by Danica Avery
Oh, she couldn’t shake this elated feeling today! She laughed slightly at herself and put her phone back into her purse, before she grabbed her things and got out of the car. She headed inside and this time she didn’t need help finding the things on her list. It was a short list, compared to her first trip. She hummed softly to herself as she filled a hand basket.
When she was finished, she headed to the checkout and recognized the man behind the counter. His name tag read ‘Logan’. He was the one who had been so helpful to her before.
“Hey there. You find everything alright?” Logan asked with a friendly smile.
“I did, thanks. No doors this time,” Dove replied with a grin and Logan laughed. She set her basket on the counter and started to unload the contents, which included sandpaper, wood polish, and spackle, among other things.
“Looks like you’re really putting a lot of work into something. I heard you’re fixing up ol’ Bennett Donoghue’s place?” Logan asked, before he started ringing up her things with a handheld scanner.
“Yeah. Bennett was my grandfather,” Dove explained. Logan’s eyebrows raised in surprise, then he smiled as if it was pleasant news.
“Oh yeah? I didn’t know he had any grandkids. But your grandpa, I always liked when he came around. He always had some kind of story to tell that’d get ya laughing,” Logan said with a chuckle.
Dove smiled as she listened to him. It was nice hearing about her grandpa. The more time that passed, the more guilty she felt for never making an effort to come visit him... If only she could turn back time. The guilt ate at her again now, but she wasn’t going to show that to Logan.
“I’d love to hear some of those stories sometime,” she said politely. “I wish he was still around.”
That comment brought a more serious look to Logan’s face.
“Yeah. Sorry for your loss, miss. I bet it’s hard being up there at his house.”
“Thank you. It’s hard, but it’s okay,” she replied. She gave him a smile to insist it was okay and to hopefully steer the conversation back to brighter things. The smile was forced, though. She was feeling even more guilty. It wasn’t heartbreak that had made it hard working at the house. She felt like a real bitch.
Logan gave her a sympathetic smile and he reached across the counter to pat his hand over hers. The gesture kind of startled her. In the city, someone working at a shop wouldn’t just touch you when you hardly knew them. But she saw no harm in the touch. He was only being nice. She did appreciate that.
Logan rang up her last few items and moved to start putting things into plastic bags. Silence fell over them for a moment. It was him who spoke up again.
“You don’t, uhh... You don’t have that Burley helping you with the house, do ya?” he asked, pausing with the items.
Dove furrowed her brow, cocking her head slightly, not understanding why he would ask that kind of question, or why he would word it as if that was something bad.
“Why do you ask?” she replied, and her words came out sounding more defensive than she intended. Logan met her eyes and hesitated.
“Now don’t take this the wrong way, miss, but you need to be careful about him. I wouldn’t let him around your house, if I was you.”
A flush of anger came up within her so suddenly that it caught her by surprise. Apparently she felt more protective over Burley than she even knew. She didn’t like this guy talking bad about him. Saying that her perfect man shouldn’t be let around her house.
“Excuse me? Why the hell would you say that?” she snapped.
“I’m only saying be careful,” he quickly replied. “He deserves to be sitting in a jail cell rather than hiding out in those woods. That man’s dangerous.”
Dove didn’t know what she expected Logan to say, but she was taken aback by that. Burley deserved to be in a jail cell? She knew he had supposedly done something bad. He had told her that himself. She didn’t think it mattered. She saw him for the quality person that he was. He had a good soul. But why did Logan think he was dangerous?
“Burley’s not dangerous. He’d never hurt anyone,” she said, again coming to her man’s defense.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this... but he killed a kid,” Logan said solemnly.
“What?!” she blurted out, her voice raising louder as that anger bubbled again. “He would never do something like that!”
“He did..." Logan looked nervous, but he kept talking. “It was the little Haskell boy. He weren’t but five years old. Burley killed that poor boy. He was just playing in his yard... They had to have a closed casket, it was so horrible. That Burley’s lucky he’s still a free man. He’s lucky too that nobody in town got up the guts to end his life, ‘cause you better believe there’s plenty of folk who wish they could.”
All of the color had drained out of Dove’s face as she listened to Logan. She didn’t know what to believe. Instinct told her it was a lie. It was all a lie. Burley wasn’t capable of anything like that. She knew him. He was a gentle man. He would never hurt a child!
But why would Logan make up such a horrifying story? There was no reason he would. And Burley did tell her that he had done something bad. Something he didn’t think she’d be able to forgive. Killing a little boy fit that...
Had Burley killed a little boy?
Her stomach knotted and she suddenly felt like she wanted to throw up. She turned away from Logan and hurried out of the store so fast that she nearly knocked over the man who was coming in the door at the same time. She heard Logan calling for her to wait. She had left all of her shopping. She didn’t care.
She got into her car and found that her hands were trembling. What if it was true? What if Burley was dangerous? What if she was completely wrong about him?!
16
Burley
Burley sat on the front steps of the porch attached to his house. BD was bounding around in the yard with a rope toy in his mouth. The dog shook the toy as if it were some kind of small animal he was trying to kill.
“Bring it here, boy,” Burley called to the dog. BD happily turned and trotted over to him, his head held high and his tail swaying back and forth. When the dog got close enough, Burley reached to take the toy, only BD didn’t let it go.
“Drop it,” he commanded. BD hesitated a moment, then did as he was told. He looked at Burley with his tongue hanging from his mouth. There was an excited look on his face, hope in his eyes. He focused hard on the rope toy in his master’s hand, waiting...
Burley lifted his arm and chucked the toy just as Dove’s car pulled into his driveway. BD ignored it, chasing after the toy as quickly as his paws would let him. Burley looked from the dog to the car, and he couldn’t help but notice that she had pulled into his driveway pretty fast. It was almost as if she was in a hurry.
He pushed himself to stand from the steps, brushing his hands off on his worn jeans. His hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and he was wearing a flannel shirt. This one blue and black instead of red.
“Hey,” he greeted her, when she opened her door. He had a smile on his face but it quickly faded when he noticed she looked upset. “What’s wrong?”
Dove didn’t answer him. She didn’t look at him as she climbed out of the car and pushed the door shut. Her silence was deafening. Something was definitely wrong. Had someone hurt her? Said something to her? He knew she was going into town today. What if...
“Did you do it?” She broke the silence and finally looked at him. There was pain in her eyes. Hurt. A look of betrayal.
“Dove, I...” he started.
“Did you do it?” she asked. She spoke slowly this time. Her tone was dead serious.
Burley didn’t answer her. He locked eyes with her, and he knew that look. It was the same look everyone in town had. The kind of look you gave to a criminal or a murderer. A look full of hate and disgust. Burley never wanted her to look at him that way, and now that she was, he knew she had found out the truth.
“I did...” he a
dmitted, looking away from her.
Dove was quiet. Tears swelled in her eyes. He heard the sound of her sniffling. When he finally turned his head to look at her, she was walking back to her car. Brisk steps. Her hand was covering her mouth.
“Dove, wait!” he said sharply. He walked after her, but she was already getting in her car and pulling the door shut. “Let me explain!”
The car roared to life. In an instant, she was backing out of his driveway and disappearing down the road. He watched her through the dust cloud she had created, and he felt his stomach start to shrink.
She was gone.
He stood there for a long moment. He knew this would happen. He knew he couldn’t avoid her finding out the truth. He had just hoped that maybe, maybe she would understand. Maybe she would be different from everyone else.
Could he really blame her for how she felt? He hated himself for what he had done. That little boy was dead because of him. He’d never grow old, never be able to have a career or start a family. His family had to live and suffer through his loss. They had to continue on, knowing their son was dead and buried all because of Burley Johnson.
He went into his house and slammed the door shut behind him. BD got locked outside. The dog started whining and scratching at the door. Burley ignored him. He went to the kitchen, threw open a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of whiskey.
He tore the lid from the bottle, put it to his lips and began downing the whole thing. He had lost everything when he killed that boy. Now, he had lost Dove too. For one moment, he thought he could be happy. He thought he could move on. Now he knew that was just wishful thinking. He killed that boy, and he would forever have the demons of what he had done haunting him. They would eat away at him until there was nothing left.
That was what he deserved.
With a yell, he tossed the bottle towards the fridge. It hit and shattered into tiny pieces. Glass and whiskey flew around the room. Burley turned to the table, lifting it up and shoving it over. The contents on the table landed on the floor with a loud crash, then he was leaving the kitchen.
If he lost Dove, he had lost any chance he had at redemption. What more was there without her? Once she sold the house, the horses, he was going to be out of a job. He would have nothing left. Nothing to live for.
Should he even try anymore? No one would care if he died. Everyone in town would probably rejoice. The child murderer would finally be dead. Justice would be served. Bradley Haskell would be at peace.
He went to his bedroom and pulled down a box from the top shelf of his closet. Inside it was a news clipping of the incident. Bradley’s smiling face stared up at him. Under the clipping was a gun. The gun only had one bullet.
Breathing heavy, he took the gun from the box. He held it to the side of his head. Finger on the trigger. He closed his eyes.
Then he saw her face. Dove’s face. Happy and smiling at him. She was giving him that look. That look that said she thought the world of him. That said he was a good man. Her good man.
Don’t do it, Burley...
He lowered the gun. He put it back in the box and sat down on his bed. That Dove was only a figment of his imagination. The real Dove was gone and never coming back.
He sat with his face in his hands and his heart broken into a million pieces. He would never forget what they had together. Dove came into his life and brightened it in ways he never would have imagined possible. She gave him meaning.
That didn’t happen only for him to give up now. Maybe Dove was gone, but he would hold onto what they had. He would hold onto it forever. After all, Dove was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She was the only ray of light in the sorrow that he called his life.
17
Dove
Days passed in silence. Dove had never been so lost. It was as if some part of her had been deeply severed. She was gutted by the truth. How could she have been so wrong about Burley?
That day he confirmed it, she didn’t know where she was going when she jumped back into her car. She just needed to get away from him. She needed time to think. To process. She pulled off onto the shoulder of some quiet road and tried to make sense of what she had learned.
She wanted to call Aria, to call any of her good friends, but then she didn’t want to repeat what he had done. She didn’t want to admit out loud how stupid she had been.
That first night she kissed him, he tried to stop her. He straight up told her she didn’t want to get with him. That he had done something awful. Why didn’t she just fucking ask him then what it was? Save herself all this heartache? How could he even have done it?! It was so hard to imagine her gentle giant of a man killing an innocent child. She didn’t want to imagine it. She couldn’t.
She had wanted so badly for him to say Logan was wrong. She didn’t know what to do with the truth. She had trusted Burley. She thought she knew him. She even... she even maybe loved him. Now to find out this?
She couldn’t face him. She worried he would come over, but he never did. It was as if she didn’t have a neighbor at all. She’d hear him sometimes, working at the stable, or glimpse him out the window. But she was never looking. She hadn’t even pulled up that photo on her phone, the one that warmed her heart when it was still filled with love for him.
That was the problem, though. Those feelings were still there. She found herself missing Burley, as she worked alone on the house. Then she’d get frustrated with herself. She shouldn’t miss him. He wasn’t who she thought he was. She never should’ve let herself get that attached to him in the first place. Those vandals spray painting his truck should’ve been a blazing red flag that something wasn’t right about him. That she shouldn’t get close to him.
Damn it. She was so stupid.
She let out a heavy sigh as she worked. She stood at her grandfather’s filing cabinet, going through the drawers. Most of it was related to the horses. Records of expenses and sales. Some of it was personal. Tax information going back to before she was born, utility bills, old mortgage information. She was starting to go cross-eyed going through it all.
Maybe she’d go through a few more folders then take a break for lunch. She pulled out the next one, a yellow file folder that didn’t have a label, and... what was this?
Bold letters across the top of the document read LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.
“Wait a minute..." she whispered to herself. Her grandpa didn’t have a will. That was what she had been told when a local lawyer contacted her. The estate defaulted to her because she was family and there was no will in place. So what was she looking at now?
It had her grandpa’s name on it, clear as day. It was dated about six months ago. She read further. The document stated that everything - his assets, his home, his personal belongings, his horses and business - everything was to be left to Burley Johnson.
Burley Johnson.
“Oh, no,” she said aloud. “Oh, no, no.”
Why?! Why would her grandpa leave anything to him?! Why?!
“This can’t be right.” She flipped through the legal pages, which just went on into more specifics, including legal information about the property ownership, a detailed map of the land’s boundaries, and information about Bennett Donoghue’s bank accounts. There was nothing at all about her.
Dove sunk down into a nearby chair. Maybe she shouldn’t be shocked. She hadn’t checked in with him in years. She knew she had been a terrible granddaughter. But to leave everything to Burley?! A man who had killed an innocent little boy and should be in prison?!
And what about her?
What was she going to do about this? She thought it was all hers to sell. She made plans already. She actually had an unpleasant amount of debt to her name. Living in New York City was very expensive, especially when someone was starting from the bottom, like she had.
She made more money now, after she lucked into her current job, but she was still slowly chipping away at her debt. She had pushed herself even further into that debt with all the
repairs to the house. All the money she dumped into the work would be wasted. Selling the house, the land, and all the horses was going to be her salvation. It was going to bring her out of her hole. Now this?
Her stomach soured as she stared at the crisp white paper in her hand. Obviously nobody knew about this will... If it disappeared right now, nobody would even know the difference.
Except that would be dishonest. It would be against her grandpa’s wishes. The right thing to do would be to honor the will. That was just easier said than done. She could really use the money. And the will wanted to give everything to Burley. Everything! Did he even deserve it?
Who would blame her for keeping her grandfather’s inheritance for herself?
Could she bring herself to do that...?
She stood up and folded the document in half. She needed to keep it somewhere safe until she decided what she was going to do. It was something she needed to think long and hard about.
A few days ago, she wouldn’t have even considered keeping this from Burley. Now, she wasn’t so sure. It was a decision that would literally change her life. A life that no longer had Burley in it.
18
Burley
“So when are you gonna introduce me to her?” Luka asked.
It was Thursday, delivery day, and Burley was helping him unload the groceries from his Jeep. He hadn’t spoken with Dove since the day she had confronted him.
“I’m not,” he replied. He carried two large bags in his arms towards the porch. Luka was following behind him.
“Why not?” Luka asked.
“It’s over. Me and her. She found out,” Burley explained. He pushed the door open and walked inside. His kitchen had since been cleaned up. The table was upright the way it should be, and there were no signs of broken glass on the floor.