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Back When She Returned Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT
  3. CONTENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. THIRTY-NINE
  44. FORTY
  45. FORTY-ONE
  46. FORTY-TWO
  47. FORTY-THREE
  48. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I would’ve, too, if she hadn’t lied about it when I’d asked her what she was doing, but I wasn’t going to fight with the two of them. I logged on to our wireless service provider. They provided our home phone service too. I scrolled to the current billing cycle and opened it up. It was too early for the calls in the last twelve hours to post, but there was one other phone call made from our home phone this month: two nights ago, 2:30 a.m., number unknown.

I scrolled backward through the months, but the last call from the home phone had been four months ago, when Abbi had called asking me to call her cell phone because she’d lost it somewhere in the house. I printed out the last four months so that I could show Scott when he got home. I’d never mistrusted his judgment before, but suddenly I found myself looking at Kate like she was a total stranger. Someone none of us knew who was living in our house. I tried to tell myself I was exaggerating, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. How could I?

She’d lied to my face.

KATE

THEN

“Kate, why don’t you ride with me?” Abner had asked when we’d stopped for gas.

He had phrased it like a question, but there had been no way to decline without making a scene, so I’d reluctantly climbed into the passenger seat of the van carrying our supplies. It was almost three days into our trip, and we still hadn’t spoken. Nobody was saying much of anything, though. I had expected a big scene once we got to the vans, but there hadn’t been a pause in our steps. We had just started throwing our stuff in the vans without any kind of discussion except where to store things. I was pressed up against the passenger-side door, as far away from him as I could get.

We’d been driving for over an hour without saying anything. The smell of smoke still filled my nose. We’d never get it out of our clothes, no matter how hard we scrubbed them. What we’d done was attached to us like a malignant tumor.

Three bodies.

That was how many people we were leaving behind. People had screamed at Abner about what he had done, but that hadn’t stopped them from digging their graves. They’d buried Sam’s and Bekah’s bodies next to each other. We’d forgone the ceremony this time. Abner had moved everyone quickly into setting the fires, yelling wildly that the ground we stood on was cursed.

“It won’t always feel like this,” Abner finally spoke, breaking into my thoughts.