Katie was glad when Bertrice came in a few hours later, at least until she saw the sulk on her face.
“What’s wrong?” Katie asked.
“Nothing.” One word that said
everything, but I
’
m not discussing it with you.
“I’m sorry I missed the funeral,” she said, just in case that’s why Bertrice was sulking.
“Ben said you were sick.”
“Believe me, I would rather have been at the funeral, but I couldn’t stay more than a foot away from the bathroom all day. Must have been some kind of stomach flu. I’m still dragged out.”
Bertrice only nodded and went back to her sulk. The truth came out when they were washing one of the dogs they were boarding. Katie had given her space, assuming that Bertrice was dealing with her friends’ deaths or had had it out with her mom and wasn’t ready to share it yet.
And that’s why it was so surprising, and painful, when Bertrice said, “I thought you were my friend.”
In fact, Katie even looked behind her to see if Bertrice was talking to someone else. “I am your friend. Why would you even say such a thing?”
“You told my mom about my belly ring. Then, of course, she had to inspect me, like some farm animal, and she found the tattoo. I’m grounded until my eightieth birthday. I trusted you.”
Katie’s throat went dry at the searing disappointment in Bertrice’s eyes. “I never told her. Why would I do something like that?”
“Mom said you were concerned about my downward spiral. If you were concerned, I wish you’d just talked to me. And the only thing I’m down about is my friends.”
Katie set the shampoo bottle on the concrete floor and let the Dalmatian shake himself dry. “I’m not concerned about any downward spiral. You’re a teenager, a typical teenager. In fact, I envy you for being so typical, for having such a normal life.”
“Maybe it was that envy that made you call her then. I wasn’t even going to say anything, but I had to.”
“I’m glad you did. I never called your mother. I’ve only talked with her a couple of times and that was to tell her you were running a little late.”
“Don’t lie to me. You know, the people in town think you’re, like, such a bitch, that you don’t care about our town or anything. I’ve always said you were nice, that you weren’t anything like what they were saying.” Bertrice stood. “Maybe I was wrong.”
Katie could hardly breathe with the crushing pain in her chest. “I swear to you I never called your mom. She must have been mistaken.”
Bertrice’s pouty mouth stretched into a frown. “You’re the only one I told besides Geraldine and Dana, and they certainly didn’t tell her. I’ve thought it over and it had to be you. I can’t work with someone I can’t trust. And I really can’t work with a liar.”
She ran toward the door leading into the hospital. Katie couldn’t move; she was too stunned, too hurt to even think of following her inside. But it wouldn’t matter; the girl had made up her mind. A few minutes later, she heard Bertrice’s car tear out of the dirt parking lot.
When she finally finished drying the dog and led her inside, she felt numb. She’d just lost one of her best friends, one of her few friends. That left Silas, she realized, a man who couldn’t accept her love and who wouldn’t stay around anyway.
“She quit,” Ben said when Katie walked into the reception area. “You’re just leaving a trail of warm, fuzzy feelings lately, aren’t you?”
“It was a misunderstanding. She’ll be back.”
He continued scribbling on one of his patient files. “No, she won’t. We really don’t need the extra help anymore. I think we can make do with the two of us.” He set down the pen and looked at her. “If you’re staying around, that is.”
“Where else would I go?”
Those words brought the first smile to Ben’s face she’d seen in days.
The day of the County Fair two days later dawned hot and rain-free, as usual. The town council had considered rescheduling the fair what with the funeral and the fires moving closer to Flatlands, but everyone thought it would do the town’s spirit some good to congregate. A memorial was being set up in the girls’ honor, with a candlelight service scheduled for sundown.
Ben had once again talked Katie into doing something she didn’t have the heart to do—attend the fair with him. For appearances sake, he said. What she really wanted to do was hide under her blanket all day.
“People are doing a lot of speculating about you, about us. I think it’d be good for you to make an appearance and try to look happy with me. Maybe you can talk to Bertrice.”
Or her mother, Katie thought, deciding to go. She hadn’t mentioned Bertrice’s other comment about people saying she was a bad person. So it wasn’t her imagination after all.
She looked through her closet to find something that she’d bought for herself…something she liked. Wearing an outfit Bertrice had given her seemed inappropriate. She settled on jean shorts and one of the white man shirts she’d cut the sleeves off of.
The fair sprawled throughout the park and some of the surrounding streets as it usually did. What wasn’t usual was the pinkish gray smoke in the distance and the tiny ashes that floated through the air. The aromas of roasting hot dogs and smoked pig mingled with the smoke from the fires.
Katie hadn’t been eating much lately. Her appetite had nearly disintegrated. Every time Ben offered to make her something to eat, she remembered her bizarre suspicion that he’d poisoned the hamburgers and her stomach turned. And the emerging suspicion that he’d made her sick Sunday so she couldn’t attend the funeral. What she couldn’t figure out was his motive.
She walked beside Ben as they wandered among the tables and games. Kids threw darts at balloons, bobbed for apples, and raced around chasing each other. They were immune to the tensions hovering thicker than the smoke in the distance. Everyone wore yellow ribbons. Bertrice had gotten one for Katie before she’d quit, and she wore it on her shirt.
“Hey, Ben,” Harold said as he approached them. “Katie,” he added as he took her in without a trace of malice on his beefy face. He looked at her yellow ribbon—or maybe her chest, she wasn’t sure. “The big discussion is whether it’s in bad taste that Maurice is roasting his usual pig….in light of, well, you know. What do you think?” he asked Ben.
“I suppose he could have picked something else, like chickens. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, and it is his tradition.”
“It’s deviling that not one speck of evidence points to Silas Koole. Everybody knows he did it.” Those hard eyes settled on her. “Except you. You’re his little defender. Wonder how you’ll feel when he turns that axe on you.”
“That’s Katie’s choice,” Ben said. “She’s into making choices these days.”
“Ah, well, here’s a choice for you: would you rather be killed by someone you knew or by a stranger?”
She was startled by the question and that it was aimed at her. “I’d rather not be killed at all.”
Both men laughed, but she had the sense it was at her and not with her.
Dinah and Maybel joined them. “Hey, Ben. How’s it going?” Dinah said. Both women slid her a look of disregard. “Sure is smoky. But I think this’ll be good for everyone, getting out and socializing. Seems like all we think and talk about are those poor girls. At least we know what happened to them now, as horrible as it is. I think one person here has a lot of nerve showing up.” She sent a pointed look Katie’s way before nodding toward the water dunk tank where Silas stood talking with Bertrice. “It enrages me that he’s allowed to walk around free.”
Katie said, “There’s no evidence that he killed anyone.”
“And what are you, the president of his fan club or something?” Maybel said.
Dinah patted Ben’s arm. “Must be hard living with a traitor in the ranks. We’re here for you, you know that. We’ll see you around. We’ve got to get over to the cakewalk. It’s our turn to help out.”
It definitely wasn’t her imagination. These people despised her. Why? Her gaze went to Bertrice and Silas, who both looked over at her. Bertrice looked away and continued talking to Silas, who hadn’t shifted his gaze from her. She felt some easing of the tension inside her, and at the same time, a different kind of charge ignite in her stomach.
Bertrice’s mother, Treena, tapped her daughter on the shoulder, then pulled her away. They argued for a few seconds, with Bertrice glancing toward Silas. Of course, her mother didn’t want her to socialize with a suspected killer. Bertrice stomped off in another direction, and Katie walked over to Treena.
“There she goes,” someone muttered.
“I feel so bad for Ben.”
Katie didn’t even look to see who was talking. She glanced at Silas, but trained her gaze back to Treena, who just now realized Katie was heading in her direction. She started backing away.
“Treena, I’d like to talk to you.”
“I’ve got a booth to take care of. Some of us have to help keep this thing going, you know.”
“I just need a few minutes.” Katie followed the woman who was weaving through people. “Why does Bertrice think I told you about her belly ring?”
“Look, I’ve heard about you. You like to tattle on people. And while I’m glad I know about the ring, I wish it had been my own daughter who told me. Excuse me.”
Katie grabbed Treena’s arm to halt her escape. “I didn’t tell you about that ring. Who did?”
“Let go of me!” Treena yelled, catching everyone’s attention in the vicinity.
Katie had no choice but to release her, and Treena backed through the crowd and headed off. Those who had gathered around just stared at her.
Sheriff Tate wasn’t in uniform, but he stepped up beside Katie. “You causing trouble?”
“She was assaulting Treena!” someone shouted.
Tate’s wife shot her a venomous look from what had become an audience. This was like a nightmare. Katie swore they were closing in on her. She glanced toward Ben, who was flanked by two other women as he just stood there. She couldn’t see Silas.
“What is wrong with you people?” she said, circling around to take them all in. “How can you hate someone you don’t even know?”
“We know enough about you,” Marion said. “And we don’t like what you’re doing to Ben. You’re trash and you always have been. Possum Holler trash.”
Maybel had stepped up to the inner circle. “You’re ungrateful and selfish. Even the Emersons said you didn’t appreciate what they did for you, giving you a home after your mama killed herself. Ben has given you everything, and you spit in his face time and again. Who are you saving your babies for? A killer?”
“Look, she’s even wearing his necklace,” someone else whispered.
Katie could hardly breathe. It was as though their anger had sucked the oxygen from the air. They may as well have stabbed her in the tenderest places deep inside. How did they know so much? She pushed her way out of the crowd and walked toward the edge of the festivities.
“Hey, you’re not allowed in this area,” one man said when she stepped over the ribbon enclosing the fireworks section.
She kept on walking, right out to the streets that were nearly abandoned. Ben had been telling her for years that the people in town didn’t dislike her, that it was her own paranoid imagination. That had not been her imagination.
When she was a safe distance away, she dared a glance backward. She expected a mob to be following her, carrying pitchforks and calling for the burning of the witch. No one followed. She didn’t slow down her pace, though. Sweat poured off her as the sun burned down and danced off the asphalt. She wound through the streets and out of sight of the fair altogether. The tears were pushing to burst out, but she held them in. Fear edged in, too. God, she was that little girl all over again, with no one to love her or help her.
She heard an engine and glanced behind her. Silas’s Navigator cruised the empty streets toward her. She ducked into a small alleyway, and his engine faded away. She’d only taken a few turns through the streets when she came face to face with him.
“Why are you running from me?” he asked, exasperation lacing his voice.
“I told you I needed some time.”
He ran his fingers through his hair as he tilted his head up. “I threw a lot at you.”
“And I threw myself at you.”
“Don’t be embarrassed about that. What happened between us was the most astounding thing I’ve ever experienced.”
She met his gaze on that, hating the flutter in her stomach. “You said…it was like making love to an angel.”
“It was. It was like having your light inside me.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “I know you need some time away from me. No, I didn’t feel it,” he said when she gave him an annoyed look. “I believe the words,
‘
Leave me alone!’ were enough.”
She overcame the urge to apologize and nodded instead. “Maybe I’m a selfish person for wanting to push away the people who want to help me.”
“Not really.”
She met his gaze. “Maybe I’m selfish for wanting something I don’t have, and not wanting what I do have.”
“We’re all selfish in one way or the other. We all want things we can’t or shouldn’t have.”
“What about you, Silas? What do you want?”
“I want you…to be happy.”
She wasn’t afraid that Silas was a serial killer who fed his victims to pigs. She wasn’t even afraid—bothered, yes, but not afraid—that he could read her innermost feelings. What scared her down to the bone was that she’d found the one person who filled her soul, and he was so lost in the dark that he couldn’t see how much she loved him.
“What happened at the fair?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
“I was trying to clear up a misunderstanding. It backfired. Look, it’s no big deal. I just need to be by myself. Can you understand that?”
Stupid question. He could understand everything about her probably.
“I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
She smiled. Her protector. “I’m all right.”
She watched him walk to the corner of the building, take one last look at her, and then disappear around the corner. When she heard his engine fade away, she continued on.
She reached the quiet, coolness of the cemetery at last. Her fingers wrapped around the iron spikes that circled one section of gravestones. She felt as dead as any of these people. Even dead, they fit in more than she did. She slid down to her knees next to the fence, curled up, and closed her eyes.