would take hours and probably more strength than either of them possessed.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” said Gracie, turning to look at Pearl. “She killed him.”
“The police?” said Pearl softly. “What do you think will happen to you if we call the police?”
Gracie shook her head, her wheat locks shimmering. She gazed at Pearl with wide eyes. “That’s exactly what he said. When we found my mother.”
Pearl stayed quiet.
“Someone killed her,” Gracie went on. “Pop brought me here. He said if he didn’t that they’d take me away, put me in foster care or someplace worse.”
Pearl was back there again, that night they found Stella. She did feel something, something sharp and tight in her heart.
Pearl didn’t know what to say to the girl. What’s done is done, Stella would surely say. There was nothing to do but manage the situation and try to move forward.
“Are you going to help me or not?” she asked the girl. The night expanded all around them.
Gracie nodded finally.
Four hours later, the sun was rising, painting the sky a milky gray.
Bridget and Pop lay in the same shallow grave, back in the woods on the ten-acre property. The grave—it needed to be deeper, a lot deeper—Pearl knew this. But neither one of them were strong enough to do more.
No trails crossed this land. It was private; they’d be safe out here. Bridget and Pop, together forever just like Bridget wanted. Well, maybe not just like she wanted.
Pearl and Gracie were both covered in grime, hands raw and blistered. Pearl emptied the container of lye over the bodies—a blizzard covering them in white. She dumped the water into the grave. There was a sizzling sound as the water reacted with the chemical.
She should say something, shouldn’t she?
“I’m sorry, Pop,” she said. “I’m sorry it ended like this.”
Gracie wept, lying on her side on the ground. Anyone could see she was spent, finished. She’d vomited twice—once back at the house when they were moving the bodies; once when they’d dropped Pop carrying him from the car. Pearl didn’t even bother to try to make her finish shoveling the dirt back into the grave.
Pearl worked, her shoulders and back aching until Bridget and Pop were covered with earth. Then she used the shovels to scrape leaves, sticks, other forest floor debris over the site. In the dim light, it looked like all the rest of the forest around them. Pop would be pleased with the job she’d done, Pearl thought. She’d thought clearly, acted fast. All she had to do was deal with Bridget’s digital footprint and the car.
“Did he kill your mother, too?” Gracie asked from the ground.
The question took Pearl by surprise. She almost didn’t answer.
“I don’t know,” said Pearl finally. “Maybe.”
“She loved me,” said Gracie. “She was a good mom.”
Her voice had a faint and faraway quality, as if she was talking to someone Pearl couldn’t see. “She, you know, did her best. She used to tell me stories. About owls.”
“That’s nice,” said Pearl, keeping her voice gentle.
Gracie was wobbly, unstable. Pearl knew that she couldn’t be trusted. She was going to have some kind of breakdown, if she wasn’t having one already. If Pearl was smart, she’d kill the girl, too, and throw her in the grave they’d dug together. What was it that Pop always said? Three can keep a secret if two of us are dead. One down, one to go.
But Pearl wasn’t that. She was a lot of things. There was ice water in her veins. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt the things that other people seemed to. But she was not a killer.
Instead, she helped the girl up to her feet.
She’d picked this spot for a reason.
There was an old root cellar out here. It was one of the main features that had attracted Pop. He called it the safe room. After they’d moved out to the house, they’d spent a couple of weeks stocking it with supplies, water, canned and other nonperishable foods, sleeping bags, battery-operated lights, shelves and shelves of books, games. A hoarder’s paradise.
If the shit hits the fan, this is where we go, okay? We can ride out any storm here. It’s totally off the grid, not on the property survey.
He’d marked the door in the ground with a piece of wood, a red flag tied at its tip.
Pearl found it now. She unlocked the latch while Gracie sat, rocking, and pulled open the door with a haunted house squeal.