But I hadn’t met Simon. Not until that day. That terrible day when nothing went as planned. We never should’ve left the house. When will I ever listen to my gut?
“Who are you?” I ask again. Too scared to ask what he wants. My voice isn’t any louder or more like mine the second time.
“Let’s just say that I’m the boss. People work for me.” He sounds like a boss. A mean one. How did I get into the middle of this? How many people are involved? “I’m sorry things went the way they did. That’s got to be real frustrating for you. I imagine you’ve got quite the situation on your hands now. Everyone thinking your son did this. His prints all over the rock. That’s a real tough spot to be in.”
My insides tremble. I grip the phone with one hand and peek through the blinds in the living room with the other to see if there’s any movement outside. What if he’s on my property again? The moon casts eerie shadows onto the empty lawn. Is he out there watching me while we talk? Shivers shoot down my spine.
“Please leave us alone. Please. We don’t want any trouble. Please.”
He laughs. “Oh, it’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?”
“Please.”
“Please what?” He mocks me with a seductive undertone.
“Stop. Just leave us alone. We don’t want any trouble.”
“I’ll be more than happy to leave you alone. Simon too. I can make sure of that because like I said, I’m the boss, and he listens to me. I’m just going to need one thing from you. That’s all. Then I’ll go on my merry way. We all can.”
I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t. Silence stretches between us until it’s unbearable, and I blurt out the question he’s been dying for me to ask him: “What do you want?”
“What do you think I want, Mrs. Hill?” His voice a warning.
“If I knew what you wanted, don’t you think I would’ve given it to you a long time ago? Do you think we’d even be here? Just tell me what you’re doing. Tell me what you want so you can leave us alone. Please.” I quickly add as a desperate afterthought, “And don’t let Simon hurt us.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He ignores what I said about Simon and focuses on my question instead. “But since you did”—his tone shifts to brisk and businesslike as he rattles his conditions off like a list—“you give me three hundred thousand dollars, and I go away. I make sure Simon does too. We leave your family alone, and all go on with our lives pretending like this never happened.”
There it is. Everyone wants something, and it’s usually money, so I don’t know why I’m shocked at his request. “That’s crazy. I can’t give you three hundred thousand dollars. I don’t have that kind of money.”
Laughter explodes into the phone. “Oh, Genevieve, please. Darling, we both know you’re loaded. Don’t play me like that. I don’t like being played with. It makes me very angry. You want me to stay happy. Trust me.” His tone goes flat, cold.
“I don’t have money like that. People don’t have three hundred thousand dollars laying around in cash, and I can’t just roll up to the bank and take it out. It doesn’t work that way.” Hysteria coats every word. I don’t know how it works, but I know it’s not like that. My accountant handles all our money. That’s what I pay him for.
“Maybe it doesn’t usually work that way, but that’s how it’s going to work this time around. It’s very simple.” He blows his breath out. “You’re going to get me three hundred thousand dollars, and then I’m going to go away. If you don’t, I’m sending Simon to the police to tell them everything he saw.”
“Go ahead. Tell. We both know whose story they’re going to believe.” He acts like I haven’t thought this through. I’ve been through every possible scenario. Probably twice. Simon—if that’s his real name, who knows if it is, but that’s what I’m calling him, too, just to keep the two devils straight—looks like one of those creepy meth heads who hang out in the alleyway behind the Powell on Hargrove Road. His eyes are all bugged out and bulging. There’s not even any color. Just dark holes. His smile is enough to make anyone cringe. Put his face and his story up next to mine, and he doesn’t stand a chance against me. I’ve never been worried about him going to the police. I’ve always been worried about him snapping on us like he did with Annabelle. It’s the whole reason I want the police to catch him.
He laughs again. That stupid laugh. I want to reach through the phone and choke him.
“Oh, I see how it is. You still think I’m talking about the creek, don’t you?” My stomach rolls. Panic alarms ricochet through me.
“What do you mean?” My voice has lost all its power again.
“Your husband, of course. I’ll tell them all about him, sweetie.”
TWENTY-THREE
CASEY WALKER
This time Savannah beats me to Huddle House. My last session ran way over, and it took forever to get out of there. I hit traffic outside Tupelo, which didn’t help. She’s in a booth on the opposite side of the restaurant from where we sat last time, and I hurry over. She rises to greet me, but I motion for her to stay seated.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I say, sliding onto the plastic bench across from her and setting my things down next to me. Last time we were practically alone in the dining room, but it’s packed with people. It must be the fish-and-chips lunch special.
“No worries. It gave me time to study for my physics final.” A thick textbook is splayed open in front of her. The pages covered in pink and yellow highlighted passages. She’s dressed in all black again.
I instinctively reach for the coffee but shift to the water instead. I’ve already had so much caffeine today that it’s given me jitters and my stomach feels gross. She’s drinking water again too. There’s a half-full one next to her with another one waiting on deck.
“Thanks for meeting with me again. I know we could’ve talked over the phone, but I just feel like so much gets lost over the phone.” And I want to read her facial expressions and body language, but I keep that to myself. She was more than eager to meet with me a second time. I wonder if she knows that the police have officially released a statement that they have a person of interest in custody. They can’t release Mason’s name because he’s a minor, but it isn’t hard to put two and two together. “Have you talked to your mom yet today?”
She scowls. “We don’t talk.”
“Like, at all?” She made it clear they weren’t close, but I didn’t take that to mean they weren’t speaking.
“We talk at holidays, but that’s about it.” She pushes her schoolwork off to the side and leans forward, putting her hands on the table. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”
“The police released a statement that they have a person of interest in Annabelle’s murder.” I start there. We’ll work up to the next part.
“I saw that on social media this morning. I thought they were talking about Mason at first, but then they said they had them in custody, so I knew it couldn’t have been Mason because you can’t put kids like him in jail.”