Girls of Brackenhill(31)
“Then what your sister did was pretty low, even for her.”
“What does that mean?” Hannah’s nostrils flared. The anger felt like a fist on her throat.
“Well, it was no secret she was a bitch.” Reggie leaned against her, his lips to her ear. Much too close, too intimate. “But to kiss her sister’s boyfriend?”
“She didn’t know. No one knew,” Hannah said, her voice tight and garbled. She felt paralyzed by Reggie, his bulk, his smell, her innate fear of him. She gently pushed him back with her fingertips, and he took her hint. Stepped out of her space, pushed his hands into his pockets, and cocked his head. And too late, she added softly, “He wasn’t my boyfriend, anyway.”
“Right. And Wyatt didn’t tell anyone. Which is kind of . . .” He let his voice trail off. “Shitty, right?”
“I don’t know, Reggie. It was seventeen years ago. I think I’m over it by now.” Hannah faked a laugh, trying to bring some levity into the conversation. She looked at her watch pointedly.
“I wouldn’t be. I mean, how mad must you have been?” He smiled at her again, and she couldn’t help but notice how white his teeth were, how pretty he was. Like a movie star. She wondered if women still fawned over him the way all the girls had. His skin had kept the sheen of his youth. His eyes were bright green, his hair still thick and blond, his cheeks still ruddy.
“I was mad at the time, Reggie, sure. But we were sisters.” Hannah shrugged as if saying, That’s what happens.
“I wonder, though,” he said amiably, quietly, “were you mad enough to kill her?”
Hannah recoiled in horror, turned her head away from him, the tears springing to her eyes hot and quick.
“Is that what people think?” Hannah choked out.
“I don’t know what everyone else thinks. People seem to buy into the theory that your aunt went crazy. Maybe she tried to run away, and your aunt found her and snapped.” Reggie’s voice was still lazy and slow. “People snap all the time for different reasons. We see it a lot.”
“No one snapped.”
“Are you sure? I mean, who could blame you.” Reggie stepped back, letting her go, finally. He removed a toothpick from his pocket and stuck it between his teeth. “I’ll see you at the service, I assume?”
Hannah edged sideways, keeping Reggie in her peripheral view. Afraid to turn her back to him. Her car was parked right up the street. She could make out the back end, the curved taillights of her older Honda.
Did people really think she’d killed her own sister? No. This was just Reggie, screwing with her mind. Scrambling her thoughts. Trying to scare her because scaring women turned him on. He got off on the power of it. She remembered the Rockwell Fish Fry in the park. That awful, awful festival in town. Even now, when she saw fireworks, she felt vaguely sick. Reggie’s voice hot in her ear, calling her pretty. The way he’d made her feel: like one of them, but in a bad way. She needed to get away from him. Now there was nothing but repulsion. And fear.
“Oh, hey, one more thing.” He jogged up to her, keeping even with her pace, which had quickened. He reached out, grabbed her forearm. Not hard, but enough to stop her from moving. She turned to him, unease certainly written all over her face. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”
“Really? It doesn’t seem like it.” She jerked her arm away, unsure of what to do with her anger. Unsure where it came from or even if it was misdirected. Maybe she’d misread the whole exchange. Maybe Reggie was just doing his job. How could Wyatt stand him?
“A lot of strange happenings up in that castle on the hill, you know? All them missing girls years ago. Then your aunt and uncle move in, and there are more missing girls.”
“Julia ran away,” Hannah answered quickly, defensively. She said it rotely, automatically. She felt like she’d said it a million times since she’d come to Rockwell. Everyone questioning, even when they didn’t verbalize it. Wyatt, Alice, Reggie, even Huck.
“Uh-huh. I know. I’ve heard.” Reggie nodded, seemingly agreeable, his shoulders rising and falling like it was no big thing to him. Was he being Reggie the cop now? Or Reggie, the creep of a kid she used to know? “What about Ellie?”
“What about Ellie? You guys told me she ran away. Back when we were kids at the fish fry.” The words popped out of her mouth before she had time to think about it. She’d spent so much time training her mind away from that night that now, when she was an adult, whole portions of the evening were missing. Blank chunks of time. How had they gotten home? She didn’t remember.
The night Julia had run away.
“I’m just saying. In 2001, Ellie ran away. In 2002, Julia ran away. And now, seventeen years later, your aunt was running away and got herself killed.” Reggie coughed, starting to walk backward, away from Hannah, toward his truck. “You gotta wonder, that’s all. What’s everybody running from?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Then
June 2, 2002
The first day back in Rockwell was always the best day. Even that last summer, the first day felt thick with promise. The lick of anticipation sweet on their tongues, unsoured by reality. Misunderstandings had yet to happen; arguments had not yet been imagined. The impending summer loomed bright with possibilities. The idea that they had three whole months together, the pool, the castle, the grounds, the woods, the river, and now: the boys. The taste of last summer fresh on their lips like blackberries, fading fast, layered with new memories the way Uncle Stuart laid bricks.