My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(26)

Sunnie sat across the table, smiling. “It’s so strange seeing you here. I mean, I’m sorry that you are, the reason, but it’s so good. It was a nice service.”

“Thanks for being there.”

“Everything changed, didn’t it?”

Sunnie had caught Tracy in midsip of her coffee. She swallowed and set down her cup. “I’m sorry?”

“After Sarah died, everything kind of changed.”

“I guess so.”

“Though I’m still here.” Sunnie’s smile had a sad quality to it. “I’ll never leave.” She looked indecisive. Then she said, “You haven’t made it to any of the reunions.”

“Not really my thing.”

“It’s just that people ask about you, and they still talk about what happened.”

“I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, Sunnie.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. We don’t have to talk about it. Let’s talk about something else.”

But Tracy knew talking about what had happened to Sarah and its aftermath was exactly why Sunnie wanted to have coffee. It wasn’t to allow two old friends to catch up. It was for the same reason so many had come to a service for a family that had, for all intents and purposes, departed Cedar Grove twenty years earlier. And it wasn’t just because Roy Calloway had gotten the word out. The search for Sarah and the trial had given them all something to focus their attention on, but it had not brought back Sarah. It had not brought closure to Sunnie or anyone else still living in Cedar Grove, any more than it had brought closure to Tracy or her parents. Now, sitting across from a person who at one time had been someone Tracy had entrusted with her deepest teenage thoughts and secrets, Tracy couldn’t bring herself to tell Sunnie that they might be about to relive that nightmare all over again.





[page]CHAPTER 19





Tracy killed the engine and let her truck roll to a silent stop. She scanned the darkened street before exiting to the ambient light from a full moon. A year after the trial and she still searched for shadows lurking behind trees and seeping out from behind bushes. As children, Tracy and Sarah had called these unseen horrors bogeymen. Back then, they had been made-up monsters conjured by the vivid imaginations of two sisters. Now they were frighteningly real.

She climbed the porch steps and fit her key into the deadbolt. It turned with a snap that made her pause and listen for sounds inside the house. Not hearing anything, she pressed her shoulder to the door and applied pressure. The wood expanded in the winter and that had caused the door to stick in the jamb. When Tracy felt the door slide free of the threshold, she pushed the door open and stepped quietly inside.

The light came on, startling her. She dropped her keys.

“Jesus. You scared me,” she said.

Ben sat in the recliner dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. “I scared you? You’re coming home at this hour, no phone call, no note, and I scared you?”

“I meant I didn’t see you sitting there. Why were you sitting in the dark? Why do you have all your clothes on?”

“You didn’t see me because you weren’t home. Where were you, Tracy?”

“I was working.”

“At one in the morning?”

“You know what I meant; I was working on Sarah’s case.”

“What a surprise.”

“I’m tired,” she said, not wanting to get into the debate again.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She spoke over her shoulder as she walked from the room. “Yes, I did.”

“No. You told me what you were doing. I asked where you were.”

“It’s late, Ben. Let’s talk in the morning.”

“I’ll be gone in the morning.” She stepped back into the room. Ben had stood and she noticed that he was also wearing his work boots. “I’m leaving. I can’t live like this.”

She stepped toward him. “It’s not going to always be like this, Ben. I just need more time.”

“How long is it going to take, Tracy?”

“I don’t know.”

“And there lies the problem.”

“Ben—”

“I know where you were.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Move on, Tracy. That’s what people do.”

“My sister was murdered.”

“I was here, remember? I’ve been here, every single day. I sat by your side every day of the trial and I sat through the sentencing. You just haven’t noticed.”

She took a few more steps toward him. “Is that what this is about? You want my attention?”

“I’m your husband, Tracy.”

“And you should support me.”

He started for the door. “I was going to leave in the morning. My truck is packed. I think it’s better that I leave now, before either of us says something we’ll regret.”

“Ben, it’s late. Wait until the morning. We can talk this through.”

He gripped the doorknob. “What did he tell you?”

“What?”

“What did Edmund House tell you?”

He’d followed her to the prison. “I asked him about the case. I asked him about what Chief Calloway said about him confessing that he’d killed Sarah. I asked him about the jewelry.”