“My mother wouldn’t kill Jenny … and Jack wouldn’t kill his own mother,” I moaned, staring at the evidence right in front of me. Mom told me … said she might be going away for a while … was she trying to warn me that she might one day be arrested for killing Jenny? Or was she telling me she planned to leave town for good…?
“There was an incident when your mom arrived home from work that day; Jenny was there waiting when she pulled in. She followed your mom inside, making chit chat, and then announced that Jack had raped her. Said she was going to the cops and there was nothing anyone could do to stop her. Jack was upstairs asleep, you see … my sweet boy. He never even knew about the confrontation.”
This isn’t real. This isn’t real. Please tell me this isn’t real.
Lane continued, “And your mother … well, she was boiling water for noodles when she told her. And your mama, always so impulsive, she was … she freaked. Tossed that pot of boiling water right at her. She had to finish the job after that … you know, there was no coming back after…”
Crime scene photos flashed before my eyes. Those burn marks on Jenny’s face… I imagined her holding up her hands to protect herself, boiling hot water striking her hands and cheeks…
“Your mama did it for Jack. That girl would have ruined his life, Natalie. She killed her there, you know. After the burns, Jenny tried to run. But your mama chased her. Ended up right out there in the barn with a kitchen knife…she choked and stabbed her to death. Didn’t know how else to stop her! And after she realized what’d she done, she used a wheelbarrow to push her. Left that stupid girl in the middle of the field. That girl never should have told lies … if Jenny wasn’t lying about your brother, then she never would have died … she backed your mama into a corner. ”
“But Chrissy…” I said, mind spinning as I tried to imagine my mother in the dark, pushing a dead girl’s body through the field. The mother I knew could never do that … could she?!
Lane was still talking. “Oh, don’t feel sorry for that stupid Chrissy bitch either … that girl was dumb enough to admit to it. And your mother snuck in and planted the shoes for good measure; for once she had some brains about her. She didn’t like those two together. Your brother was too good for a Cornwall. Let’s face it. Being a Cornwall, she was probably headed to jail anyway. Your mama just put her on the fast track there. Honestly, when your parents told me what happened, and explained that your mother was protecting Jack … well, that was the first time I actually respected your mother. At least she protected her own. That’s a mother’s job, you know. Or, I guess you wouldn’t know that, would you?”
Now that Lane was talking, all I wanted to do was make her shut the hell up.
“My sweet Jack … he had no idea your mother killed her. Like everyone else in town, he believed it was his little trashy girlfriend that did it. And I sure as hell wasn’t planning to tell him, or anyone else for that matter. I would have taken that secret to my grave, just like your daddy did. But it was your mama herself who told him. Chrissy had been convicted and she was off the hook. But your mother finally admitted the truth to Jack, thinking your brother would be grateful that she protected him from a rape charge. But he was still hung up on that girl … the men in our family don’t pick them well, do they? I don’t think Jack meant to kill your mother … he was just so shocked, and angry. And pissed at your mama for letting Chrissy go down for the crime. When I heard he killed himself on the anniversary of your mother’s death, it ate me up with grief … he should have just moved on like it never happened. But I guess, in the end, he had that weakness in him, just like you and your mother. He always was a pure, kind soul…”
My mother never left me. She never left…
In my mind, I rewound the clock … seeing her face, the worried look in her eye leading up to those days before she “left”. She thought she was going somewhere … jail, possibly. But she never expected my brother to kill her. My mother’s been dead since I was fourteen. All this time, she’s been here … right here … under my feet. I felt her … I never stopped feeling her presence here on the farm.
The barn was spinning, the shadows playing tricks on my eyes … the phone fell to the barn floor with a shattering thud.
I stumbled around several steps, then fell to my knees. Somewhere in the distance, I could still hear Lane’s croaky voice, trying to shout to me through the phone … but all I could see was my mother stuffed in that hellish trunk…
I forced myself back on my feet and barreled through the heavy barn doors.
In the marshy field, I stared up at the sky as a tunnel of rain hammered down on me. Lightning cracked the sky, thunder rocking the ground.
I screamed at no one and everyone, the rattling horror in my voice echoing through the empty field and bouncing back and forth through the trees … spreading like a storm through the entire town of Austin.
Chapter Thirty-Three
They say that the truth will set you
