“Tomorrow, then,” she said, stroking Bailey’s head.
I picked up the leash and gave it a slight tug. Bailey followed after me, and I never once looked back as I left the yard.
I HEARD A SOUND COMING from the yard, but I was too focused on the letter I’d just read to Cole to pay it much attention. For his part, Cole had slid to the floor and was propping himself against Ben’s chest of drawers, looking like he might pass out himself.
“How did it get here?” he asked me, pointing to the letter.
I reached into the well again and pulled out another letter. I unfolded it, saw that it was the letter Spence had written to his mother, telling her that he’d taken his life, and he was out in the field by the high school, waiting for her to come and make it look like a murder so that she could collect the insurance money.
I read it silently, my lower lip trembling before I handed it to him. He took it with shaking fingers and read it, too.
Cole let his hand holding the letter fall to his lap. “Why?” he said, as if he couldn’t really fathom any of it.
I reached into the well again and pulled up another piece of paper. Unfolding it, I saw that it was a series of letters, next to a sequence of numbers. The letters ranged from A to F, and I understood almost immediately what it was.
I showed it to Cole. “The test key,” I said.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then he opened them again and picked up the first letter from his lap. “Whose blood?” he asked.
Everything depended on the answer. We both knew that.
“Amber’s,” I told him. I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name. Lily Bennett.
I smiled sadly, and whispered, “Lily Bennett.”
The moment the words left my lips, the pressure that’d been constant in my mind for these many long weeks lifted, and that overlap of consciousness that I’d had with Amber vanished. In an instant, I was once again Lily Bennett, and only Lily Bennett.
“What are you doing here?” a voice behind us demanded.
Cole and I both jumped and turned to find Mrs. Spencer standing threateningly in the hallway.
Cole got immediately to his feet, holding tight to the letter from Spence with Amber’s blood on it. His grandmother’s gaze went to the note, then to him, then to me, then back to the letter again.
“That’s mine,” she said evenly.
“No,” I said to her, once again fueled by a burning anger for the injustice done to Amber. “It’s not. It belonged to Amber Greeley. And you killed her.”
Mrs. Spencer’s eyes narrowed. They were murderous, and very quickly I realized just how dangerous she actually was.
“I took care of Amber,” she said softly. “And I can take care of you, too, Little Miss Nosy.”
Cole stepped in front of me. His grandmother was tall, but she was no match for Cole. “No, Gram,” he said. “No, you won’t.”
“Cole, honey,” she said, wide-eyed and reaching for his hand, but he pulled it away. “This can all be fixed. No one has to know. We can make it look like an accident. She’s been having those anxiety attacks, right? We can make it look like she had another one of those while she was driving.”
I sucked in a breath and backed away a step. Was she serious?
“Lily,” Cole said firmly, keeping his gaze focused on his grandmother, “stay behind me. I’m not going to let her hurt you.”
“Think of your mother,” his grandmother said. “She benefitted from that money, too, Cole. If this comes out, we’ll both have to pay it back!”
“She won’t care,” Cole said. “And I’m really surprised you don’t know that about her, Gram.”
And then the pathetic, whimpering old woman vanished, and Mrs. Spencer stood tall as she reached behind her and pulled out a gun.
I squealed and shuffled back to the bed, but she trained the muzzle right on Cole.
“Do you know what it’s like to shoot your own flesh and blood, Cole? Because I do.” She spoke in a voice so cold, so deadly, that it frightened me more than I could say.
“I shot Ben while he was taking his last breath.” I gasped and her gaze flickered to me. “Oh, yeah,” she said, turning her attention back to Cole. “He was still alive when I got to him. And I wasn’t gonna do it, I swear I wasn’t, but then he said that whore’s name. Not mine. Hers. I didn’t even flinch when I pulled the trigger, and I loved that boy a whole hell of a lot more than I love you.”