Covered in Coal (Buried Secrets 1)

Chapter 11

Carly

Bitter. Hurt. Depressed. I could give you the entire damn emotional dictionary right now, and I’d probably be feeling every damn bit of it, in some way. I would kill to numb the pain, to erase the heartache. But it’s a plague I must live with, something that will follow me around the rest of my life, haunting my dreams, waking me in terrors each night.

How the hell do I move on? The day after Colton and I spilled ten kinds of hell onto each other, depression set in, and I slept the day away, waking up the next evening at five o’clock, still on the couch, exactly where I was when he left me. My stomach rolled in achy pain from unsettled nerves and the lack of food, but I simply didn’t care. I left the couch, made a pit stop in the bathroom, then I found my way to my bedroom, where I have spent the last seven days, in a dark depression. I’ve cried every damn last tear I can cry.

I’m mad that Colton cheated on me. I’m hurt that Colton left me, through extortion via my jackass Daddy, may he rest in peace. I am devastated that Colton has a daughter, a daughter that we will never share. She is so beautiful, her springy brown curls bouncing as she runs to jump into Colton’s arms.

Damn it! Why couldn’t that have been MY baby? Why did I have to lose her? My heart will never be empty of tears for that angel. Never.

Sleep this last week has been very elusive. It seems telling Colton about the rape, has reawakened the nightmares, and I just can’t relive that horror every night. Then, as I lay awake, all I can think about is the what-ifs. What if I could have pleased Colton, and kept him happy? What if Daddy would have minded his damn business? What if I’d never ran off to Myrtle Beach? What if I’d had our baby? Would we be living our happily ever after? Is there even such a thing as a happily ever after? Ugh, the constant yammering in my head. When I sleep, I dream. When I’m awake, I think. I don’t want to do either.

Finally, I can’t suffer any more. So I take two Tylenol PM, chasing it with some Jack, praying that I can just rest a peaceful solitude of dream. No horrific nightmares. Just rest. No thinking involved. Just rest. Sleep captures me and carries me away to a blissful land of solitude. I don’t know how long I’m out for, but when I awake, I feel revived.

Rubbing my heavy eyes, I roll over in my plush soft bed, and see the sunlight glisten against the ceiling as the morning greets me. Tossing the heavy comforter away, I climb out of the bed, and pad to the bathroom.

Turning the shower on, I let the white steam fill the room, before stepping in. The hot l

iquid runs down my back, easing the achy knots, courtesy of lying in bed, sulking over the last week. Damn crybaby. God, how pathetic am I?! Colton broke me once, but I was just a girl then. It took me a while to get over it all, but I did, eventually. Now I’m letting him break me down, again. Hell no. I won’t stand for it. I’m a tough bitch, and I refuse to let him unravel my heart strings once again. It’s time to move on, and find the happiness I lost the moment I stepped foot back into this Podunk town. I wash away the stink, depression, and the heartache, stepping out of the shower, feeling somewhat refreshed.

Pulling on some comfy sweats, and tossing my hair into a wet, messy pony tail, I decide to start cleaning house. The kitchen still wreaks of alcohol, so I start there, armed with gloves and bleach.

After thoroughly cleaning the downstairs, I go upstairs to start cleaning. I strip the linens from my bed, and throw them down the stairs, followed by a pile of laundry. I dust every nook and cranny of my bedroom, followed by vacuuming, and refreshing the curtains with a delightful clean linen scented fabric spray.

Every turn I make, I keep eyeing the oak chest, and I am drawn to pillage through it to unveil the contents. Stricken with worry of what secrets it may contain, I decide to keep cleaning the house. After all, I do have to return back to work tomorrow, and won’t have time to keep the house up. I’ve bleached the bathrooms, dusted every picture and knick knack in the house, swept and mopped the floors. The house is sparkling clean, and in a record time of five hours, which isn’t too bad for such a big house. Falling back onto the soft microfiber couch, I exhale a deep breath of exhaustion from my hard day of labor.

I glance over to the end table and see that the notification light on my phone is blinking, so I decide that now is as good a time as any to check all of the missed calls and texts messages that I’ve accumulated over the last seven days. Several calls from the mines, several calls and text messages from Savannah, and a couple of text messages from Colton. Damn it. Deciding not to fall back into the slump, I toss my phone into the recliner across the room, and jump up to remove the laundry from the dryer. Gotta stay busy Carly Jo, or you just might break.

The soft warm bed linens smell like fresh spring flowers, as I fluff the sheet into the air, spreading it across the wide, queen bed. I make up the bed, which adds the perfect finishing touch to a clean house. As I turn to leave my bedroom, I catch a glimpse of the oak chest out of the corner of my eye. Oh hell. Flopping down onto the floor in front of the chest, I wring my hands together, as anxiety creeps into my chest. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes as I lift the lid. Rising to my knees, I peak inside at the contents of this mystery box before me.

Reaching inside, I pull a stack of documents from the chest and place them in my lap, and begin to sift through them. The first stack is life insurance documents, so I quickly toss them aside. Grabbing a second pile from the chest, I stumble across some newspaper clippings, and pictures. I flip through the pictures quickly. The only face I recognize in each picture is that of my Daddy. But in each picture there is a boy, a boy I’ve never seen before. There’s a woman in some of the pictures, but she looks distant and sad. These pictures stem over time through the years, so I begin to spread the pictures out across the floor, creating my own timeline.

Moving on to the newspaper clippings, I skim over each one quickly, trying to hit the important facts, then stack it neatly in my makeshift timeline. Names, births, accidents, deaths, graduation, accomplishments are all the facts that I find in the clippings.

After digging to the bottom of the chest, I have removed all of the contents, and placed them all on the floor. What the hell am I looking at? None of this makes sense to me. I stand up and stretch, then pad down the stairs for a bottle of water, then stop in Daddy’s office to grab my laptop, a note pad, and pen. Time to put my detective skills to use.

One by one, I read through each and every single newspaper clipping and take down notes of the key facts in each clipping, separating the clippings by their person of interest. So far, I have narrowed these persons of interest down to two; Matthew Varney, and his son Drew Varney.

As I read through the clippings, I learn that Matthew Varney was a coal miner who worked for Simon Energy when he came to his demise on the picket line during the strike of 1988. Shot down as he was crossing the picket line for a meeting with the bosses, Matthew Varney left behind his widow, Emma Varney, and a three year old son, Drew. Every man on site at the mines was questioned, and searched. As well as their personal lockers, and their vehicles. No gun was found.

Turning my investigation from Matthew to his son, Drew, I open up the laptop, and search Drew Varney. The Google search comes up with thousands of references to Drew Varney, so I start at the top. After sifting through his personal Facebook, other online sources, I learn that Drew was raised by his mother, Emma, in Lexington, Kentucky, where he graduated from Lexington Catholic with honors, and went on to study Business at the University of Kentucky. Once he graduated, he purchased a small coal mines and began his operations as sole proprietor of American Heritage Coal Company.

I recognize AHCC from the news lines over the last few weeks. They have had several MSHA violations over the years, which the supervisors instructed the mining crews to just put band aids on. Stupid ass move. These men bust their asses underground, and frickin’ CEO’s could care less about their safety! No, they just wanna turn that damn black coal to diamonds jinglin’ around in their pockets. Hell if I ever run Simon Energy that way.

Setting the laptop in the floor, I lean back, stretching my back, sore from being hunched over in the floor for the last several hours. My brain feels cloudy, trying to process all of these facts is impossible. Why would Daddy keep all of these pictures and documents locked up in this chest? Why were they so important to him? What am I missing?

Frustrated that I can’t piece together the puzzle, I begin to gather the pictures and clippings to put everything back into the chest. The last papers that I pick up is the life insurance documents. All of Daddy’s policies were finalized at the reading of his will, so why is this one lone document locked away? Curiosity gets the best of me, so I read through the contents, trying to find the beneficiary. The policy is for the sum of five hundred thousand dollars. Upon the last page, it is written:

Beneficiary: Drew Varney

Relationship:

Chapter 12

Colton

The drive from Carly Jo’s house to home is a blur. I feel like I’m on auto pilot maneuverin’ through the curvy roads. When I get home, I walk over to Momma’s to check on Heidi Jo. She is sleepin’ peacefully, so I tuck her in tight, kissin’ her on the forehead. My little girl means the whole damn world to me. I could never imagine losing Heidi Jo. But knowing that I have an angel in heaven truly crushes my heart into thousands of tiny shards. And the knife twistin’ in my heart, is knowin’ that I’m the reason for all of this.