells me her latest news.

Yesterday, when I heard Erika had been murdered, I threw up. Victim number six, said the police. Stabbed, then stashed in the closet like the rest of them. Lots of blood. What other details they saw at the scene, they wouldn't say. But clearly it was the work of the same killer. And once again—no witnesses and no evidence.

Well, as far as
they
know.

People in town declare this and that about the murders. Everybody is a suspect, and nobody at all. They lock their doors and whisper their suspicions over the phone. I lock my doors too, when Mike is at work. He doesn't get off until 11:00 p.m.—long after dark, even in the summer.

My mom thinks the killer is somebody in the next town or beyond. Some psycho who creeps in, murders our women, then steals away. Couldn't be one of us, she says. Not in Amaryllis. I used to think that too. I
wanted
to believe it.

Now I know she's wrong. He lives right here among us, all right. But if I tell, I'm dead.

The killer is my husband.

Chapter 3
Tully

Three days ago—on Monday—Erika called me. After
years of stalking to a different aisle when she saw me in the grocery store. After spreading rumors about me in high school. From the day Mike and I got engaged when I was a junior, she hadn't spoken to me. Instead she threw herself at tall, muscular Bruce Hollinger, who'd always had a crush on her. Flaunted him around town like she didn't care a whit about Michael Phillips anymore. She married Bruce and made sure Mike and I weren't invited to the wedding, even though Mike and Bruce were friends. When Bruce went off to war and was later killed, I took Erika a casserole. She wouldn't even let me in the house. Standing right there on her front porch, she shoved the glass pan back at me.

"No
thank you
, not from the likes of you."

So why was she calling me now, while Mike was at work?

I stood in my kitchen with the phone to my ear, feeling like I had a basketball between my legs. At seven months the baby had dropped. Just a week ago I'd had to stop my job as checker at the Amaryllis Piggly Wiggly because the doctor told me to get off my feet.

"Tully." Erika's voice vibrated right through me. "You need to come over and hear what I have to say."

"You have something to say, Erika, you can tell me right now."

"Oh, no." She gave a little chuckle. "I want to see your face."

My fingers tightened on the receiver. I didn't want to play her games. But I'd never been a match against Erika. She knew how to ride all over me. "I couldn't come if I wanted to. Doctor said to keep my feet up."

"Oh, right, you're pregnant." She singsonged the words. "You want Daddy around when the baby's born?"

"What's
that
supposed to mean?"

"Come over here now, Tully, if you know what's good for you."

"No."

"Fine. I'll tell your mother first." Erika hung up.

She knew she had me with that. My mother and I had enough strain between us, and I didn't need any more reason for the woman to remind me of my "mistakes." Besides, that comment about Mike being around for the birth—as if he wouldn't be—scared me to death.

In ten minutes I was lumbering up to Erika's front door, sweat rolling down my back, cursing myself for allowing her to rope me in. She waved me inside with a Karo smile—syrupy sweet and colorless. Sat me on the couch. Even told me to put my feet up. I said no, thank you. Swollen ankles or not, no way could I relax within a hundred yards of Erika Hollinger.

She perched prettily on the edge of her blue-flowered chair and leaned toward me, fingers laced. Her makeup was perfect, with pink blush and shiny lipstick. Like she wanted to rub it in how good she looked next to me. "I'm three months pregnant"—Erika looked me straight in the eye—"and Mike's the father."

The world spun down my spine.

Erika stood and with a flourish pulled up her T-shirt. "See?"

Her belly did stick out some, although less than mine had after the first trimester. But Erika had always been taller and thinner than me. I stared at that bump, my tongue numb.

Erika lowered her shirt and sat back down. Crossed a prim leg. "Don't believe me?"

With both hands I started to push off the couch. "I'm leaving."

"You might want to hear me out."

I jerked toward her. "Erika, you've been a conniving liar since I've known you."

"Oh, a big word from the smart one." Her head tilted. "But who can blame you for not believin me? Michael's good at keepin his secrets."

"He doesn't love you, Erika! He never has." Why couldn't I get to my feet? My legs were like water.

"Want proof?" Her voice hardened. "I've got it." She rose again, graceful as a swan, and glided to a knickknack case against the wall. Grabbed something off the middle shelf. "Here." She walked over to me and held out a picture. "See for yourself."

I glared up at Erika, refusing to take it from her hand. She positioned the photo upright, holding the top with two fingers.

My gaze pulled to the picture—and glued there. I frowned. Leaned forward to see better, despite myself. Erika lay on a bed in some clinic I didn't recognize, her shirt pulled up to expose her belly. A nurse stood over her performing an ultrasound, one hand pointing to the monitor. I could barely make out the grainy form of a fetus.

Holding Erika's hand, standing in half profile to the camera, was Mike.

My muscles gave out. I sagged back against the couch cushions, stunned betrayal whirling in me. Erika said not a word. Just pulled back the picture with a smirk on her face.

"Take your time." She resettled in her chair. "I know it's a shock."

I don't know how many minutes passed before I could speak. "Who took the picture?" Crazy question to ask first, but that's what popped out of my mouth.

"Another nurse." Erika sat straight-backed and chin up, so poised. Looking at her, you'd never know her soul played in mud. "I slipped her the camera when we went in, told her my boyfriend was camera-shy. He still doesn't know the picture exists."

My boyfriend.

Sudden rage shot through my limbs, propelling me to my feet. I headed for the door like a freight train, thinking wild thoughts . . .

That Erika had won. After all the years of high school and even my wedding, she'd actually taken Mike from me.

That wait a few months and elegant Miss Erika would look as fat as me—and wouldn't she deserve it.

And that no one on earth should die a horrible death more than Erika Hollinger.

"He's fixin to leave you, Tully," Erika called after me. "I've got some big money comin to me real soon. And then we're goin away together."

I couldn't respond around the brick in my throat. I fled through the front door and banged it closed so hard her front shutters rattled.

Her laughter chased me as I stumbled down the porch steps.

The rest of that day was a blur. When Mike came home from work that night I was already in bed, lying on my side away from him. Pretending sleep with my eyes wide open. Before my pregnancy I'd slept so sound Mike could walk around the bedroom and I'd never know it. But not lately. Every night I was hot and restless. As for
that
night, I didn't sleep at all. While Mike soft-snored through those dark hours, I alternately cried, pled with him, and attacked him like a lioness—without moving or making a sound.

By the next morning my veins simmered. Not till Mike was about to leave for work could I even speak to him. Then it all boiled out of me.

"I know about Erika."

We stood in the kitchen, me leaning against the counter for support. Mike was in his blue factory uniform, his head freshly buzzed.

BOOK: Gone to Ground
2.89Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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