The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - By Joshilyn Jackson Page 0,95

suitcase, but that other one didn’t. It looked like she had a bag of trash, except she put it in the car.”

“That is her suit— Wait,” said Laurel. “What car?”

“An ugly car,” Trish said. “A car I wouldn’t let my kids lean on, much less ride in, but Shelby threw her case in the trunk and jumped into the backseat. The woman driving and your little cousin thing seemed like a matched set, so I didn’t think twice about it.”

“You have to be kidding me,” said Thalia.

“What did the car look like?” Laurel said.

“It was this boxy sedan, mostly red,” Trish said. “But the bottom was rusted out, and the driver’s-side door was a completely different color.”

“Blue,” Laurel said, and she didn’t need Trish’s curt nod to confirm it.

“What does it mean?” David asked Laurel.

“That’s Sissi Clemmens’s car,” said Thalia. “Everybody’s favorite meth head came and picked up Bet and Shelby.”

“DeLop,” Laurel said. Her every bone felt brittle and cold, as if they’d been flash-frozen. Even so, her body was already moving, grabbing Thalia, pulling her back across the room, and herding David out the door ahead of them, hurrying them toward the stairs, the front door, the car, the highway, her daughter. “Shelby’s headed for DeLop.”

CHAPTER 17

The phone at Sissi Clemmens’s place rang for the fifteenth time, and Laurel snapped her cell phone shut. She wished she were driving. Every red light, every pedestrian, every poky Honda Civic waffling its slow way into a turn lane was a personal affront. Behind her, David was back on the phone with the police dispatcher, answering questions in a low, deliberate voice.

All the pieces were falling into place, making a pattern that Laurel didn’t want to see. The night Molly Dufresne died was unspooling in her head, over and over in an endless loop.

She stretched her eyes wide open and told Thalia, “You drive faster than this going to Albertsons to get milk.”

Thalia said, “Once I get to the interstate, I’ll open it up. There’s about fifteen speed traps between Pensacola and the state line.”

She sounded so calm, so reasonable, that Laurel had a sudden vision of reaching across her sister, opening the door, and pushing her out into the street. She’d scoot into Thalia’s place and floor it. If only her hands would stop shaking. She doubted they would close around the wheel. “Just drive,” she said.

David lowered his phone and said, “They want us to meet an officer at our house. One of us has to sign the report.”

“No,” Laurel said.

“They say it will take fifteen minutes, tops.”

“We’re not going back.” Laurel’s voice was fierce and loud. “We’ll lose time driving back home, and then who knows how long they’ll keep us there. Tell them we’re on the way to DeLop already and to meet us there. They can take the report over the phone.”

David subsided, and Thalia settled herself deeper into the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel. They were coming to an intersection, and the light ahead turned yellow. Thalia slowed and stopped.

“Oh, dear God,” Laurel said, not sure if she was praying or only cursing her sister.

Shelby, somewhere on the highway with Sissi and Bet Clemmens, already had at least an hour’s head start. Laurel dialed Sissi’s number again, listening to the phone ring over and over. It was still ringing when the light turned green.

Thalia said, “They haven’t had time to get there.”

Laurel closed her eyes and let it ring anyway. She understood now, and the parts she couldn’t know filled themselves in seamlessly, like a movie projected onto the back of her lids. She saw Molly Dufresne alive, thirteen, immortal, safe in her own bed. Molly waited for the quiet part of night to come, secreted under her covers with a book and a flashlight, still wearing her sundress and tennis shoes.

She’d put her brothers to bed, reading to them until they’d settled into that deep sleep known only to little children, mouths open, hands flung up over their heads. Molly had put herself to bed after. Now she heard fierce, low voices downstairs, battling back and forth. Chuck sounded clipped and hard. Bunny, soused, slurred and hissed her words, so from this distance, they sounded like the ranting of an angry snake. Molly waited it out. This was what normal sounded like in her house right now, and when Shelby had asked if she wanted to slip out, meet up in Shel’s backyard, the usually timid Molly had said yes, yes, hell yes,