Diana made a quick, instinctual grab for Kay's right arm. She gripped the old woman just above the wrist, felt the bone just beneath the papery flesh, and in the process knocked her coffee mug to the floor where it shattered.
"Don't," Kay said.
Diana looked down and saw the lighted cigarette poised above the back of her hand, the tip burning an inch above her flesh.
Diana let go.
Kay didn't rub her arm, didn't give Diana the satisfaction of thinking she had hurt her. She took another drag while the waitress returned and asked if everything was okay.
Diana looked and saw the old-timers staring at them, their faces impassive, but inside, they were no doubt thrilled to have this display of female emotion, something to chew over in the days to come.
"We're fine," Kay said, without taking her eyes off Diana. "It's a family matter."
The waitress looked them both over, then left without cleaning up the mess. When she was gone, Diana said, "You don't know anything about Rachel. You don't know anything about me."
Kay used her saucer as an ashtray and stubbed the cigarette out. "I've been waiting a long time, longer than you. I have more at stake here. Find out what happened to her, and then I'll tell you what you want to know." She scooted back from the table, gathered her purse and stood up. "Do you mind paying for the coffee?"
She didn't wait for Diana's response, and Diana wasn't sure she could have given one anyway. She sat at the table, the broken crockery and spilled coffee at her feet, and watched Kay Todd walk away.
CHAPTER THREE
Roger waited until sunset to bury the girl.
Even though he wouldn't be seen in the woods, he still waited until the sun was falling, the shadows slanting through the thick trees, elongating their shapes across the ground until it seemed they stretched for miles.
But Roger didn't want to wait too long. He had a lot of digging ahead of him.
The girl's death had been a terrible one. At first, Roger thought she was faking. She complained about the pain in her abdomen for weeks, even going so far as refusing to eat, and it put him in mind of the days when she had first come to live with him and refused to eat, a spoiled child throwing a tantrum. But her complaints didn't end. They only grew worse. She started losing weight. She vomited during the night. Her skin turned yellow, her eyes developed dark circles beneath them like someone had punched her...
Roger hadn't punched her.
He hadn't punched her since those first days, back when she cried all the time and refused to eat. He didn't like punching the girl because it only made her cry more, but eventually she stopped crying and started eating, and their life settled into a routine and it felt like he was home again.
And everything was great, for years and years, until she got sick.
And when she died, he had to take her to the woods.
His father had warned him about it. When he was a child, they hunted the woods near their house, land that had been in the family for close to two hundred years. They navigated the narrow trails, hunting deer mostly, but if need be, settling for squirrel or opossum. He cherished those times, learning at his father's side, and he looked back on them now and missed their simplicity, the clear-cut sense of belonging he felt. His dad was the boss. He did whatever his dad told him to do. And his dad told him to stay away from the clearing a mile behind their house.
"Why, Daddy?"
"Just stay away."
"There are probably deer there. Lots of them."
"There ain't nothing there," his dad said. "Nothing you ever want to see."
So he stayed away, as best he could. But when he grew older and started hunting on his own, he would find himself coming near the place, his body drawn in that direction as though by an invisible force. And that's what he remembered most of all, that sense of not having any choice.
Not having any choice at all.
*
A vehicle wouldn't work. There was no road to reach the clearing, not even one that came close enough to make driving worthwhile. And he didn't have an ATV or a tractor to use for hauling. He didn't want to haul the girl anyway, drag her along behind some vehicle like a sack of garbage. She meant something to him, and he didn't want to treat her that way. It left only one choice. He'd carry her.
It helped that he was a big guy, and she was small. With being sick and all, she'd wasted away down to nothing. He wrapped her in a sheet and flung her over his shoulder. It was like carrying a bunch of small twigs in a bag.
He grabbed a shovel with his free hand and started through the woods, down the trail that started at the back of his house.
His house.