Girls of Brackenhill(80)

Hannah cut back and came up to the left of the house, past Lila’s, up the alley. She pulled behind the small shed in back of Lila’s and threw the car in park.

It was reckless. And probably stupid. If he found her, who knew what he’d do. She thought, briefly, about showing him the letter. What would he say? What would he think? Did he know it existed? It seemed unlikely.

Hannah eased out of the Volkswagen, shutting the door quietly behind her. She looked around—it was probable that someone was watching her from behind parted curtains. In Rockwell, watching the street was a pastime.

In back of Warren’s, on the corner of the property, sat an old outhouse. Hannah stood behind it, catching her breath, trying to organize her thoughts.

What exactly did she hope to find here? She wasn’t sure, but it felt safer, more comforting, to be standing behind an old shit house in Warren’s backyard than to go back to Brackenhill, alone, again.

The back screen door creaked open and shut. Hannah’s throat constricted, and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to become invisible. She pressed her back flush against the splintered wood. A woman’s voice. And Warren.

Not yelling, but not friendly either.

She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like “fucked too.”

If Lila came outside, even to simply take out the trash, she’d be screwed. If whoever was on Warren’s back step took ten steps to the left or right, she’d see Hannah immediately.

Instead, the woman beelined straight for the alley, and instead of turning right, toward the outhouse, she turned left, toward the street. Hannah breathed a sigh of relief, counted to ten, and leaned forward to get a clear look at who it was.

Alice.

The nurse paused and looked left, then right, before darting across West Street and turning right on Henley. From half a block away in the Rockwell quiet, Hannah could just make out the sound of a truck engine turning over.

Hannah’s heart thrummed in her throat, and she doubled back to Fae’s car, hopped in the driver’s seat, and threw the gearshift into drive. She followed the truck back up the winding road to Brackenhill, too late in the day to be tending to Stuart, staying far enough back that she dropped out of sight of the truck’s rearview around every turn.

Alice’s truck eased into the driveway before she cut the headlights. Hannah parked on the edge of the property and made the reckless decision to follow her on foot. Why had Alice come back? She never came back at night. Maybe she’d forgotten a med? But then why cut her headlights?

Midway up the driveway stood a little tower. As a child Hannah had always played in it, throwing notes and pebbles up and down with Julia. The tower contained nothing but a winding concrete staircase and a small, empty room on the second floor.

Alice glided the truck behind the tower and slowly crept out of the driver’s seat. Hannah watched her from behind a thick oak as she switched on a lantern and followed a well-worn path from the tower.

Hannah knew at once where it would lead and followed silently. She felt the creep of dread up her spine.

When the shed came into view, she ducked behind an old tractor. Alice would have the advantage of a lantern. Hannah, the idiot, hadn’t even brought a flashlight with her. However, she had the element of surprise on her side.

Something else clicked into place, then. A brown tooth.

You leave her out of this, Warren had said.

Alice slipped into the shed, and through the single two-by-two window, Hannah could see the soft lantern glow.

Hannah placed her hand on the door and slid it open.





CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Now

Alice was spreading a blanket when she was caught by surprise.

“Hannah!” Alice startled, her tone shrill. “I can explain. I was evicted yesterday. I just need a place to stay for a few days.”

“Why wouldn’t you ask to stay inside?” Hannah’s voice sounded strange, even to her own ears. Strangled.

“I didn’t want to bother you.” She lifted up her hair, twined it around her fist, and dropped it. Her long ponytail grazed her back, and Hannah could see the roots: a bright-auburn stripe around her crown.

The gesture felt intimate. She’d studied it as a newly minted teenager, thinking at the time that it was hopelessly sensual, exposing that raw curve of neck, the glimpse of pale skin.

Alice turned her head, and in the lamplight it was so obvious Hannah couldn’t believe she’d never seen it. That no one else saw it.

“You’re Ellie’s mother.”

Alice’s head whipped around; her eyes narrowed. She didn’t deny it. Her face transformed, hardening and taking on a wholly new shape: revenge personified. She dropped the blankets and from her bag extracted a hunting knife.

Hannah’s heart hammered, but her thoughts were too slow. She was too sleep deprived, too detached to assemble it all quickly in her mind. Hannah didn’t have anything to defend herself with—she hadn’t known she’d need it.

She had to buy time.

“If you’re Ellie’s mother, there’s only one reason you’re here.” Nothing about Alice being at Brackenhill was coincidental. She’d purposefully taken a job as Stuart’s nurse. Was she even a nurse? “You killed Fae.” It all seemed so glaringly obvious now. “You killed Fae because you think Fae killed Ellie.”

“Fae did kill Ellie. I heard her confess to Stuart the night she drove away.” Alice’s face contorted. “Unburdening herself. Crying about it! Ha.”