“What did you do?” My voice sounded far away.

“I threatened to tell his wife, but that didn’t seem to faze him. Now that I think about it, she’d probably have thanked me for saving her from having to do the dirty work. So I told him to go fuck himself. I figured a grounding from my dad was better than putting my mouth anywhere near Land. I had another choice and I took it. But I doubt everyone he runs into has the same luck.”

I paused, wondering how much, if anything, to tell her. Decided that after tonight Land was hardly a secret worth keeping anymore. “I definitely didn’t.”

Jenny’s eyes flew to mine. “When?” she asked.

I made a noncommittal noise. “Years ago.”

“Well, something tells me if there’s a next time, it’ll be a different story.”

I nodded, and she reached out, laid her hand on my arm. “We did the right thing, Eve. We did good by our girls. It doesn’t bring them back.” She took a deep breath, released it. “But it helps, somehow.”

When she drove away, I stood on the weedy verge and watched her taillights fade, knowing somehow that my story wouldn’t intersect with hers again. But I’d always look at her differently now, when I heard her name around town or caught a flash of dark hair in the distance. I had a feeling that before long Zach and Jenny would disappear from Barren Springs, finally venture out into the wider world. But wherever they ended up, she and I would remain interwoven. Not by our daughters’ deaths. And not by their shared father. But by this night—the dark and the earth and a man’s body between us. By our unflinching ability to do what was necessary.

TWENTY-FIVE

My mama was waiting for me on her trailer steps, her cigarette a glowing beacon in the dark. I sank down next to her, dirt clinging to the webs of my fingers, shoved deep under my nails. My back and shoulders ached something fierce, and I knew there’d be hell to pay tomorrow, in every kind of way. I already couldn’t picture a world without my brother in it.

“Girl, you are a mess,” my mama said. “Don’t smell too good, neither. You can shower before you go. Leave those clothes here and borrow something of mine.” She held out her hand, and I passed her the gun. We’d already decided that it was safer for her to get rid of it. That way, if I was arrested, I wouldn’t be tempted to spill my guts about where the gun ended up. And we wanted it someplace far away from where Cal’s body was buried, just in case. These woods were vast, filled with caves and caverns, and I trusted Mama to find a good spot for it. One that would take decades, maybe lifetimes, for anyone to uncover. “Money’s inside,” she told me. “Don’t forget to take it.”

We’d already decided that part, too. How tomorrow morning I was gonna go into Land’s office with the money and tell him I’d found it at Cal’s. I hadn’t been snooping, swear to God. I’d been cleaning out his closet, trying to keep myself occupied, and the vacuum caught on the edge of the carpet and there it was. I was freaked out, took the money without thinking, left the carpet and the mess and got out of there. I’d tried to ask Cal about it, but couldn’t find him. And when I went back to his place later, it was cleared out. His clothes gone. He must have come home, seen the money was missing, and panicked. I wasn’t sure what was going on, what to do about the money, but figured Land would help.