Her stomach lurched as her eyes locked on the bloodstained carpet. She stared at it for a long while, reliving that awful night. The one she still wanted so badly to do over.
She tore her gaze away from the spot where her brother had died and fumbled in her back pocket for another cigarette. As she took a lengthy drag, something cool slithered up her back. She spun around, clapping her free hand to the small of her spine, then the base of her neck, anxiously feeling for whatever it was. But nothing was there.
Then, she realized she felt cold. Very cold.
I just need to lie down, she told herself.
“Who’s there?” a voice asked, coming from the kitchen.
Allie jumped. Stepping backward, she called out, “I live here. Who are you?”
Silence.
She grasped the metal knob of the front door. “Is someone there? Hello?”
Nothing.
She bent down and picked up a large shard of glass from the carpet and moved slowly through the living room, her pulse racing. “Hello?” she called again.
Silence.
A few minutes passed before she mustered the courage to tiptoe to the kitchen and peer around the corner.
An enormous hole had been dug in the center of the linoleum floor.
Probably where the cops had dug looking for more bodies. The rest of the floor was covered with litter: burger wrappers, discarded beer and soda cans, dirty paper towels, a pair of red panties, and a tennis shoe she didn’t recognize. Litter was also strewn across the yellow Formica counters.
But there wasn’t a soul in the room.
The screen door to the back porch was ajar.
Maybe the person got scared and bolted.
“Hello?” she called again, for good measure.
But her call was only met with more silence.
Her brother once told her that he thought that’s how it all had begun with their mother. Although she’d suffered from depression for decades, one day, out of the blue, the woman just began hearing voices . . . seeing things. The doctor diagnosed her with a series of additional mental disorders, including paranoid schizophrenia, and her condition only worsened. That’s when everything changed, he said, and the house became dangerous for everyone.
Not long after, their father left late one night for a six-pack of beer and never returned, which only made her mother’s mind deteriorate faster.
Shortly after the conversation about their mother, her brother shut her out. Allie understood now that it was probably because he’d begun hearing the voices, too. And now she—
She shook the thought from her head and walked to the back door. Just as she was about to touch the knob, she stepped into a patch of cold air.
The hair on her arms stood on end.
She took three steps backward and the air was again warm and moist.
What the—? No. I’m just so tired I’m hallucinating.
Flicking her cigarette through a shattered window, she walked down the hallway to the small bedroom in the back of the house.
Her brother’s bedroom.
CHAPTER 6
STREWN ACROSS HER brother’s musty room was more litter from either squatters or idiot kids. And they’d had a real field day with the walls. This time Allie didn’t subject herself to actually reading the graffiti.
Pieces of torn-up girlie magazines were everywhere. She knew those, though, had been her brother’s work. He had been very weird when it came to pornography. She never fully understood his obsessive hate for it, but she knew it had something to do with their mother being the town prostitute. Also, probably the late-night visits their mother sometimes made to his bedroom.
His television and CD player had been busted. She pried open the little door that housed the CDs, expecting to find it empty, but it wasn’t. She plucked out the unmarked disc that was in it and tucked it into her backpack. Then she climbed into the bed and pulled his musty army blanket on top of her.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She needed to sleep so that she could gain the energy to think again. To make sense of the big jumble of thoughts that pushed and pulled against her brain, threatening to rip it in two. But between the pain in her stomach and the ache in her heart . . . she couldn’t.
She lay there, huddled, for hours, until the sun set and the moon took up residence in the sky. Until the tree frogs began their evening songs.
Then finished those songs.
She was pretty certain that all the other sixteen-year-olds in the area had been called home and fed, and were laying in safe beds by now. That she, Allie, was the exception.
There was no one left to care whether she was safe or not. In fact, no one had ever cared whether she was at home tucked safely into bed or running the streets, making it with truck drivers just so she could survive.
No one but her brother had ever cared whether she lived or died. And several months before he died, he’d stopped.
As she finally drifted off to sleep, her mind replayed a night when she was five or six years old. It was the first time she had seen her mother drag a man’s body through the house. She still remembered the odor of death and the sickening bumping sounds the body had made as it slid from the carpet onto the linoleum, then out the back door.
It was just one of many times when she’d instinctively known to pretend she hadn’t seen anything. But sometimes her mother would still come and have “the talk” with her. During those moments, it took everything she had to not reveal that she was afraid. To convince her mother that she wouldn’t tell a soul.
Her mother had always been paranoid about the law, and rightfully so. But she and the sheriff had made a deal. He and his deputy would visit the house a couple of times a month in exchange for turning a blind eye to her career path. But when it came to the murders, she eluded them altogether. She was a very beautiful and intelligent woman. She was also incredibly crafty.
During the scariest of nights, Allie crawled into bed with her brother and together the two had listened to the savagery that happened within the house’s walls. Lying so close to him, she could feel his heart hammering inside his chest. Somehow knowing that they were going through it together helped make it easier to survive. Allie had been relieved when he finally killed their mother—and some of the madness stopped.
Since she was a little girl, all Allie ever wished for was the chance to live a normal life. To not be afraid all the time. To be normal. To be wanted and loved. But all of the pain had taken its toll on her, and now she only wished for a quick, painless escape from it all.
Whether she deserved it or not.
The memory of being attacked by a trucker hours earlier—the third of the four men who’d helped Allie get back to Louisiana—resurfaced that night in Allie’s nightmares.
“You look awful exhausted,” the trucker said, his cheeks rosy, his eyes kind. “Why don’t you crawl into my sleeper compartment and get a little shut-eye while I drive?”
Her stomach was killing her, so it had seemed like a no-brainer. But seconds after she crawled back into the cluttered area, he crawled in behind her.
She kicked and screamed as his lips ground against her face and his big, calloused hands roamed up the legs of her shorts.
“Get the hell off me!” she screamed. But he wouldn’t. Instead, he clamped a big hand over her mouth.
“You know you want it.” He grinned. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be wearin’ those sexy little booty shorts. Isn’t that what they call them nowadays?”
She managed to pull his hand away. “Get off me, you old perv!”
The word seemed to hit a nerve. He stopped and stared into her eyes. “I’m not a pervert,” he said, his eyes flashing.
“Help!” she shrieked. “Someone help me!” Someone would hear her. Someone would have to hear—
The man gripped her shoulders and shook her, knocking the air from her lungs. He threw her to the mattress and clamped his hand against her mouth again. “Yell again and I’ll kill you. We cl
ear on that?”
She nodded.
He pinned her down and kicked open her legs. She lay still, knowing it wasn’t only futile to keep fighting, it was dangerous. Maybe if she let him have his way, he wouldn’t be angry afterward and would just let her go.
She squeezed her eyes shut and made herself go limp, breathing in sour sweat and motor oil. Choking back a sob, she forced her mind to wander to some distant place. She swore to herself that if she made it out alive, she would never, ever sleep with a man again, especially for money. She’d had enough: the constant disgust she felt for herself, the attacks, the flat-out ugliness of it all.
Suddenly someone rapped loudly on the cab’s window.
The man’s eyes widened. Apparently her screams had been heard.
Cursing, the man rolled off her. She clawed her way into the front seat, then opened the door and lowered herself out of the rig. Squinting against the blaring sun, she realized several people had been drawn by her screams. Other truck drivers, random gas station customers. A woman clutching a screaming little boy. They all stood several feet from the truck, staring.
The man who had knocked on the door reached out a hand to help her to the pavement, but she dodged his touch.
A floorboard in the small bedroom creaked, drawing her from the dream. Beneath the blanket, her eyes sprang open.
Where am I? she wondered, her mind scrambling to get her bearings. Then she remembered. She was at her childhood house. In her brother’s bedroom.
And . . . she had heard something. Or else it had been the dream. Yes, probably the dream.
But she had to be sure. Reluctantly, she pushed the blanket away from her face.
A figure was looming over her.
Her heart caught in her chest and she screamed.
CHAPTER 7
ALLIE SAT, SLUMPED, in the passenger side of the Camry with her eyes squeezed shut. The portly caseworker from the Department of Children and Family Services was navigating the twisting, country roads at a terrifying speed.
The windows were down and Allie’s long, dark hair whipped around her face, stinging her cheeks. She pulled at the cotton shirt that was plastered to her skin with sweat. It was so hot and humid that her sweat even seemed to be sweating.
“You okay?” the caseworker asked.
“I’d be more okay if you’d just slow down,” Allie muttered, her eyes still clamped tight. “You drive like an idiot.”
“Oh heck, I could drive these roads blindfolded,” the woman said and continued to speed. “Sorry about the heat. My AC crapped out a couple of hours ago.”
The woman told Allie that she’d gotten very lucky. That an old woman—the “Cadillac” of foster mothers, she’d called her—was going to take her in and foster her until they could find her a “forever home.”
Obviously, the woman didn’t know her, because Allie had never been lucky. Good luck wasn’t a luxury that was in reach of girls like her.
They’d driven for ten minutes or so when the woman finally pumped the brakes and brought the car to a steady crawl. Allie opened her eyes and watched as they turned onto a smooth concrete drive that led to a sprawling ranch-style house painted a pale yellow with blue trim. The lawn was greener than any lawn she’d ever seen. It was so perfect-looking it almost looked fake.
She sunk even further into the worn vinyl seat and closed her eyes again. She knew that the second the car stopped, she should run . . . but she knew she wouldn’t. She had no fight left in her. She was hollow and weak, and all she wanted to do was curl up somewhere and sleep. She couldn’t care less what happened to her anymore.
She hadn’t cared when the deputies removed her from her childhood house. She hadn’t cared in the emergency room when they poked and prodded her and the town sheriff asked her an insane number of stupid questions about her brother and the murders. She didn’t care that she was supposedly getting a foster mother. She just didn’t care. None of it even seemed real, so why should she? All she cared about was closing her eyes for a very long time.
The car shuddered as the engine cut off. “Here we are!” the woman practically shouted. “Try not to screw this up. Some of these homes are downright scary. And let me tell you, Miss Bitty is as good as it gets. Caring, nurturing, generous. She’s God’s gift to foster kids. Like I said, you really lucked out.”
Allie opened her eyes. She gazed at the plush, well-manicured bushes that lined the front of the house, the purple hydrangeas and blood-red roses in little friendly-looking painted planter boxes that hung from the whitewashed porch.
A man pushed a lawn mower along the side of the house, while another carried a toolbox and some fencing to the backyard. Still another was sitting in a rocking chair on the far side of the wraparound porch, reading a newspaper.
The caseworker got out of the car and shouted a quick hello. Then she bent over and poked her head back into the car. “C’mon, Allie. Put on your best face and let’s go. Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”
Waiting on the porch was an old lady with long gray hair piled on top of her head. She was barefoot and wore a sleeveless top and white cotton pants. She looked harmless—certainly not the type who ate homeless teens—although Allie knew better than to stake much on appearances.
Allie mustered all her energy to drag herself out of the car.
“Well, c’mon,” the old woman prodded, smiling. She motioned for Allie to come up on the porch. “What are you waiting for?”
On leaden feet, Allie climbed the steps, taking in the clean scent of freshly mown grass. She wondered what the old woman knew about her. What the file contained that the caseworker was carrying. More importantly, why the woman would even take her in after learning about her past—because surely the people at the agency had told her all about it.
“Here she is, Miss Bitty,” the caseworker said. “This is Allie.”
The old woman leaned forward to get a closer look. “Poor dear, what happened to your face?”
Allie stared down at the porch, sweat beading on her brow.
“She was attacked while hitchhiking,” the caseworker said. “She won’t say much about it, though. Just getting that much was pulling teeth.”
The old woman frowned. “My word.”
“Well, like I mentioned on the phone, if at any point you find that she’s too difficult to handle—”
Bitty silenced the woman with a wave of her slight hand.
“It’s just that I’m afraid she’s going to be, um, a little more difficult than the others,” the caseworker said. “She isn’t too happy about being here. And she has quite the mouth on her.”
“Is that right,” Miss Bitty said. More of a statement than a question. Allie could feel the woman’s bright eyes boring into her. “Well, I’m always up for a good challenge, so I think we’ll get along just fine.”
Allie gazed past the woman and said nothing.
“Cat got your tongue, girlie? You can talk, can’t you?”
Allie bristled and reached for something nasty to say, but instead, a wave of bile flooded her throat. “Yes,” she managed weakly.
“I’m impressed,” the old woman said with a smile.
“That makes one of us,” Allie muttered, managing to hold her gaze. The old woman seemed to want to be playful, but Allie wasn’t in the mood.
“Allie!” the caseworker gasped.
The old woman’s smile broadened. “A little spitfire, I see.”
A pain shot through Allie’s raw stomach. Wincing, she clutched it, keeping her eyes locked on the porch.
Please, lady, I just want to sleep. Please, let me sleep.
The old woman frowned. “Something wrong with your stomach?”
“We just came from the emergency room. She tried to overdose on some pills,” the caseworker said. “I have her medications from the hospital.”
Bitty nodded.
“She also has a more in-depth physical scheduled . . . and the sheriff’s department wants to in
terview her again. I have all the information written down for you. Dates, times. Of course I’ll have to be present during any questioning of a minor, so if anything changes, I’ll need to be notified.”
The old woman nodded her understanding, then held out a sun-withered hand to Allie. “I’m Bitty. It’s wonderful to meet you.”
Allie glanced at Bitty’s hand but didn’t take it.
“Allie?” the caseworker prompted.
Bitty pulled her hand back and placed it on a petite hip. “I hear that you’ve had a pretty traumatic year, Allie. I’m sorry about your loss.”
“It’s none of your business,” Allie said. She wanted the words to sting, but they sounded weak. So weak Allie could barely hear them leave her mouth.
“Allie,” the caseworker warned.
“No, it’s okay. She’s come to the perfect place,” the old woman said and led them into the house.
Once inside the air-conditioned foyer, she turned to Allie. “Let’s give you the two-minute tour, then let you get some sleep. You look like hell.”
CHAPTER 8
TWENTY MINUTES LATER the caseworker was gone and Allie was alone in a bedroom that matched the exterior of the house. She sucked in the air-conditioned air, grateful to finally get some relief from the oppressive heat, and scanned her surroundings.
Next to one of the room’s two windows was a rocking chair. A big brown teddy bear sat in the middle of it, smiling dumbly at her.
She shot it a dirty look.
There was no way she was going to trust this new situation. The old woman. The nice house.
Several plants and a large bowl of sunflowers topped a bureau, along with a CD player. Allie set her backpack on the bed and fumbled for the CD that she’d found in her brother’s room. She walked across the room and stuck it in the music player.
A moment later Bob Dylan began crooning his sorrowful song, “Lay, Lady, Lay.”
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