“Quiet!” she snaps back. “Won’t no good come of it. You’ve done quite enough already.” And as she inclines her head my direction, I notice the brass chain to the bone-tooth key back around her neck. Probably knows what I’ve been up to if she realizes which recipe I stole. What do I care? Not like she’d go out of her way to help with the sheriff, anyway.
Anger penetrates my chest. Stuffs itself under my bones. Pries beneath the very core of me. I push past Grandmama and the other deputies on the porch and escape inside the house.
Raelean rushes behind to follow me inside. “Sweetie, maybe you should just—”
“Go home.” I swivel around, hard and fast. Shock widens her eyes until they frown with hurt. I clamp down on the rage that’s bubbling inside me, realizing I shouldn’t have swung it at her. But right now I can barely breathe, much less carry on a conversation. I gather the last bit of kindness left in me. “I appreciate you, I truly do. I just need a little...a little bit of breathing room.”
God love her, her eyes soften with that unspoken understanding. She reaches out and gently squeezes my hand. “You call me later.”
I nod. The screen door quietly claps shut behind her.
Water trickles from the kitchen faucet as I fill a glass. I down it, then another. Neither extinguishes the anger, the frustration, the sadness, the everything that’s eating me up right now.
I take a little bit of comfort in knowing the most damning evidence is back at Raelean’s—the perfume bottle.
I reach for the faucet to fill a third glass when I notice what’s missing from the kitchen windowsill. There’s a spot now, void of dust where the familiar recipe box usually sits. There are plenty of recipes in there that can incriminate both of us, and for more than just Stone Rutledge’s death.
Frantic, I scan the counter. Comb the kitchen shelves. Ransack the cabinets. Everywhere I search, I come up with nothing.
It’s gone.
A half second of confusion muddles my thoughts. Why on earth would Grandmama hide the recipe box—to protect me?
I huff a laugh to myself. She wouldn’t. She’s protecting herself.
A squeak from the unoiled screen door turns me around. Grandmama shuffles inside the house. Her age and stature makes her seem frail and innocent, you wouldn’t suspect she could even kill a fly.
“Are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to?” Her voice a heavy ragged thing that scrapes the earth. That definitive note of blame always lingers in her tone. It points its ugly dog finger at me, as if everything is my fault. “Or do I have to ask you twice?”
Her scornful blind eyes stare right at me. That hardened heart of hers is always looking for a reason to cut me down. I want to drill her with all the questions I have, but now ain’t the time; not with the law as thick as they are out front. There is no doubt in my mind that if they pressure her in any way, she would turn me over, if it meant saving her own ass. That recipe box she would swear on the Bible was mine.
“I don’t know where you’ve hidden the recipe box—” I drop my voice threateningly low “—but if you think for one second I won’t tell the sheriff how you’ve used my Sin Eater Oil, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Grandmama’s face slips smooth, almost ashen, as her mind registers what I’m saying. Her cloudy eyes dart straight to the windowsill, where the box should be sitting. For her ailing eyes, it’s a rectangle of light. The black square that usually sits there is gone.
Her gnarled arthritic knuckles clutch the brass chain of her bone-tooth key like a fretting priest holding his rosary. She’s scared. Holy shit, she’s scared.
I ease back against the kitchen sink, realizing it’s not Grandmama who’s hidden the recipes. The only other person who’s ever in this house is—
Out front, I see Bone Layer has returned and more deputies have arrived as well. That asshole has gone and hidden it to protect her.
I storm out into the backyard to confront Bone. The rain less angry than it was a bit ago, but still stubborn about sticking around.
“Excuse me, Deputy,” I say to the officer who waits on the tiny porch of the smokehouse with Bone’s shotgun in hand. The officer doesn’t stop me as I burst into Bone Layer’s sleeping quarters.
He looks up from putting on his church coat.
I don’t remember the last time I came into Bone Layer’s room—years, maybe. Only six shirts hang in a single rusty red armoire, a piece of furniture that’s older than him and me. Made from Appalachian pine and painted with homemade milk paint tinted with red clay. Folded on a shelf are four pairs of work pants and a couple of undershirts. A single oil lamp rests next to his bed, along with his Bible. A pitcher and water basin for washing up nestle on a table next to the small woodburning stove. Just the bare minimum of life’s necessities. No modern amenities. Doesn’t have to be that way. He chooses this life. This is Bone’s own personal atonement, but for what, I don’t know.
“Nice of you to join us,” I smart off. Then, remembering my purpose, I add, “Where have you hidden it?” through gritted teeth. He knows what I’m talking about, too. I can see it in his eyes.
Usual Bone Layer–style, he doesn’t say a word. He just sits down on his tiny bed, the covers stripped from the thin mattress and folded up as if they won’t be used for a while. He swaps out his work boots for his church boots. The difference: scuffed versus not.
Bone Layer seems ageless at times, but now that I’m getting a good look at him, crow’s-feet are scratched around his eyes. Gray peppers the fluffy tufts of his sideburns. Even his leathery hands are hardened and wrinkled from years of manual labor.
“Where are you going?” I ask at the sight of a small duffel bag sitting on the floor.
“Bone, you ready?” the deputy waiting outside the door asks.
Bone Layer nods, then his dark eyes turn to me. “I promised your mother I’d do anything to protect you” is all he says. These simple words knock me back a step. He walks out onto the porch of his one-room smokehouse and places his hands behind his back.
“Jonesy Elijah Hayworth,” the deputy says, calling out Bone Layer’s full name. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...”
“Wait? What’s happening?” I ask Oscar, though I’m not sure when he arrived.
Another deputy interrupts us. “Coroner thinks it could be the same poison. Take the pine box, too? It’s not rotted,” he says to Oscar, who nods yes.
“And have the boys search the premises and collect anything that could be considered poisonous. Bag and tag everything.”
The sheriff instructs them to load the coffin into the coroner’s van. They haul Bone to the deputy’s car, where he’s placed in the back. People are searching through things and taking stuff—our things.
Oscar rests a hand on my arm to refocus my attention on him. “Bone came into the station after they arrived to dig up your grandfather,” Oscar says, then pauses to make sure I’m listening. “We have two bodies...infants.” So they did find them—and that’s how Gabby got the blankets, they must have been left behind. “They have the same marks from the black poison that killed Stone Rutledge. Same as your grandfather. Bone Layer claims he buried those infants. We suspect these aren’t the only victims he’s poisoned.”
“He didn’t kill them!” I blurt, even though the truth wouldn’t be any easier to explain.
“He hasn’t denied it, either, Weatherly.”
“What’s Papaw got to do with any of this? You trying to pin his death on Bone Layer, too? Bone Layer loved my Papaw more than anyone. You know that. He would never have poisoned him. Besides, the coroner already determined sepsis killed Papaw. Are we just inventing crimes now?” Desperation and guilt thin my voice. Tell him, tell him the truth about the babies! Fear locks my mouth shut.
