“Mama…” Brenda’s voice is small, but the word sounds like a warning.
“Mama what?” Miss Pat asks, but it’s not really a question. She frowns at Brenda, who seems frozen in her chair. We’re all frozen. But then Brenda suddenly finds her voice. She looks directly at my father.
“Just admit you were driving your damn truck and get it over with, Reed,” she says. “Everybody knows it. They’ve known it for forty-five years.”
Next to me, my father stiffens. “That’s not true,” he says.
“Oh, bullshit.” Miss Pat wears a mocking smile, and for the first time, I have the tiniest sliver of doubt about my father’s innocence.
“I was not driving that truck,” Daddy says. “I had nothing to do with whatever went on in the woods.”
Ellie doesn’t seem to hear him. Her face has gone white. She’s looking across the room at Brenda. “You were my best friend,” she says. “How could you have been part of it all?”
“Mama’s not well, Ellie,” Brenda says. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.” She rests her hand on Miss Pat’s arm, but Miss Pat snatches her arm away from her.
“I’m perfectly fine,” she says. “Sane and sober.”
“Her memory is off,” Brenda continues. She looks at Miss Pat. “You know how you are, Mama. You can’t remember where you put your glasses two seconds after you take them off.”
“You’re the one with the memory problems,” Miss Pat argues.
My father leans toward me, hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right, Kayla?” he asks softly.
I don’t answer him. I glare at Brenda. “You’re the woman who took my daughter,” I say. “You were the woman in my office who tried to scare me away from Shadow Ridge.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Brenda snarls, and I hear a bit of the gravelly voice she used in my office. “What is wrong with everybody today?”
“Seriously, Kayla.” All of Ellie’s attention is on me. “What do you mean?”
“You shot a bunch of squirrels with a pellet gun and threw them on my redbud tree.” I’m guessing now.
“That was Brenda?” My father sounds astonished. I don’t answer him. I’m too busy staring her down.
“You’re insane,” she says.
“Leave Brenda alone,” Miss Pat says. “I thought you were a nice girl, but you—”
“You went to tremendous lengths to try to prevent anyone from finding that grave,” I say to Brenda. “Why? What’s your connection to it?”
Brenda laughs. “You’re completely out of your mind,” she says. “You’re so obsessed with your ‘Shadow Ridge Estate’ that you can’t think straight.”
“You tried to scare me away,” I say. “It had to be because of Win.”
“Don’t say that name!” Miss Pat nearly shouts, and I ignore her.
“You didn’t want anyone to find him,” I say to Brenda. I’m trembling, afraid of her. She took my daughter. She told me she wanted to kill someone. What is she capable of? Yet, I can’t stop talking. “You probably were there the night everything happened, like Miss Pat said. You knew Win was buried in my yard, didn’t you?”
She glares at me, opening her mouth as though she’s about to say something, but she can’t seem to find the words, and I keep talking. I look at Ellie.
“Your uncle Byron,” I say. “Remember how he wanted to buy my lot?”
I can practically see the light bulb going off in Ellie’s brain. Her eyes fill with horror.
“Uncle Byron?” Buddy asks. “Why the hell would he want land in Shadow Ridge? He was knockin’ at death’s door for two years before he passed.”
“Byron knew the grave was there,” Daddy says quietly.
“Well, you figured it out. Congratulations.” Miss Pat slaps her hands on her thighs. “Of course Byron knew the grave was there. He should have. He’s the one who dug it.”
“Hush, Mama. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Brenda tries once more to put a hand on Miss Pat’s arm, but the old woman slaps it away.
“But Uncle Byron was at a poker game with Daddy that night.” Buddy looks perplexed. “He and Daddy took Garner to the hospital.”
At the mention of her husband, Brenda leans forward, her cheeks suddenly bright red. “They did take Garner to the hospital,” she says, “but not from our house.” She turns to look at Ellie. “Garner didn’t fall off the ladder at our house! That was a made-up story we told the hospital. He was with everybody else at the circle in the woods, ready to put an end to you and your so-called boyfriend, and you killed him!” She picks up her bottle of iced tea and throws it at Ellie. Daddy is quick to get to his feet as though he can somehow reach Ellie in time to protect her, and I suddenly realize that after all these years, all these decades and all her distrust of him, my father still cares about her.