Imogene turned to look behind her again. All she saw was the long stretch of country road, the distant rooftops of town rising in the distance over a wide hill bordered by cornfields and trees. She twisted back and looked ahead of her. She could see the Schneider barn peeking over the knoll ahead. Beyond that would be their farm. But now? The road was empty. It was only her and the voice of her sister accusing their older brother Ivan of horrible, terrible things.
But it made sense.
If what Harry had implied was true, she would hurt someone either way if Hazel had known about the plan to blow up the post office and told or didn’t tell. If she didn’t tell, civilians could be horribly affected. If she did tell . . . and if it were Ivan . . .
“Why would Ivan build a homemade bomb to destroy the post office? What’s in the post office he’d even care about?” Imogene’s questions floated away on the wind. She waited, lost in her thoughts, still paused on the side of the road. “Ivan wouldn’t do such a thing!”
Family loyalty warred against the nagging sense that Hazel’s voice might not be one hundred percent imagined. Maybe she was speaking from beyond the grave. Now. Too late to save her or the post office, but maybe now she’d found a way to speak so as to avoid any further trauma. Any more horrid mistakes that Ivan might make.
He’d know how to build a bomb.
Imogene put her hands over her ears, shaking her head back and forth as though Hazel stood next to her. “Stop it. Stop. It wasn’t Ivan!”
He’s angry. Ever since the war, he’s not the same person anymore.
“But he—” Imogene’s argument cut off as she heard a car engine behind her. She’d been so wrapped in her own world, she hadn’t heard it in the distance. Now it was directly behind her. She spun and screamed as the front bumper of a black pickup grazed her hip. The motion flung her to the ground, mixing her cry with the scraping of gravel against her arms and legs. She rolled a few times, her body tangling with grass and dirt.
The truck stopped. Imogene could hear the door open as she lay facedown, dazed. Blackness warred with her vision as she tried to lift her head. Her hip throbbed, but worse than that was the petrifying sensation of someone watching her. Someone glaring at her from the vehicle. Imogene could feel their eyes boring into her back. Hatred. Anger. She didn’t even need to look up to know they had intended to do more than simply catapult her body into the weeds.
They’d intended to kill her.
Imogene’s fingers dug into the dirt, desperately trying to shove her body upward. The world was a spinning carousel. Cornstalks just behind the ditch blurred together. She tried to roll over, but the pain in her side caused a moan to escape her lips.
She heard footsteps. The engine of another vehicle coming swift behind them. Shoes crunching on the gravel as the driver sprinted back to the truck.
Then, silence.
A door slammed.
Stones spit from the rear tires as the truck peeled away. Imogene lifted her head, trying to see the truck, its color, make note of the driver. Though her vision was blurry from tears and pain, she saw a hat pulled low over the driver’s face and nothing more. The truck was nondescript, not unlike many of the trucks she’d ridden in. Even Daddy owned a black truck like that.
A sob escaped Imogene. She tried to roll over on her other side and this time succeeded, her eyes connecting with the brilliant blue summer sky as she lay on her back. Puffy white clouds like balls of cotton mashed together floated above her.
“Genie?”
The voice came from just above and to the right of her, and the quiet rumble of a vehicle’s motor greeted her ears.
“Genie?” The voice again. Male.
She screamed.
A hand touched her shoulder.
Imogene screamed again, clawing at the offender. She’d be darned if she died without a fight. Vivid memories of Hazel’s blood spattered across the wallpaper, the bedspread, and pooled on the floor gave Imogene more energy. The pain in her hip became nonexistent as her fingers gripped the cotton of the man’s shirt.
“No!” she screamed again, the words ripping from her throat, mingling with sobs of horror and a desperate bid for her life. Her hair flew in front of her face, blinding her as she hit and scratched the man.
Large hands wrapped around her wrists, holding her away from him. His grasp was ironlike and it pinched her skin. “Genie, stop! It’s me!” The voice broke through her terror. “It’s me! Ollie!”
Imogene’s struggle weakened. She flipped her hair from her eyes and blinked several times. Her fingers were still curled into claws, ready to fight, like a cat that had been cornered. Then her eyes connected with Ollie’s, the gentle blue in them faded, matching the color of his old pair of overalls.
“What’n heck happened?” Ollie’s grip loosened on her wrists as he must have seen recognition flash in her eyes. “I saw a truck pull away, but can’t figure who was drivin’ it. Looked like your daddy’s truck.”
“It wasn’t Daddy,” Imogene mumbled. She knew that much. Daddy would never hurt her. Never. She looked down the road. There was no truck other than Ollie’s, which idled on the shoulder just beyond them.
“Someone tried to—someone hit me. They were going to kill me.” Imogene swallowed back a sob, not even attempting to hide the fact she was terrified. Not trying to cover her insecurity and fear with any façade.
Ollie released her. “Okay. Okay. Let’s get you to a doctor, and we’ll get the police.”
“No!” Imogene reared back. “No—I—Chet will be angry with me.”
Ollie reached for her, his touch gentle on her arm. “He won’t be,” Ollie reassured her like one would a child. “Genie, honey, he won’t be. Let’s get you help.”
Imogene felt the hot trails of tears running down her face. Her body began to shake, and she barely registered it in her mind when Ollie wrapped an arm around her shoulders and helped her to stand. All she recognized was his warmth and the security he provided. The way her unassuming neighbor held her against himself. It was necessity, it was need, it was familiarity that made Imogene melt into Oliver Schneider. She needed him to fight this war for her. Just today. Just this moment. For her strength had dissipated and left a chasm of fear behind.
CHAPTER 27
You’re lucky you didn’t get yourself killed.” Chet’s stern look, with his arms crossed over his chest as he stood over Imogene’s hospital bed, affirmed why she’d not wanted to tell him to begin with.
Imogene glanced at Ollie, who stood off to the side. He didn’t look as though he planned to insert himself into their sibling dispute.
Pity.
She ran her fingers across her forehead. First a mild concussion in the post office explosion, and now being hit by an automobile?
Before she could respond to Chet, the door to her room burst open and Lola hustled in, Imogene’s mother and her brother Ivan close on her heels. Imogene couldn’t help but give his face a quick study.
“Oh, sweetheart!” Mother brushed past Chet, her cool hand pressing to Imogene’s forehead as if she were sick with the flu.
“I’m okay, Momma.” She met Ivan’s eyes, searching them. Hazel’s whisper echoed in her ears.
Ivan cursed softly. But he was looking at Chet now, his arm stretched out toward Imogene. “What are you doing about this?” he demanded.
The similarities between her brothers stopped at their looks. Similar height, build, same green eyes, dark hair, and square jaws. From there, Chet’s calculating personality contrasted sharply to Ivan’s explosive one.
“If everyone would leave me be with Imogene, I’d get a statement from her,” Chet snapped.
“A statement,” Ivan growled. He flung his hands in the air. Glowering. “That’s all you do these days. Collect statements and make notes. You haven’t solved a darn thing! You’re just a paper-pusher!”
Lola covered her mouth with her hand, a shocked and awkward expression on her face. Imogene’s gaze swept to Mother, who
straightened and leveled both of her boys with a glare.
“That’s enough! Both of you!”
“He’s worthless,” Ivan spat.
“Shut your mouth,” Chet shot back.
“Boys!” Mother snapped.
“Please. Everyone, please stop.” Imogene inserted her lame attempt at calming the situation.
“Can’t even figure out who blew up the post office and murdered our sister! You’re a joke!” Ivan’s accusations hit their mark. “Now Genie? If something happens to her, it’d be your fault you know!”
Chet staggered back a step.
Mother’s quick inhalation was evidence of how fresh Hazel’s death still was.
“Stop.” Ollie’s deep command ripped through the tension. He didn’t shout, but there was authority that resonated through his one word and the stance of his body.
Lola edged closer to Imogene and reached out her hand, resting it on Imogene’s shoulder. It was nice to have that comfort. She hadn’t regained her composure to add anything to the argument one way or the other.
Ollie took a step forward, joining the small circle that had gathered around Imogene’s bed. With him at her left and Lola at her right, Imogene sucked in a deep breath, feeling her confidence beginning to seep back into her.
“This ain’t the time to solve your family squabbles.” Ollie looked between Imogene’s brothers. “Lord knows you all got pains, but throwing punches ain’t goin’ to help none.”
Imogene noticed Ivan unclench his fist. Holy Joe! She’d not observed that he was standing in a position just shy of slugging Chet.
“Now, Mrs. Grayson, Genie’s goin’ to be fine. The doc was here and they’re goin’ to release her shortly. If you an’ Ivan want to wait downstairs, you can help get her home. She’ll need to rest.” Ollie commanded the room. “Lola, I think Genie would appreciate you stayin’ with her, if that’s right fine with you, Chet? You can ask your questions then.”
Silence followed.
Chet cleared his throat.
Mother nodded, tears glistening in her eyes. She leaned over Imogene and pressed her lips to her daughter’s cheek. “Sweetheart . . .” The endearment was rife with a weepy realization. Imogene could only imagine how shaken her mother was. The threat of losing a second daughter within a two-month span had to be overwhelming.
Mother straightened and rested her hand on Ivan’s forearm. “Come, Ivan.”
Ivan hadn’t released Chet from his furious glare. His jaw clenched. Imogene assessed him. Ivan certainly wasn’t the picture of a man who had it in him to kill his own sister. Maybe his brother, but not a sister.
Imogene closed her eyes. Nothing was clear or made sense. All she knew was that someone was very unhappy with her, angry enough to want to do her harm. She’d somehow stumbled into the same web Hazel had, but worse than Hazel, Imogene didn’t know what web it was or how to even begin to free herself.
Ivan helped her out of his car. Mother hurried ahead of them into the farmhouse to prepare a place for Imogene to rest. Imogene faltered as she stared up at the house, her eyes drifting to the attic window. To Hazel’s room.
Ivan’s hand on her arm tightened. “You okay?”
“Huh?” She tore her stare from the window and met her brother’s eyes. “Oh. Yeah. Swell. I’m swell.”
“Best get you inside before Mother has a fit.”
“Seems like you’re the one who’s been having fits.” Imogene spoke before weighing her words more carefully. It wasn’t that she was frightened of Ivan, and yet that nagging suspicion played louder in her mind.
“Chet’s an idiot,” Ivan muttered.
“Well, you didn’t have to snap your cap at him,” Imogene said.
“No matter. He’ll just pass the buck anyway. Sheriff’s got him workin’ this or that, and he ain’t found no evidence one way or the other. He likes to grandstand with that uniform of his and parade around actin’ like he’s the bee’s knees.”
“That’s unfair.” Imogene frowned. She recalculated what Chet had done to solve Hazel’s case, and she couldn’t think of much. He’d shared next to nothing with them. So maybe the question was more about what Chet hadn’t done.
“Is it?” Ivan scowled.
“Do you have any theories?” She might as well just ask. It was what she’d do anyway, even if she didn’t have that niggling warning in the back of her mind not to press her brother too hard—not to anger him.
“Theories?” Ivan gave her a quick glance. They hadn’t moved from their position by his car. “Nah. I got nothin’.”
“I need to show you something.” She didn’t know why she said it, but she did. Maybe she wanted to see Ivan’s reaction to it. Maybe a part of her thought Ivan might take her more seriously than Chet was. Regardless, Imogene motioned to the barn, and Ivan assisted her as she limped toward the open doors.
In a few minutes, they were in the stall. Hazel’s paint supplies and miniatures spread across the table she’d erected. The dollhouse stared at them from the back of the stall. What appeared to be a child’s plaything carried with its gaping front an ominous air.
“Hazel’s dollhouse?” Ivan looked at Imogene, a question in his voice. “I’ve seen it before. She used to work on it out here all the time.”
“I know.” Imogene limped toward it, tugging on her brother’s sleeve. “But I’ve added to it.”
Ivan frowned, moving forward until they both stopped directly in front of the miniature house. His scowl deepened as he bent over it, taking a long hard look at the changes Imogene had added.
“Are you playin’ some kinda sick joke, Genie?” His whisper was hoarse as his eyes skimmed the attic crime scene she’d been re-creating in the evenings when she wasn’t at the powder plant.
“We gotta remember, Ivan. There’re clues here. There must be! I know the police took photographs, but they won’t let me see them.”
“But to re-create it in a dollhouse—Hazel’s dollhouse?” Ivan furrowed his brow. “I don’t see what starin’ at it in miniature is going to do, except traumatize you.”
Imogene heaved a sigh. She didn’t know any other way to draw the picture for Ivan. “Don’t you remember? Those times during the war? When something awful happened?”
Ivan’s expression went blank. He averted his eyes from Imogene and locked them on the attic bedroom scene, scanning the painted-on blood that dotted the wall in tiny pinpricks and stained the edges of the bedspread on the model bed.
“’Course I do,” he muttered gruffly.
“I remember what it looked like—when I found—when I found Hazel. I’ve gotta get it out of me, Ivan. I’ve gotta put it here so I can study it. Maybe see things that we missed, or that will help us understand what happened. I promised her I’d not rest until we found who did this to her.”
“So you don’t trust Chet to figure it out either?” Ivan asked.
Imogene was starting to regret how she’d approached this with Ivan. “It’s not that I don’t trust Chet . . .” Her voice waned. Hazel’s death was going to destroy their family if Imogene wasn’t careful. She shouldn’t plant needless doubts in anyone’s mind. Let herself be haunted by rude suspicions and disloyal thoughts. It’d do no good to inspire the same in either Ivan or Chet. “I just can’t wait for Chet.”
Ivan’s jaw worked back and forth. He rammed his hands into his trouser pockets. Finally, he turned to her and said, “Genie, this is dangerous.”
“How so?” she challenged.
Ivan’s cheek muscle jumped. “Oh, c’mon! Use your noggin! Someone tried to hurt you today. Someone already killed Hazel. I don’t think anyone’s safe right now, what with the post office explosion and all. Whatever’s goin’ on, you best not put yourself in the middle of it.”
“I’m just trying to find justice for Hazel.”
“Justice?” Ivan scoffed, his face darkening. “There ain’t no justice. Trust me. Justice is never served up when it should be.” There was more to his words. Stories Imo
gene knew he was never going to share. They were locked in his war vault of memories.
“I promised Hazel.” Imogene pointed to the small bedside table. “That frame there. I can’t make out what was in it. And the replica is too tiny to be detailed enough.”
“So?”
“Do you remember it?” Imogene caught her lower lip between her teeth in hope.
Ivan rolled his eyes and slapped his hand against his leg. “I don’t know! I never went in her room, Genie! Now leave it alone!” He spun and stalked toward the door of the stall, bracing his hand against the frame. Ivan spoke over his shoulder, and when he did, his voice adopted a dark tone. Imogene recognized it as barely concealed temper. The kind that often brewed deep like the calm before a storm. “I’m tellin’ ya, Genie. Stay outta it.”
“I can’t.” Imogene held on to the table as her hip throbbed. She caught Ivan’s stare and refused to look away. She dared him with her eyes to tell her the truth. Tell her everything he knew, suspected, or needed to confess.
Instead, he growled at her. “It’s safer that way.”
He marched out of the stall. Imogene heard his foot connect with a metal bucket, sending it flying across the barn and slamming into a wall. A cow mooed from below them in the yard. Ivan swore at it, shouting with a curse that stung Imogene’s ear. It mooed again as if to taunt her brother. Ivan’s intense yell in return chilled Imogene to her core.
“Want me to beat you? Bash your head in with a shovel? Stupid animal!”
Then all was silent, Ivan having stormed from the barn and yard. Imogene sank to the floor, tendering her hip. Every muscle in her body shook. Every part of her ached. Every ounce of her insides wanted to curl into a ball and pretend it all away. But she couldn’t.
Imogene reached up to Hazel’s table and grasped a small doll. It was wearing a shirtdress not unlike what Hazel had worn the night of her death. It was time to place the body in the crime scene, to remember every part of Hazel. No matter what Chet said. No matter how enraged Ivan became. Imogene had made Hazel a promise, and she loved her sister too much to break it.
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