“Listen to me,” Sam begged. “You’ve got to leave town anyway. There’s no reason to kill us, too.” She turned her head toward Hightop. “Please, just think about it. All you have to do is tie us up. Leave us somewhere they won’t find us. You’re going to have to leave town either way. You don’t want more blood on your hands.”
Sam waited for a response. They all waited.
Hightop cleared his throat before finally saying, “I’m sorry.”
Zach’s laughter had an edge of triumph.
Sam couldn’t give up. “Let my sister go.” She had to stop speaking for a moment so she could swallow the saliva in her mouth. “She’s thirteen. Just a kid.”
“Don’t look like no kid to me,” Zach said. “Got them nice high titties.”
“Shut up,” Hightop warned. “I mean it.”
Zach made a sucking noise with his teeth.
“She won’t tell anyone,” Sam had to keep trying. “She’ll say it was strangers. Won’t you, Charlie?”
“Black fella?” Zach asked. “Like the one your daddy got off for murder?”
Charlie spat out, “You mean like he got you off for showing your wiener to a bunch of little girls?”
“Charlie,” Sam begged. “Please, be quiet.”
“Let her speak,” Zach said. “I like it when they got a little fight in ’em.”
Charlie went quiet. She stayed silent as they headed into the woods.
Sam followed closely, racking her brain for an appeal that would persuade the gunmen that they didn’t have to do this. But Zach Culpepper was right. His truck back at the house changed everything.
“No,” Charlie whispered to herself. She did this all of the time, vocalizing an argument she was having in her head.
Please run, Sam silently begged. It’s okay to go without me.
“Move.” Zach shoved the shotgun into her back until Sam walked faster.
Pine needles dug into her feet. They were going deeper into the forest. The air got cooler. Sam closed her eyes, because it was pointless trying to see. She let Charlie guide her through the woods. Leaves rustled. They stepped over fallen trees, walked into a narrow stream that was probably run-off from the farm to the creek.
Run, run, run, Sam silently prayed to Charlie in her head. Please run.
“Sam …” Charlie stopped walking. Her arm gripped Sam around the waist. “There’s a shovel. A shovel.”
Sam didn’t understand. She touched her fingers to her eyelids. Dried blood had caked them shut. She pushed gently, coaxing open her eyes.
Soft moonlight cast a blue glow on the clearing in front of them. There was more than a shovel. A mound of freshly turned earth was piled beside an open hole in the ground.
One hole.
One grave.
Her vision tunneled on the gaping, black void as everything came into focus. This wasn’t a burglary, or an attempt to intimidate away a bunch of legal bills. Everyone knew that the house burning down had put the Quinns in dire financial straits. The fight with the insurance company. The eviction from the hotel. The thrift store purchases. Zachariah Culpepper had obviously assumed that Rusty was going to replenish his bank account by forcing non-paying clients to settle their bills. He wasn’t that far off. Gamma had screamed at Rusty the other night about how the twenty thousand dollars Culpepper owed them would go a long way toward making the family solvent again.
Which meant that all of this boiled down to money.
And worse, stupidity, because the outstanding bills would not have died with her father.
Sam felt the reverberations of her earlier rage. She bit her tongue so hard that blood seeped into her mouth. There was a reason Zachariah Culpepper was a lifelong con. As with all of his crimes, the plan was a bad one, poorly executed. Every single blunder had led them to this place. They had dug a grave for Rusty, but since Rusty was late because he was always late, and since today was the one day they had been allowed to skip track practice, now it was meant for Charlie and Sam.
“All right, big boy. Time for you to do your part.” Zach rested the butt of the shotgun on his hip. He pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and slapped it open with one hand. “The guns’ll be too loud. Take this. Right across the throat like you’d do with a pig.”
Hightop did not take the knife.
Zach said, “Come on, like we agreed. You do her. I’ll take care of the little one.”
Hightop still did not move. “She’s right. We don’t have to do this. The plan wasn’t ever to hurt the women. They weren’t even supposed to be here.”
“Say what now?”
Sam grabbed Charlie’s hand. They were distracted. She could run.
Hightop said, “What’s done is done. We don’t have to make it worse by killing more people. Innocent people.”
“Jesus Christ.” Zach closed the knife and shoved it back into his pocket. “We went over this in the kitchen, man. Ain’t like we gotta choice.”
“We can turn ourselves in.”
Zach gripped the shotgun. “Bull. Shit.”
“I’ll turn myself in. I’ll take the blame for everything.”
Sam pushed against Charlie, letting her know it was time to move. Charlie didn’t move. She held tight.
“The hell you will.” Zach thumped Hightop in the chest. “You think I’m gonna go down on a murder charge ’cause you grew a fucking conscience?”
Sam let go of her sister’s hand. She whispered, “Charlie, run.”
“I won’t tell,” Hightop said. “I’ll say it was me.”
“In my got-damn truck?”
Charlie tried to take Sam’s hand again. Sam pulled away, whispering, “Go.”
“Motherfucker.” Zach raised the shotgun, pointing it at Hightop’s chest. “This is what’s gonna happen, son. You’re gonna take my knife and you’re gonna slice open that bitch’s throat, or I will blow a hole in your chest the size of Texas.” He stamped his foot. “Right now.”
Hightop slung up the revolver, pointing it at Zach’s head. “We’re gonna turn ourselves in.”
“Get that fucking gun outta my face, you pansy-ass piece of shit.”
Sam nudged Charlie. She had to move. She had to get out of here. There would only be one chance. She practically begged her sister, “Go.”
Hightop said, “I’ll kill you before I kill them.”
“You ain’t got the balls to pull that trigger.”
“I’ll do it.”
Charlie still wouldn’t budge. Her teeth were chattering again.
“Run,” Sam pleaded. “You have to run.”
“Rich boy piece of shit.” Zach spat on the ground. He went to wipe his mouth, but only as a distraction. He reached out for the revolver. Hightop had anticipated the move. He backhanded the shotgun. Zach was thrown off balance. He couldn’t keep his footing. He fell back, arms flailing.
“Run!” Sam shoved her sister away. “Charlie, go!”
Charlie turned into a blur of motion. Sam started to follow, leg raised, arm bent—
Another explosion.
A flash of light from the revolver.
A sudden vibration in the air.
Sam’s head jerked so violently that her neck cracked. Her body followed in a wild twist. She spun like a top, falling into darkness the same way Alice fell into the rabbit hole.
Do you know how pretty you are?
Sam’s feet hit the ground. She felt her knees absorb the shock.
She looked down.
Her toes were spread flat against a water-soaked hardwood floor.
She looked up to find her reflection staring back from a mirror.
Inexplicably, Sam was at the farmhouse standing at the bathroom sink.
Gamma stood behind her, strong arms wrapped around Sam’s waist. Her mother looked younger, softer, in the mirror. Her eyebrow was arched up as if she’d heard something dubious. This was the woman who’d explained the difference between fission and fusion to a stranger at the grocery store. Who?
??d devised complicated scavenger hunts that took up all of their Easters.
What were the clues now?
“Tell me,” Sam asked her mother’s reflection. “Tell me what you want me to do.”