And Rex? Oh God, Rex made an inhuman noise. Wailed this wail that came from his soul.
Agonized.
Devastated.
Crushed.
It reverberated from the walls and pummeled through my senses.
I wound my arm around my stomach as if it might staunch the pain that split me from the inside.
Frankie Leigh.
I could feel my heart shredding at the same second my spirit moaned.
I should have done something, said something earlier.
My fault. All of this was my fault.
Right from the beginning. I should have stayed that first night when Janel had cut me apart. I should have stood my ground and stood up for myself. Exposed Janel for who she really was.
But I’d let her get away with her sins as if they hadn’t been committed at all.
Rex spouted a bunch of incoherent words to his mother before he ended that call, quick to dial 9-1-1. I could hear the moment the operator came on.
Rex had made another switch, pulling himself from the spiral of torment. His shoulders rolled back and determination set on his face. Refusing to allow his worst fears to happen. His voice was gritted—direct and hard—as he quickly relayed the information to the operator. Her name. The make and model of her car. Description of both her and Frankie. The last time both of them had been seen.
Then he ended the call and came striding across the room and into the hall, all power and barely contained intensity. He grabbed me by the outside of my shoulders, his voice a plea. “Stay here, Rynna. In case they come back, stay here. Have your phone ready to call 9-1-1.” He gave a gentle shake. “Okay?”
“Of course,” I told him, but the words were barely a breath. He pressed his lips to my forehead and then he was gone, the only trace of him the sound of him gunning his truck and it roaring down the street.
Silence swooped in like a cold, steely drape. Clamoring against the walls and trembling across the floors.
Ominous and foreboding.
I wrung my fingers, and my feet took the hall. Back and forth. Back and forth. Desperate to do something. Intuition promised there was no chance Janel would come back here.
My mind rolled. I couldn’t quiet it, the way images flashed and blipped, the way voices murmured as if someone were right there, whispering them in my ear.
Jenny Gunner’s words when she’d come to Pepper’s Pies.
“Don’t really know a time she lived in this town when she didn’t work for your grandma. From what I know, she started out when she was in high school.”
My mind flashed to Aaron on the street, the way he’d been peeking in the window.
“Always in Janel’s way, aren’t you?”
All of it spun and spun. Winding to a sum.
That thread of awareness finally took hold.
It’d hadn’t been by chance that Aaron was outside the diner, peering in. It wasn’t out of curiosity or the interest of an old restaurant reopening.
He’d been spying. Wondering exactly what was going on inside.
A slow chill trickled down my spine.
Freezing ice.
Cold.
It seeped into every cell. I could barely breathe. Lungs heaving around it, breaking its bindings, I fumbled for my phone. I was already racing out the door and across the street when I put it to my ear.
Rex’s phone went straight to voice mail.
“Shit,” I mumbled, trying to balance the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could unlock the door. I was jumping into the driver’s seat when the message beeped. “Please don’t be angry, but I’m going to the diner.” The words were a ramble.
I threw my SUV in reverse and backed out, quick to shift into drive. “It’s probably just a hunch, and God, the last thing I want to do is distract you, but I can’t ignore this. I need to make sure Janel isn’t there. I just . . . have this feeling, and I have to act on it. I’ll let you know if anything seems off.”
I ended the call, tossed my phone to the passenger seat, and flew. Flew through the neighborhood and onto the main street. Streetlamps blurred past, streaked in my eyes and sent my heart into overdrive. I took the three turns required to get me into the middle of town faster than I should, until I finally made the last left onto Fairview.
The entire street was shut down for the night except for the single bar on the end, and only a few exterior lights shined from the awnings of the rest of the businesses that had been closed for hours.
I slowed when I reached Pepper’s and swung into a parking spot. My headlights sprayed across the long pane of darkened windows. Glinting, blinding light reflected back.
I killed the engine, cracked the door, and stepped out. The construction site directly across from the restaurant was dark.
Vacant.
The only movement on the whole street was a foreboding breeze that blew through.
I was scared.
Terrified, really. I’d walked in this diner a million times, and never before had it evoked this type of reaction in me. But I couldn’t ignore what was screaming out from inside.
I grabbed my phone, 9-1-1 already programmed to dial, my footsteps slow and cautious as I edged around the front of my SUV and along the sidewalk that ran in front of the restaurant. Holding my breath, I slid the key into the lock and quietly nudged open the door.
Silence rained down.
Ominous and thick.
Too thick.
So thick, dread flashed across my flesh. It sent a tumble of goose bumps across my arms and tingling in my hands, awareness a prickle of needles across my neck.
I inched inside, each footstep measured as I tried to keep completely silent. I eased through the dining room, my breaths shallow and panted as I wound around the long counter and pushed open the shiny metal swinging door.
I inched forward, vigilant as I stepped into the kitchen.
A footstep crunched. A reverberation through the dense, dim air.
A footstep that wasn’t mine.
Every cell in my body seized in fear. Slowly, I attempted to slide my finger across my phone.
A swish of blonde hair flashed at the corner of my eye. Fear sped and my finger fumbled. I sucked in a breath when I heard the whoosh, felt the shift in the air, before something metal cracked against the back of my head.
Pain. So much pain. I tried to hold on to consciousness. I needed to fight. Fight for Frankie. But I could feel darkness pressing in, taking over, and everything went black.
40
Corinne Dayne – Three years ago
Anger burned through my old, brittle bones. Apprehension sank into the pit of my stomach, my veins drumming with sluggish, burdened blood, a shrinking fear that vibrated out to take hold of my already shaky, weathered hands.
I should have realized it a long time ago. There’d always been something off about that girl. But I’d been the fool that’d ignored it, thinking people were different and I didn’t have any right to make judgments about them.
But this?
I did.
When her car pulled in across the street, I moved out the door and onto my porch. For the first time in a long time, I wished I were younger. Stronger. That I didn’t do it with a limp and my body didn’t protest every step.
She pulled that sweet baby girl from the backseat and kissed the side of her head as if she weren’t wretched all the way through.
The sky had darkened to a dusky blue, the horizon holding the last vestiges of oranges and pinks as the day fully melted away. Ambling across the street, I held the evidence tight against my chest, voice shaking, no longer able to hold back the accusation. “What did you do?”
Janel’s head whipped my way. She huffed out a breath. “Corinne, I don’t have time for your nonsense ramblings today. It’s been real rough around here, with all that’s been going on at Rex’s company. Need to make him supper. He’ll be home shortly.” She turned her back on me, Frankie Leigh hooked to her hip, and started for their porch steps.
“That’s awfully convenient, isn’t it, fact that Aaron boy you were always so chummy with growing up is getting sent off to prison for doing your husband wrong? Stealing all that money. What a shame. And here you are, playing the innocent card. Guess that’s the way it’s always been, hasn’t it? Playing us for fools while you ran around manipulating everything to get your way?”
Regret slithered through my spirit. Should have known it back then, in the days when my Rynna had run away. Oh, how my girl had pined after that Aaron boy, eyes always dreamy anytime he wandered in for a piece of pie, her whole world made when she’d finally caught his eye.