That made sense. He couldn’t continue doing what he was doing once social media happened: underage kids working his orchards for free, underage kids learning to build websites and what else? She thought of the photo, the one she’d taken from the front seat of his car, and she dropped her fork. It clattered to her plate. That’s what else. Reaching back, she pulled her hair across her shoulder and began to unbraid it. Her fingers flicked through the strands, detangling as her brain forced her to remember the photo: Feena wearing only her skin...clearly underage...clearly drugged...
She swallowed, but her throat was so dry it locked. Draining her water glass, she swung her stool outward so she was facing the parking lot.
“You think there are any rooms at Charlie’s Inn?” she asked, shaking her hair out. She reached for her bag and hauled it into her lap, making eye contact with the old man. She wanted him to remember her.
“Heh!” He choked out a laugh. “They ain’t seen a no-vacancy sign since they opened. You planning on stayin’ the night?”
She studied his graying skin, the liver spots that decorated it. Why would he eat here and give his money to the man who had most likely conned him out of his restaurant? Eat his eggs, and drink his coffee? “Figured it would be easier to get a ride out come morning. You gonna tell him I’m here?”
Marvin turned away from her, back to his coffee, and picked up his novel.
“Tell him who was here?”
She tossed a twenty on the counter. “Coffee’s on me next time, Marv.” She lingered long enough to see him smile before she walked out. Marvin. It was a great cover: harmless old man pretending to be bitter over the loss of his business, waiting to call the compound and warn the gang about who was showing up in Friendship. A spy. In fact, they probably had video of Rainy in the restaurant. Her stomach dropped as she walked through the motel office’s doors and handed her card to the guy behind the desk. If Taured owned the town, of course he would want to see who came through. Marvin had already been under Taured’s control; she knew that from when she’d hidden under the truck and overheard his conversation with Sammy. He’d asked for waitresses, and Taured had told Sammy to send the sisters. God, what was your big plan in coming here, Rainy? she asked herself.
She looked out the motel’s doors. She looked like her mother; that’s why she’d thought to take her hair down to try to hide the resemblance on the camera—to use it as a curtain—but of course it had been too late. Stupid to put herself on his radar. She didn’t even have a car—she couldn’t get away quickly. She took the room key from the clerk’s hand, smiled, walked back outside into the thick air. The thought of Taured showing up to her room didn’t scare her; it was the thought of not being prepared for him that did. The room was sparse and ugly, but cleaner than she had expected. She took off her shoes and sat on the edge of the bed. She fell back onto the white coverlet and, holding her phone above her face, she texted the group.
Won’t be at dinner tonight. Got stuck doing some tourist thing. Tell you about it tomorrow.
She hit Send and dropped her phone. Would they even notice if she didn’t come back to the room later that night? She doubted it. They’d accept her text because she was the strange, independent one, anyway.
She stripped down to her underwear and crawled under the covers, naked except for her necklace and exhausted from the day—the weekend—the month. No one knows where I am, she thought as she drifted to sleep...an honest lie.
17
Then
They let her pack her mother’s personal things into two plastic milk crates they found in the kitchen. Her clothes and shoes were distributed to the remaining women, which left her with some of her mother’s books, a Bible, two old photo albums and a box of trinkets that had no meaning to Summer. She watched as the women carried off the rest, fighting over her mother’s nicest shoes, which were too big for Summer. All she took for herself was her mother’s necklace, a simple gold chain her dad had given her when they got married.
“It’s not much but it’s real,” her mother used to say. Now it was the only real, physical thing she had left of Lorraine. When she put it on for the first time, the metal had warmed instantly to her skin, but when she reached up to touch it, the gold had been cool beneath her fingertips.
“You’re getting a roommate,” Ama told her the morning after she’d seen her mother’s body in the freezer.
“You mean a cellmate,” she said. These days, Ama seemed to love delivering news she knew wouldn’t be received well. Ama ignored her and prattled on about how it wasn’t good to be alone, that people were created to need each other. Summer barely heard her as she stared at the still-full lunch tray they’d brought to the room. There was a bowl of something that looked like gravy with three biscuits beside it. She picked up the iced tea and drank it slowly so she wouldn’t have to talk.
“But first, Sara would like to visit with you and express her sorrow at your mother’s passing. She is outside.” Sara’s parents had complete faith in her loyalty to them and Taured. If she was asking to see Summer, it could only mean that their precious daughter wanted to help. But Summer knew what they didn’t: that the girl behind the stoic facade was as angry inside as she herself was. She’d decided to forgive Sara, at least for the moment; she wanted to hear what the girl had to say.
She sat up straighter, nodded.
Ama left and a moment later Sara slipped in, closing the door softly behind her. With her came the smell of laundry detergent, underscored by sweat. Her nose was red, like she’d been crying. Summer studied her friend, glad to see her, despite her earlier anger. Sara was tall and ashamed of it—she rounded her shoulders when she walked and ducked her head to make herself look smaller. When she did look you in the face, she was pretty, or at least Summer thought so.
“I’m sorry.” Sara’s voice broke. She shook her head and tried again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She stayed where she was, head bowed, her guilt so painful to look at as Summer stood up and went to her. They met in the middle, clinging to each other as they cried.
Since the day Sara had invited her to eat with her parents, they’d been friends, co-conspirators and sisters. They didn’t give much away publicly about their friendship. Sara called it keeping things professional. In front of everyone in the compound, they barely acknowledged each other, but alone in the bathroom or dorms, they’d laugh and do their best impressions of the adults. Sometimes they snuck to the kitchens after midnight when they knew everyone would be asleep and stole the baked goods set aside for breakfast. They’d end their feast in the walk-in refrigerator, drinking milk that had come from one of the compound’s cows. They’d once gone into the freezer to see how long they could make it before they got too cold. Seven minutes, she remembered.
“I have to tell you something,” Sara said, pulling away. She wouldn’t look at Summer as she sat on the edge of Lorraine’s bed and traced the roses on the bedspread with her finger, her eyes wide. She looked nervous, scared. It was unlike her.
“I heard my dad talking to him.”
Tom, as the doctor and the first to move his family into the compound, was one of the most respected men in the community other than Taured himself. It wasn’t unusual for them to have private talks. Summer had seen them walking the parameter of the compound together many times in deep conversation, the same at dinners.
Summer frowned. Whatever her friend had to say was going to be awful, she already knew it. She didn’t have words, so she wrapped her arms around her body and sank next to Sara on the bed.
“They’ve reported your mom’s death to the police and they’re coming to get her body. They had to report it. Taured is paying someone inside the Friendship police to tell him stuff, and your grandparents called the cops after you two never showed up.”
Summer reached for Sara’s hands, grasping them between her own. “Taured took me to see her body. He showed me...she had these marks between her toes that he said were track marks and that she was on drugs. He’s going to tell the police she was an addict and she overdosed. But I know she’d never do that. Drugs killed my dad and she hated them. Taured did it to her and that’s why she died.”