Pretty Girls

Claire asked, “What if, twenty-­four years ago, two women had information about what happened to Julia—­ who took her, exactly what was done to her—­ and they kept their mouths shut because they were too afraid to get involved?”

Lydia tried to give an honest answer. “I hope I would understand that they had to think about their own safety.”

“Because you’re so understanding?” Claire shook her head, likely because she had known Lydia all of her life and she knew better. “Look at what not knowing did to Dad. Do you want Bob Kilpatrick’s suicide on your conscience? Do you want to carry around Eleanor Kilpatrick’s misery on your shoulders?” Her tone had become strident. “I have nothing to lose, Liddie. Literally—­nothing. I don’t have children. I don’t really have any friends. My cat is dead. I own a house I don’t want to go back to. There’s a trust to take care of Grandma Ginny. Mom will survive because she always survives. Paul was my husband. I can’t just walk away from this. I have to know. There isn’t anything left in my life except finding out the truth.”

“Don’t be so damn dramatic, Claire. You still have me.”

The words hung between them like weighted balloons. Did Lydia really mean them? Was she here for Claire, or was this ludicrous road trip really about proving that Lydia had been right about Paul all along?

If that was the case, then her point had been made long ago.

Lydia closed her eyes for a second. She tried to get her thoughts in order. “We’ll go by the house.”

“Now who’s being dramatic?” Claire sounded as irritated as Lydia felt. “I don’t want you to do this. You’re not invited.”

“Tough.” She checked the mirrors before pulling back onto the road. “We’re not going in.”

Claire didn’t put her seat belt back on. The warning started to chime.

“Are you going to jump out of a moving car?”

“Maybe.” Claire pointed up ahead. “That must be it.”

The Fuller house was thirty yards past a shiny silver fire hydrant. Lydia tapped the brake. She coasted the car past the white clapboard house. The roof was new, but the grass in the yard was winter brown. Weeds shot up through cracks in the driveway. There were weathered sheets of plywood nailed across all the doors and windows. Even the mailbox had been removed. A lone four-­by-­four post stuck up like a broken tooth at the mouth of the driveway.

Of all the things Lydia expected to find, this was not it.

Claire sounded just as puzzled. “It’s abandoned.”

“For a long while, it looks like.” The plywood boards had started to peel apart. The paint was chipping from the vertical wood siding. The gutters were full.

Claire said, “Turn back around.”

The road was sparsely traveled. They hadn’t seen another car since Lydia had pulled over ten minutes ago. She executed a three-­point turn and drove back toward the house.

Claire said, “Pull into the driveway.”

“It’s private property. We don’t want to get shot.”

“Paul’s dead, so technically, it’s my property.”

Lydia wasn’t so sure about the legalities, but still she made a wide turn into the driveway. There was something sinister about the Fuller house. The closer they got, the stronger the sensation got. Every bone in Lydia’s body was telling her to go back. “This doesn’t feel right.”

“How is it supposed to feel?”

Lydia didn’t answer. She was looking at the large padlock on the metal garage door. The house was isolated. There wasn’t another structure for miles. Large trees forested the areas on either side of the house. The backyard was about fifty feet deep, and beyond that were acres of empty rows waiting for spring planting.

Lydia told Claire, “I have a gun.” As a convicted felon, she could’ve gone to jail for possessing a weapon, but Lydia had been a single mother living in some very sketchy neighborhoods when she’d asked a guy at work to get one for her. “I buried it under my back porch steps when we moved into the house. It should still work. I put it in a Ziploc bag.”

“We don’t have time to go back.” Claire drummed her fingers on her leg as she gave it some thought. “There’s a pharmacy off Lumpkin that sells guns. We could buy one and be back here in thirty minutes.”

“They’ll do a background check.”

“Do you think anyone’s watching background checks? Mass murderers buy machine guns and enough ammo to take down twenty schools and no one bats an eye.”

“Still—­”

“Crap, I keep forgetting I’m on parole. I’m sure my P.O. put my name in the system. Where’s the NRA when you need them?”

Lydia looked at her watch. “You were supposed to meet Nolan over an hour ago. He’s probably put out a BOLO on you.”

“I have to do this before I lose my nerve.” Claire opened the door and got out of the car.

Lydia let out a string of curses. Claire went up the stairs to the front porch. She tried to see between the cracks in the plywood covering the windows. She shook her head at Lydia as she walked back down the steps. Instead of returning to the car, she walked around the back of the house.

“Dammit.” Lydia took her cell phone out of her purse. She should text somebody that they were here. And then what? Rick would panic. She couldn’t get Dee involved. She could post it on the Westerly Academy Parents’ Bulletin Board, but Penelope Ward would probably hire a private helicopter and fly down to Athens for the story.

And then Lydia would have to explain why she was sitting in the car like a coward while her baby sister tried to break into her dead husband’s secret house.

She got out of the car. She jogged around the side of the house. Weeds as high as Lydia’s waist had taken over the backyard. The sturdy-­looking swing set was covered in moss. The ground crackled under her feet. The storms had not yet made their way over from Atlanta. The vegetation was as dry as kindling.

Claire was standing on the small back porch. She had her foot braced on the side of the house and her fingers curved under the sheet of plywood nailed over the back door. “There’s no basement, just a crawl space.”

Lydia could see that for herself. Claire had kicked in the access panel to the enclosed area under the house. There was less than two feet between the dirt and the floor joists. “What are you doing?”

“Ruining my manicure. There’s a pry bar in the trunk.”

Lydia didn’t know what to do but go back to the car. She opened the trunk and found what looked like MacGyver’s secret stash. A first aid kit. Emergency water and food. Two warming blankets. A safety vest. An ice scraper. A small tool kit. Flares. A bag of sand. An empty gas can, though the car was electric. Two reflective roadside warning triangles. A large pry bar that you could probably use to take off someone’s head.

This was a wrecking bar, not a pry bar. One end had a gigantic hammer head and sharp claw. The other end had a curved edge. The thing had a heft to it, solid steel, about two feet long and easily weighing just shy of ten pounds.

Lydia didn’t stop to consider why Paul would drive around with this kind of thing in his trunk, and as she rounded the corner into the backyard, she tried really hard not to think about the dark joke Claire had made about finding more Mrs. Fullers buried in the overgrown backyard.

Claire was still trying to work the board away from the window. She’d managed to get her fingers between the plywood and the trim around the door. Her skin had broken open. Lydia saw streaks of blood on the weathered wood.

“Move.” Lydia waited for her to get out of the way and jammed the flat end of the bar into the crack. The rotting wood came away like a banana peel. Claire grabbed the edge and yanked the board clean off the house.

The door was the same as every kitchen door Lydia had ever seen. Glass at the top, a thin panel of wood at the bottom. She tried the doorknob. Locked.

“Stand back.” Claire grabbed the pry bar and busted out the glass. She racked the bar around the frame to make sure all the shards were gone, then stuck her hand inside the door and opened the lock.

Lydia knew it was a bit late, but she still asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Claire kicked open the door. She walked into the kitchen. She turned on the lights. The fluorescent bulbs flickered to life.

The house felt empty, but Lydia still called, “Hello?” She waited a few seconds, then repeated, “Hello?”

Even without an answer, the house felt like it was ready to scream out its secrets.