by Brenda Novak
“I won’t give up,” she promised. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
On the surface, her answer was the one he’d been looking for. Only there was a ferocity to “I’ll do whatever it takes” that gave him pause. He would’ve questioned Grace about it. Except he lost that thought almost the second it entered his mind. He couldn’t concentrate on anything else when Grace closed her eyes and surrendered to his touch.
She was committed to him—that was all that mattered.
He hoped.
Once Grace reached her car, she sat there, staring out at the dark farmland that stretched on either side of her. So much had changed in the last few hours. Everything had changed. And yet nothing had changed at all. She’d agreed to marry Kennedy Archer. They planned to raise a family together. But loving him still put him and his children at risk. Joe, the other Vincellis and Madeline still sought the truth. The reverend was still dead at her family’s hand—and buried in too shallow a grave.
What if the reverend’s car turned up one day. A find like that would, no doubt, lead to another search of the farm. If the police ever came back, Grace knew it would be the beginning of the end. They’d leave no stone unturned. McCormick would be running the show this time, and he wasn’t inept, like Jenkins had been before him.
She had to do something, she decided. Something to insure that the worst never happened.
Starting her car, she pulled onto the highway and headed home. Whether Clay liked it or not, it was time to give the Reverend Barker a new resting place. Getting rid of his remains was the only way to protect them all.
Joe saw Grace’s headlights swing into the drive and quickly stepped to the side of her front window, out of sight. She’d learn what was waiting for her soon enough. In the privacy of her own home. Where no one could hear if she made a fuss.
He smiled, eager to see her cowed. He couldn’t wait to make her try just about anything he could imagine.
But she didn’t come in. When the garage door rolled up, she pulled only partially inside.
He moved to another window so he could see better, but all that was visible from the house was the back end of her Beemer. He assumed she’d gotten out and left the engine running because the taillights stayed on long after the brake lights went off.
What the hell was she doing out there?
He parted the drapes and changed positions yet again, but he could no longer see her. Not until she emerged from the garage carrying something long and dark. Something that looked like—he dropped the glass he’d been holding, which shattered on the hardwood floor—a shovel!
Despite the alcohol he’d consumed, Joe’s heart began to race as she put it in her trunk. What was she doing? Considering what he’d just turned up at the lake, he could think of only one possibility. What else would motivate her to go digging in the middle of the night?
He watched her close the trunk and hurry into the garage. Her brake lights flashed, then she backed up and the door rolled down.
She was on her way.
Joe stayed at the window long enough to make sure she turned left toward the farm. Then he ran to the alley, jumped in his truck and headed out in the same direction. With any luck, he’d catch sight of her taillights within minutes, he thought. And he was right. Four minutes down the road, where Main Street merged with the highway, he saw her driving about a mile ahead of him.
He slowed down. No need to give his presence away. If he had his guess, he’d soon be able to tell the whole town exactly where they could find his uncle’s body.
Grace parked in the thicket of trees that lined the back side of Clay’s property, along the canal, and gathered up the shovel, gloves and flashlight she’d brought. She knew if Clay realized what she was up to, he’d stop her immediately. He expected her to leave everything as it was. But there was too much at stake. She had to do whatever she could to make sure her past wouldn’t eventually ruin her future—and Kennedy’s.
Clay, her mother, Molly—they deserved the chance to forget and move on. This was something she could do for all of them.
The deep croak of a toad broke the silence as she crossed the cotton fields toward the farm. The pond wasn’t far. She could hear the trickle of water as she drew closer and struggled to concentrate on that instead of the creak of the weather vane atop the barn, which shifted at unexpected moments. That creak set her teeth on edge. She could remember lying in bed the summer the reverend died, her windows open wide to catch any hint of a breeze, and hearing that sound. No matter how hard she tried not to, she’d think it was the barn door sliding open and imagine the reverend leaving his office for the night—and coming for her. Pulling the sheet up to her chin even though she was already damp with sweat, she’d stare at the darkness beyond her window until her eyes burned, or the sun finally came up.
Those memories threatened to rob her of the strength she needed to use her shovel. Stopping, she bent over to catch her breath, but then marched on. She’d made her decision. She couldn’t live in Stillwater another day knowing that proof of what had happened was right on the farm, exactly where so many people suspected it to be.
To get through this, she had to break what she was doing into very small steps. Perform one action at a time and think no further. Soon it would be over. And afterward, without the constant fear of discovery, she’d be fine. There were too many other, happier things to dwell on now.
When she reached the clearing on the other side of a copse of trees about twenty yards from the barn, she set the shovel against the trunk of a weeping willow and pulled on her gloves. This was the spot. She felt as though she could’ve found it with her eyes shut. It was far enough from the barn that Jed hadn’t been able to hear them above the radio he had blaring, but close enough that Clay didn’t have to push the wheelbarrow over too much rough terrain. Time had been an issue that night. They’d had far too little of it….
Don’t remember. Act. For Kennedy. For Teddy and Heath. For everyone I love.
Her flashlight swept over a cotton baler, a wagon, a tractor and some tractor wheels piled next to a relatively new shed. There was also a ’57 Chevy truck parked beside a plough. Because Clay wasn’t a horse lover—his only experience with horses had been with the reverend’s stallion, which had bitten him at every opportunity—he’d ripped out the stalls and used the space to restore old cars. He was working on a Thunderbird and a Mustang. She’d seen them when she and Clay had dismantled the reverend’s office, and figured this truck was either a future project or a rejected one. In any case, Grace was pretty sure it was parked right on top of the reverend’s grave. Which made sense—but also made her task more difficult.
How would she accomplish this? And how gruesome would it get? Her professional background assured her that after eighteen years, the reverend would be reduced to bones and bits of fabric. But Grace wasn’t sure she could stomach even that much. Not when she was pulling it from the ground.
Pretend you’re somewhere else. At the office in Jackson. Pretend this is no one you know, simply Exhibit A from one of the many cases you’ve worked on. One step at a time, remember? One step at a time…
Circling the vehicle, she forced open the old door, which complained loudly, and wiped away the cobwebs that suggested this truck had been sitting there for years. The keys dangled from the ignition, but the truck wouldn’t start. It was in pretty bad shape. She doubted it even had an engine.
She’d have to excavate the dirt from the side, she decided as she climbed out. But how long would that take? The sun would be up in three hours—and Clay with it.
Leaving the door of the truck ajar, because she couldn’t stand the noise of closing it, she got on her hands and knees and shined her flashlight beneath the truck. They’d buried Barker in a tattered quilt her mother had bought at a garage sale when Grace was just a baby.
She looked for any hint of that blanket, or anything else that would indicate Barker’s remains might be as easy to uncover as she’d always feared. If
she found it, she’d dig tonight. A foot of soft dirt couldn’t take too long to move. If she found nothing, she’d get an earlier start tomorrow night.
A sound brought Grace’s head up. Holding her breath, she listened.
The weather vane creaked, but she couldn’t hear anything else. Only the cicadas and the frogs.
It’s the wind. That’s all.
Flipping her hair over her shoulder to relieve the heat of it on her neck, she crouched closer to the ground and angled her light toward the back tires. She thought she saw something pink in a narrow rut. Was it part of the blanket?
Grabbing her shovel, she swung it under the truck, trying to scrape what she’d found toward her. But the snap of a twig made her freeze in midmotion. As much as she wanted to attribute that sound to an animal or the wind, she knew she wasn’t as alone as she’d assumed.
Was it Clay? She wanted to call out to him, in case he had his gun. He might well shoot first and ask questions later. But she wasn’t willing to give herself away just yet. What if he’d seen a glimmer of light and was only coming to investigate? She could still hide. If he caught her out here tonight, she’d have a much more difficult time slipping onto the property tomorrow.
Snapping off her flashlight, she shoved it beneath the truck and rolled under with it. The smell of damp leaves filled her nostrils as she lay flat on her stomach and waited. She tried not to think about the reverend in the ground directly beneath her. That invited images of a bony skeleton reaching through the dirt to pull her into his grave….
Another twig snapped as whoever it was drew closer. Grace told herself to breathe lightly and evenly. She wasn’t afraid of Clay, only of the risk that he’d catch her and make it impossible for her to do what had to be done. She couldn’t rest until she’d hidden the reverend’s remains in a place where they’d never be found.
She’d scatter his bones deep in the forests of Tennessee. Then, even if some part of him was eventually found, no one would be able to connect it to a person who’d gone missing two decades earlier in another state.
Lee Barker would finally be gone. For good. She’d be free to marry Kennedy.
But the boots that slowly approached didn’t look like Clay’s boots. They were some kind of fancy cowboy boots. Even in the dark she could tell that much, just as she knew that this person didn’t walk the way her brother walked.
Who was it?
“Gra-ace, oh, Gra-ace. Where are you, huh? I know you’re here somewhere.”
Her heart jumped into her throat. It was Joe!
“Quit playing games with me,” he said. “I have the Bible.”
She curled her fingers into fists. He couldn’t have the Bible. Kennedy had destroyed it. Kennedy had told her so himself.
“I spent the past hour or so reading some of the nice things he wrote about you. He really liked you, you know that? He doesn’t even mention Madeline, his daughter by birth.”
Grace had no idea what he could be talking about, didn’t want to think of the possibilities. Kennedy wouldn’t have given Joe the Bible. So how did he get it? And what could the reverend have written about her?
Her stomach churned.
“And look what you and your family did to him,” he went on. “You did do it, right? I saw you get the shovel from your garage. I know what you’re up to out here.”
Since leaving Kennedy’s, she’d checked her rearview mirror at least a thousand times. She would’ve taken a circuitous route, too, except there was only one way to get to the farm from town. Still, she’d seen no headlights behind her. She’d passed one small compact car at an intersection, but the driver was a woman. How had he followed her?
She wondered about all of that, but now that he was here, it didn’t matter. Even if he didn’t have the Bible, he knew about it. And she’d led him right to Barker’s remains.
She’d risked everything for one chance at happiness.
A chance she was about to lose.
The phone brought Kennedy out of a deep sleep. He was exhausted and wanted to ignore it, but he feared it might be his mother calling about his father.
Burrowing through the mess he and Grace had made of his bedding, he grabbed for the phone on the opposite nightstand. “’Lo?”
“Kennedy?”
It was a woman, but not his mother. He couldn’t place the voice.
“Yes?” He tried to get his bearings.
“It’s Sarah.”
Buzz’s wife. Raising his head, he frowned at the alarm clock. It was three-thirty in the morning. Why was Sarah calling him at this hour?
“Is everything okay with Buzz and the kids?”
“They’re fine. It’s Grace I’m worried about.”
A ball of nervous energy formed in the pit of Kennedy’s stomach. “Why are you worried about Grace?”
“Maybe it’s nothing but…”
Sarah wouldn’t have called him in the middle of the night if she really believed it was nothing. “But what?”
“I just saw her heading toward the farm.”
“The farm?” he repeated because her words didn’t make any sense. Grace hadn’t left his house that long ago. She should’ve been on her way home.
“And Joe was following her.”
Kennedy sat up and kicked the rest of the covers away. “Where were you when you saw them?”
“On the north edge of town.”
“What were you doing there?”
She sounded dejected when she answered. “Buzz and I had an argument. I left to spend the night at my mother’s.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“We’re going through a rough patch, that’s all.”
“Are you sure it was Grace you saw, Sarah?”
“Pretty sure,” she replied. “I didn’t get a good look at her face, but she’s the only one in town with that kind of BMW.”
“And Joe?”
“He was in his truck.”
“Alone?”
“From what I could tell.”
“What made you think he was following her?”
“He came barreling out of that side street by her house with his lights off. It was kinda weird.”
Kennedy’s mind raced as he tried to imagine what this was about.
“After your fight with Joe last night, I thought you might want to know. I like Joe, but lately…I don’t know, he seems a little too obsessed with Grace, if you ask me.”
Kennedy began looking for some clothes to put on. “Thanks, Sarah. Hang in there with Buzz, okay? He’s a good man.”
“I know he is,” she said. “We’ll work it out.”
Kennedy certainly hoped so. But he was more concerned with what Sarah had told him about Grace. Where was she going? And why was Joe hot on her trail?
He said his goodbyes, hung up and paused in his dressing to dial Grace’s cell.
“Hello, this is Grace Montgomery. I’m unavailable at the moment, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
At the beep, he said, “Call me immediately.” Then he sent her a text with the same message and called Joe’s cell.
“You’re up awful late tonight,” Joe said, sounding as happy as though he’d just hit the lottery.
“What’s going on?” Kennedy asked.
“What makes you think anything’s going on?”
Joe’s tone made him even more leery. “Why are you following Grace?”
“Oh…that. Boy, you do keep an eye on her, don’t you?”
“Just answer the question.”
“To be honest, I was curious to see what she was planning to do with the shovel she put in her trunk.”
Shovel? The word filled Kennedy with dread. “Stay away from her, Joe,” he warned.
“I’m not sure I like the way you’re talking to me, Kennedy,” he said. “It’s taken me a long time to realize it, but you’re an ungrateful son of a bitch, you know that?”
“Because I have a little compassion
for people who’ve already been through enough?” Kennedy said.
“Because you chose a woman like Grace over me. You know what I’m talking about. You stabbed me in the back, Kennedy.”
“That’s not true, Joe.”
“Well, you’re not the friend I thought you were. And now it’s time for the truth to come out.”
“What truth?”
“I have my uncle’s Bible. I know you’re the one who buried it.”
Kennedy’s hand tightened on the phone. “Joe, listen to me. Don’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know you can be a better man.”
“Like you?” he scoffed. “Tell me, does a better man help cover up a murder?”
“There was no murder!”
“We’ll soon see, won’t we?”
Kennedy jerked a T-shirt over his head. “How do you plan to do that?”
“It’s easy. Thanks to Grace, I know where my uncle’s buried.”
The farm. Grace had talked about the farm. And the shovel Joe had mentioned made Kennedy even more nervous. Had Grace really put a shovel in her trunk? If so, what was she going to do with it? And what would it mean to the future they’d talked about? The baby she could be carrying?
“Joe, please. Give Grace a break.”
“Hell, no. This is just the beginning, Kennedy. The police are on their way, and this time I can almost guarantee they’ll come up with the evidence they need to press charges.”
Kennedy couldn’t fasten his pants using only one hand so he left his fly open and went for his shoes. “If you’re looking for blood, go after me. But leave Grace alone.”
Joe laughed softly. “Why, when I can hurt you a lot worse the other way?” he said and hung up.
Kennedy stared down at the phone. After eighteen years of dodging and denying the accusations launched at her and her family, Grace had taken a wrong turn and the wolves were circling.
This was exactly what Kennedy had feared—that he wouldn’t be able to protect her. If the police found a body, he wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing.