The May Queen Murders (33 page)

“Ivy, it’s Milo. Stop! What happened?”

Milo’s blue eyes grounded me, forced me to realize I had survived.

He lifted his hand from my shoulder and stared at the blood on

me, and then he noticed August dead in the road. His hand returned

to my arm, fingers gently squeezing.

The headlights beat back the night’s shadows, and I fell against

Milo, bloody and exhausted.

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Chapter Twenty-two

I lie awake at night, wonderin’ if the Glen did right by

Birch Markle. If someone had spoken up, even helped

him, maybe Terra’d still be here. Lives would be different.

But askin’ for help means inviting others in, and there’s a

right good fear of letting in too much.

When you let people in, something in you gets let out.

The truck rambled down the road and halted near the Donaghys’

barn. Rook hadn’t moved from where I’d left him. The story of what

happened haunted the truck’s cab. Emmie sat on one side of me at

the wheel, while Milo rode beside in the passenger seat. Air from the

vents blasted my face. Some part of me understood it was cold, but I

didn’t feel it. The cold within me iced every layer of my skin.

Milo wrenched open the door and climbed out to offer me a hand.

I took it and let go, approaching Rook’s body with muted sorrow

tightening my chest.

“He’s dead,” I said.

“I’m sorry.” Milo looked down.

I dropped to my knees. Rook’s eyes were closed, and I slipped off

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his glasses to better see his face. His jaw had relaxed, and his mouth

had fallen open. My fingers combed through his hair, black as fer-

tile earth. I drew his head into my lap and traced his eyebrows and

the refined angle of his nose, the curves of his lips I’d memorized

for years and had only felt against mine recently. Not nearly time

enough.

I held him and smiled. I smiled because I’d known love with him.

“I’ll send my sister to find his daddy,” Milo said.

I handed over Rook’s glasses for safekeeping. “Please. Sheriff was

at my house.”

Milo went back to the truck. A moment later, the truck’s wheels

ground against the dusty road. He found a water trough and brought

back a bucket. Then he tore a strip from the bottom of his shirt and

doused it in the water. I took the rag and wiped away blood from

Rook’s cheeks. My head slumped forward, mine to his.

I couldn’t hold back.

Cries poured out of me, and my shoulders convulsed as I couldn’t

breathe fast enough to let loose the anguish inside. “H-he’s still

warm.”

I hadn’t expected him to have some heat left. I didn’t know how

long it took a body to go cold. He wasn’t grayish. He died so sud-

denly, maybe his body didn’t know it. My lips touched his forehead.

He smelled too much of blood and not enough of the boy I knew.

Milo took the cloth out of my fingers and dipped it in the wa-

ter. He wiped the rag across Rook’s mouth, his wet fingers hover-

ing above Rook’s lips. His brow furrowed. “Shit. Ivy.” He jostled my

shoulder. “Put your hand over his mouth.”

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Milo took my wrist and held my palm above Rook’s lips. A puff of

air so faint I should’ve missed it pushed against my skin.

“He’s breathing.” I sniffed. “We need help.”

Milo pulled out his cell phone, only to toss it down in disgust.

“Goddamn middle of nowhere.”

We waited. Both of us monitoring Rook’s breathing, his pulse, his

color. He was graying.
He’ll be dead within the hour.

No. It wouldn’t be fair to find him alive and let him run out of

time.

The truck bumbled down the pitted road. Milo scrambled to his

feet and motioned for Emmie to speed up, jumping up and down.

“Hurry the hell up! C’mon!”

The truck came to a stop.

Sheriff darted from the passenger side and rushed over to Rook.

His eyes were wide, and he fell to his knees, holding Rook’s bleed-

ing head in his bare hands. “No! My boy!” His shoulders heaved as

shouts to God to be merciful echoed across the field.

“H-hospital,” I blurted. “He’s alive.”

Sheriff’s mouth fell open. His gaze was unfocused, confused, until

it rested on my face. “But that girl said he was gone.”

“He will be if we don’t get him to the hospital,” Milo said. He

glanced at me. “There was a wreck on the road. Someone was hit.

There’s gotta be an ambulance up there.”

“Get him. Take him.” Sheriff hustled to his feet and picked up

Rook beneath his limp arms. “Please. You got a car. Take him!”

Rushing and barely speaking, Milo and Sheriff hoisted Rook, car-

rying him under his arms and by his legs, and hauled him to the

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truck. Never minding the blood soaking through Rook’s clothing

and his own, Milo shoved Rook into the passenger seat, leaving Em-

mie to adjust him, and turned back to me with streaks of red on his

face and hands. “One of you should come.”

“Just take him,” Sheriff ordered. “We’ll be there shortly. Drive as

fast as you can.”

Milo climbed in and slammed the door, and Emmie gripped the

steering wheel tight. With clouds of dust billowing around the tires,

the truck turned around and bounded down the road. My hands

clasped together in prayer, dirty air sprinkling my face and drying

my eyes and all the red and wet on my body. They were on their way.

“Where’s the Glen’s truck?” I asked.

“By my station,” he said.

I began running, with Sheriff a few paces behind me. We had to

get to the hospital soon. I was sure Milo knew where to take Rook.

My only prayer was that Emmie drove fast enough. The county po-

lice would be up at the highway, looking over the mess of August and

the truck that hit him. They’d see Rook more than half dead in Em-

mie’s truck. If they stopped Emmie to ask questions . . . Rook didn’t

have that kind of time.
Get him there. Get him well.

“You think he’ll make it?” I asked over my shoulder.

“I pray he does,” Sheriff answered. “Not sure about you, though.”

I stumbled and turned around. “Wh —”

The question hadn’t left my tongue before Sheriff threw me to

the ground. I yelled, but the noise cut off as two thick hands circled

my neck and choked the air from me. My fingers tore at the dirt.

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Sheriff’s weight bore down on my back. I reached behind my head,

scratched down his cheek with my bloody fingernail.

“Stop!” I wheezed.

“I can’t let you live,” Sheriff said. “You know too damn much.”

His hands wrung my neck, and no matter the breath I tried to

draw in, it never reached my lungs. My limbs turned heavy and

fell to the earth. Then my head bobbed forward, cheek against the

ground.

I never expected the ground to be so cold before I felt nothing.

"

My eyelids flickered. I lay face-down with my limbs sprawled around

me on a wood floor. My throat ached, and I tried to cry; the pain was

so great nothing but dry air came out.

“Jay, what the hell are you doin’?”

“Cleanin’ up your mess. Same as before.”

Footsteps passed close by. I didn’t dare move, no opening my eyes,

no breathing. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious. Milo

and Emmie would notice if Sheriff and I didn’t arrive at the hospital

soon, but would they return?

“Twenty-five years is too long to keep secrets, Marsh,” Sheriff said.

He’d brought me to the station. “When you told me what you’d done

to Terra, who helped you? Who got that Markle boy out of his cel ar

and let him loose? You were so drunk you couldn’t think straight, but

I took care of it. You know she still had a pulse? She didn’t after I was

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done, though, and I made sure that bastard was found by the body

and everybody listened to the story I told.”

My eyelid cracked to spy Marsh Freeman in the Glen’s only jail

cel . He leaned against the metal bars, his arm wrapped in a sling,

and snorted. “Don’t forget I know what you did to Birch Markle, Jay.

I helped you track him through the woods, helped you put his body

in a tree after you shot him. I never told.”

Sheriff nudged me with his boot. “This one ain’t telling, either. I’ll

get her buried in the woods before sunrise. No one’ll find her. The

Donaghy boy is dead. Guess he went and killed all those animals

and poor Heather. Just a shame Ivy dug around. Scaring her off with

the Birch Markle costume didn’t work. She was running with Laurel

Markle’s kids, just like your stepdaughter. It wouldn’t have been long

before she figured out what went down years ago. My family needs

a good life, and I’ve given it to them. I ain’t lettin’ anyone take away

everything I’ve built. They’ll say it was a bad year in Rowan’s Glen.”

A bad year and nothing more.

“What’s that blood on you?” Marsh asked.

Sheriff let out a roar and picked up a chair, throwing it across the

room. “My boy’s dyin’, Marsh! All ’cause of this shit! He’s cut up and

lost so much blood that I don’t know if those townie doctors can save

him.”

“So go! Be with him. I’ll still be here, and we can have it out then.”

“No.” Sheriff picked up Marsh’s belt from a box on his desk,

crossed the floor to meet him, and unlocked the cel . “I have things

to finish up here, and when I get to the hospital, I’ll tell those county

police that the killing spree you and the Donaghy kid went on is all

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over with. Guess I forgot to take your belt when I caught you and put

you in your cel , Marsh. Sorry ’bout that.”

The cell door clanged as Sheriff closed it. Scuffling noises and

shouts came from within, and I made out the shapes of the men

shoving each other, the belt tightening around Marsh’s neck as Sher-

iff held the ends. My own neck ached, but I pushed myself up to sit-

ting. Sheriff shoved down Marsh, and in a few movements, he hoist-

ed Marsh off the ground and secured the belt where a horizontal bar

met the vertical ones. Marsh’s feet banged on the metal as he kicked.

Leave. Go now.

Inch by inch, I backed away on my bottom. My hand groped the

doorknob. With a swivel of my wrist, the door fell open, and I clam-

bered to my feet to rush out of Sheriff’s station.

“Ivy!” Sheriff shouted behind me.

I didn’t look back.

My lungs burned, but I couldn’t care. I couldn’t think about the

cramping in my thighs, muscles so overworked I no longer felt them.

All I felt was fire. The cold in me was gone. Rook’s acorn swung from

side to side, smacking my jaw as I crossed the distance to my home.

The fence and back steps were in sight. A light glimmered through

the window.

“Mama!” My voice was a rasp. “Papa!”

I tried screaming for them, but the hoarseness was stronger than

my voice, too much damage from Sheriff’s hands. Wednesday leaped

onto the windowsil . Her paw came up to the glass. I stretched out

my fingers while I charged up the steps.

A hand clamped across my mouth, an arm snaking around my

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waist. Sheriff dragged me back from the door. My knees scraped

against the front ledge of the bottom step. Suddenly, I was off the

ground. Sheriff pulled me into the road. That strong hand silenc-

ing my mouth wormed down to my throat, but I tucked in my chin

and set my teeth on his fingers before biting. Hard. I bit until my

teeth came together and the taste of dirt and pennies spilled into my

mouth.

Sheriff screamed.

A quiver of hope shivered through my bel y as a black crack

formed around the door frame. The back door opened, and Mama

appeared in the doorway. “
Bonita?
”

The point of my elbow dug into Sheriff’s side, and again my voice-

less throat tried to shout, “Mama!”

She saw me and barreled down the steps, shrieking for my father.

Yet Sheriff swung me back around. Gut first, I smashed into the

horse fence. My legs sailed over my head as I toppled across the

fence and crashed to the ground. His grip lost on me, Sheriff reached

through the fence and wound his fingers into my hair. I dug my heels

into the earth and reached up, clawing at his hand. Yet he refused to