Randall smiled. “Eleven miles of pristine riverfront farmland. Eleven miles. That came down to you from your mother’s family, and it’s legally encumbered so that it can never leave her blood family. Well … since you can’t have kids, that means once you die, it goes to your cousin up in Savannah.”

Katy shook her head, lost in confusion. “I don’t understand. If you can’t get that land, or sell it, what good is it to you?”

Her husband laughed with such harshness that she felt sick. “It ain’t me, honey. It’s your daddy. Brody might never be able to get hold of that land, but as long as you’re alive, he can lease it to farmers, cut timber off it, and suck the oil out from under it. And that’s what he’s been doing since the day I married you.” Randall tapped the side of his head and laughed. “You get it now? You’re worth more to him alive than you are dead. It’s really that simple. Jesus. I thought for sure you’d have figured that out by now. I guess your brain is more scrambled than I thought.”

He turned to his closet and pulled a shirt over his still-wet back. “So here I stand, your babysitter. Highest paid babysitter in the world, probably. But it still ain’t enough.”

She sat in stunned silence, staring at her shattered reflection, finally understanding the riddle of her existence. In her mind, she watched a blurry movie of herself signing various papers in an alcoholic haze.

“I’ve got a busy day,” Randall said. “Brody’s in New Orleans, but he’ll be back this afternoon. Go play with your dogs, or whatever you’re going to do. But do me one favor, please. Take a fucking bath.”

He walked out of the room.

Katy sat motionless until she heard the carport door slam. Then she picked up the newspaper, walked to the bathtub, and turned the hot tap wide open. Opening a drawer beside her husband’s lavatory, she took out a pair of sharp scissors, which she laid in the edge of the tub. You get it now? Randall had said, as though talking to a moron. You’re worth more to him alive than you are dead. Katy’s leg muscles quivered as though barely able to support her weight. How was that possible, since she felt as though she might float away from the earth’s surface at any moment? While she waited for the tub to fill, she looked down at the newspaper and read the name beneath the top story.

Caitlin Masters.

CHAPTER 63