Dark and Shallow Lies(92)

Hart is telling the story. But it’s like listening to an audio recording. He isn’t here.

Not really.

All that’s left is a stranger with an empty face.

“Later, he made me help move ’em. Woke me up one night real late and we took ’em out to Dempsey Fontenot’s place. Dumped ’em in the pond there, for everybody to find the next mornin’.”

“And you never told anybody?”

Hart shivers, and I remember that he’s sitting there in his boxer shorts. Soaking wet. And bleeding all over. He’s lost so much weight. He’s just skin.

And bones.

“I told one person.” He runs his fingers through those perfect curls, and I’m gutted. “I told my mama. But not till a little while later.”

Blood and brains all over the kitchen wallpaper.

“But this whole town knows,” he goes on. “Only they all wanna carry on actin’ like it was Dempsey Fontenot. ’Cause of that barrel out on the dock. And that little grave back at Keller’s Island.” Hart shakes his head and rubs at the smeared blood on his arms. “They all know what my daddy did, though. What we did.”

In the hiding place, nothing is a secret.

And everything is.

“You were four years old,” I remind him.

“He made me help carry their bodies, Greycie. Those little girls I’d played with. Dead. And me not any bigger than them.” Hart starts to look for a cigarette. Force of habit. Then he realizes he doesn’t have one. That he doesn’t even have pockets. “He didn’t need my help. He just wanted to fuck with me. That was part of the fun for him.”

“You felt them,” I say.

“I feel them,” he corrects me. “Every single day. What Ember and Orli felt, it’s stuck inside me. And what Dempsey Fontenot felt. And Aeron. What Elora felt.” He’s staring out at the river. “What your mama felt. And my mama.” He turns back to look at me. “What you felt when you thought I was a murderer. And what you’re feeling right now. That’s all part of me. I can’t shake it off.”

“Hart.” I whisper his name, and I wish I could make myself touch him. I want to. But I can’t. “Is that why you’re so ready to die?”

He shakes his head. “It’s the water that makes me wanna die.”

Evie’s wind chimes start to sing again. Real quiet at first. A soft tinkling sound. Gentle.

Hart gets up and walks out to stand on the boardwalk. And I follow him. The planks are warped. Loose. I feel them shifting under our feet.

“What about the water?” He won’t look at me now. And those wind chimes ring out louder. And louder. “Hart. What about the water?”

The air is full of ringing and clanking.

“What Mackey said.” Hart’s watching the river roll by, just like it’s a regular summer night. “Death in the water. If I’d known that, I never would have put her in the pond.”

“Oh, God.” My stomach lurches again. “You think maybe she was still alive.”

He turns back to face me, and I’m not prepared for his eyes. “She was dead, Grey. I swear she was already gone.”

“But what if she wasn’t, Hart?”

I imagine Elora. Coming to in that dark trunk as the cold water rushes in. Clawing at the wood. Choking on blood, first, and then on water.

Hart nods. Those wind chimes are so loud. It’s like they’re screaming at me.

“But what if she wasn’t.”

We stare at each other.

“What do you think happened that night?” It’s the only question left. I think about what Hart said. Elora with her skull bashed in. “Who did that to her?” Maybe it doesn’t even matter any more. But I can’t let it go. Not even now.

Suddenly the rain comes again like someone turned on a faucet. It falls in sheets that blow sideways as the wind roars back to life. The worst of Elizabeth will be coming for real now. The storm surge. We don’t have long. I grab Hart’s hands just to keep from being blown away, and he shouts something at me that I can’t understand.

“What?” I yell, and he tries again.

“Evie!” he shouts. “Fuckin’ Evie!” But that can’t be right. I must have misunderstood what he was trying to say.

Hart pulls me hard against his chest so he can shout right in my ear. “I didn’t know! I never felt it from ’er! There was so much other stuff to feel. And I was so mixed-up. But she told me, Grey! She told me the truth tonight! Back at Li’l Pass!”

I remember that scene in the trees. Hart’s hands around Evie’s neck.

And that’s when I hear it. Finally. That sound I’ve been wondering about since I heard it that first time in my bedroom, so clear it made me turn my head and look over my shoulder.

Click.

The cocking of the gun. Just behind my head. There’s so much noise. Rain and wind and the thumping of my heart. But that single metallic sound echoes louder than any of them. It’s the flipping of a light switch. Click. And everything else fades to black.

I untangle myself from Hart and turn around slowly. And she’s standing right there pointing one of Victor’s old pistols at me.

Everyone’s baby.

Evie.

That white-blonde hair is plastered to her head, and her painted-on eyes blink against the rain.