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That morning, Rachel had said goodbye to Erica. The two promised to keep in touch and somehow Rachel knew that they would. A bond had formed that stormy night six weeks earlier. A bond that felt strangely of one between a mother and a daughter. Like the one she and Kelsey were rebuilding. A bond that would last a lifetime.
Grabbing her purse from the kitchen counter, Rachel walked to the mouth of the foyer and took one last look back. She wiped her nose, turned, and walked forward and out the front door.
***
ERICA SET HER pen down and leaned back on the bed. Since the night at the pond, she’d completely immersed herself in finishing her novel in order to not completely break down. It was, however loosely, based on the tragic events of the summer.
Saying goodbye to her mother as she had been laid to rest in the cemetery on Whiskey Road was the toughest thing she had ever had to do. But although she was hurting worse than ever, she also felt a little relieved. Something inside of her had always told her that her mother hadn’t made it to New York. A little voice that she had ignored. . . out of necessity.
She was also forced to say goodbye to Rachel just that morning. Her teacher had taken care of family affairs in town and was now off to Phoenix to start a new life with her children. She’d miss her. The woman genuinely cared about her. Believed in her. That warmth and belief were the only things that made life manageable these days.
Before that summer she felt she had no one. Just a burning desire to reco
There was a knock on the door.
She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Yeah?”
Pamela’s voice. “May I come in, cher?”
She watched the door slowly inch open. Pamela came in and sat on the bed. “You okay today?”
“Um, what do you think?” Erica murmured.
Pamela patted her knee. “Well then, I think you should go.”
Erica’s brow furrowed. “Go?” What? Was she trying to kick her out of her father’s house?
“To New York.”
Erica was confused. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, hasn’t that been your plan all along?”
Erica eyed the woman. “How did you know?”
Pamela got up and went to the Heineken bottle that Erica had been using as a bank for her New York City fund. She tapped at the masking tape Erica had stuck to the neck. On it in black marker, read: New York City.
Pamela winked. “I told you I was observant, didn’t I? See, Pamela watches. I’ve got a keen sense for these things. I’ll never be a worldly one, but God did give me that.”
Tears rolled down Erica’s cheeks. Tears she vowed no one would ever get to see.
Show them your weakness. . .
But she didn’t care anymore. “I just don’t understand. She never did anything bad to anyone.”
Pamela sat back down and patted her back. “Maybe she got too close to something, cher. That’s what yore father seems to think anyway.”
Erica blinked through her tears. “How would he know?”
“He knew she was writing a mystery book about this town and that she was talkin’ to some people, including that Dariah Thibodeaux. Especially Dariah Thibodeaux. See, yore mama, she had a keen sense for things, too. And like you, she loved them woods. Yore daddy thinks that the book had something to do with what Dariah was doing to all the men she was laying up with. Too bad we’ll never know for sure. Her manuscript was in that backpack.”
Erica was shocked that her mother would divulge such information to her father. “How would he know about the book? They never even talked!”
Pamela thought about this for a moment. “Memories from childhood aren’t always accurate, baby girl. I’m sure yore parents had some good times. I’m sure they talked more than you think.”
Well, maybe.
Pamela reached into her back pocket and handed an envelope to Erica.
“What’s this?” Erica sniffed.
“Something to help you out while yore gettin’ on your feet in New York.” She pointed to the Heineken bottle. “That money of yours isn’t goin’ to carry you too far, I‘m afraid.”
Erica opened it reluctantly and saw a sticky note with a name and number on it and a bunch of 100-dollar bills. “Where’d you get all this money?”
“Just somethin’ I had tucked away. My needs are cheap. Always have been. And I was waitin’ to put this to good use. Can’t think of a better one than helping you to git a fresh start. Call that number there and ask for Mitchell. He’s a good friend of mine. He’ll give you a job and a temporary place to stay in the city.”
“But she’s not in New York. Don’t you understand that? That’s the whole reason I was going.”
Pamela shook her head. “That’s not true, cher. You see, she is. She’s much more in New York than she was in that old murky pond in Weston. Or in the ground out there on Whiskey Road. You know that. That was just her shell. New York. . . that’s where her heart is. Her dreams, her passion. And that’s exactly where yours are, too. Now you take that book of yours to New York and you start fresh. Find a new job, meet people who are more like you and make a happy life for yourself. And if you find that you don’t like it out there, feel at peace that you always have a home here.”
Erica shook her head. “No, I have to find out what happened to my mom.”
“There are plenty of folks doing that just as we speak. Doin’ much more than you’ll be able to do. I’ll keep my ear to the ground and make sure to ring you up any time there’s new information.”
Pamela was right. . . about it all.
It was scary.
Erica glanced at the money again. “Are you sure about this?”
“Never been surer of anything else. Well, except for yore daddy, of course,” she gri
The next thing Erica did surprised her. She reached out and hugged the blonde bimbo who was sitting on her bed. She hugged her tightly. “Thank you.”
Pamela’s laugh was warm. Genuine. “Yore more than welcome. My fingers are crossed that you git that book of yours published. Never seen anyone work so hard on somethin’ my whole life.”
And for the first time that summer, Erica smiled at her.
***
THE MEMORY OF Austin still haunted Haley and she imagined it always would. His broken head in Seacrest’s lap as she screamed for him, blood pooling around her bare olive thighs.
Many of the same opportunists who had appeared at Charles’s funeral and several authorities, local, state, and the FBI, showed up for Austin’s. But they merely came and went. In their eyes, he wasn’t worth paying the respect.
Allie Seacrest hadn’t shown. She disappeared just minutes after the shooting and no one had seen her since. There was an APB out on her. And nearly every man from Grand Trespass to Carencro had searched for her those first few days after Austin’s suicide. There were several questions left that only she could answer.
Haley now understood that it was Austin that Tiffany had had the crush on. Why hadn’t she put two and two together before? Austin was handsome and as far as she was concerned, unavailable, the way Tiffany liked them.
And the two worked together, for God’s sake.
But Austin had been cu
Until it had been too late.
Haley shivered thinking about being in his truck. Austin and his good ma