The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,137

evidence do we need that none of us are safe?” Patricia asked. “The men all think he’s their best friend, but he’s taken everything he wanted right out from under our noses. How long do we wait before we do something? He is preying on our children.”

“Call me old-fashioned,” Grace snapped. “But first you tell the police he’s a child molester. Then you tell us he’s a drug dealer. Now you say he’s Count Dracula. Your fantasies have come at a great cost to the rest of us, Patricia. Do you know what happened to me?”

“I know,” Patricia said through gritted teeth. “I know, I messed up. Oh, God, Grace, I know I messed up and I am being punished for it, but we ran away when things got hard. And now we’ve waited so long that I don’t think there’s a normal way to get rid of him. I think he’s ingrained himself too deeply into the Old Village.”

“Spare me,” Grace said.

“I am crawling on my knees begging for your help,” Patricia said.

“Don’t tell me the rest of you believe this nonsense?” Grace asked.

Maryellen and Kitty wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Kitty,” Patricia said. “You and I saw what he did to Francine. I know how scared you are but how long do you think it will be until he figures out you were in his attic, too? How long do you think it will be before he comes after your family?”

“Don’t say things like that,” Kitty said.

“It’s true,” Patricia said. “We can’t hide from it anymore.”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking us to do,” Maryellen said.

“You said you wanted to live where people watched out for each other,” Patricia told her. “But what’s the good of watching if we’re not going to act?”

“We’re a book club,” Maryellen said. “What are we supposed to do? Read him to death? Use strong language? We can’t go to Ed again.”

“I think…we’re beyond that,” Slick said.

“Then I don’t know what we’re talking about,” Maryellen said.

“The last time we did this we learned one thing,” Patricia said. “The men stick together. Their friendship with him is stronger now than it was then. There’s only us.”

Grace hitched her purse’s shoulder straps higher over her shoulder and regarded the room.

“I am leaving now before this becomes even more absurd,” she said, nodding to Kitty and Maryellen. “And I think you should both come with me before you do something you’ll regret.”

“Grace,” Kitty said, low and calm, staring at her knees. “If you keep acting like I’m feebleminded, I’m going to smack you. I’m a grown woman, the same as you, and I saw a dead body in that attic.”

“Good night,” Grace said, heading for the door.

Patricia nodded to Mrs. Greene, who stepped into Grace’s path, blocking her.

“Mrs. Cavanaugh,” she said. “Am I trash to you?”

Grace did a double take, the first one any of them had ever seen.

“I beg your pardon?” Grace asked, all frozen hauteur.

Frozen hauteur didn’t cut much ice with Mrs. Greene.

“You must think I’m trash,” Mrs. Greene said.

Grace swallowed once, so outraged she couldn’t even get the words lined up on her tongue.

“I said no such thing,” she managed.

“Your actions aren’t the actions of a Christian woman,” Mrs. Greene said. “I came to you years ago as a mother and as a woman, and I begged for your help because that man was preying on the children in Six Mile. I begged for you to do something simple, to come with me to the police, and tell them what you knew. I risked my job and the money that puts food on my table, to come to you. Do you even know my children’s names?”

It took a minute for Grace to realize Mrs. Greene was waiting for an answer.

“There’s Abraham,” Grace said, searching for their names. “And Lily, I think…”

“The first Harry,” Mrs. Greene said. “He passed. Harry Jr., Rose, Heanne, Jesse, and Aaron. You don’t even know how many children