Cold Waters (Normal, Alabama Book 1) Read online

  “Suits me fine.” I stood and walked past her, miserable and angry at her accusation that I couldn’t be trusted, even if those words were true. I entered the kitchen and glared at the closed oven door, which still seeped smoke from the top and sides. I debated the best way to approach the job. “Screw it,” I muttered, jerking on a pair of mitts and opening the oven door. The chicken was charred black, and its insides were lit like a glowing ember. Coughing, I grabbed the pan and ran out the back door, black smoke fanning my face, choking me.

  I threw the offending bird in the garbage can, pan and all.

  High-pitched laughter erupted behind me, and I spun around.

  Delaney was bent over, gasping, clutching a hand to her stomach. “You . . . you . . . the ch-chicken . . .” She pointed at the garbage can.

  I walked toward her, uncertain if she was laughing at me or merely on the verge of hysteria.

  “You should see your face,” she panted. “Soot and tear streaks all over.”

  “So you’re not mad at me anymore?” I’d forgotten her volatile mood swings. Storm to sunshine in seconds.

  She waved a hand in the air, dismissing the notion. “I was too rough on you. Can’t expect everyone to manage work and caretaking like I can.”

  The tension whooshed out of my body. “I deserved it. I promise I’ll be more careful in the future.”

  Delaney placed an arm over my shoulder. “C’mon. I’ll help you clean up the kitchen. It’s really not so terrible.”

  We returned to the house. Laughing, talking. Like real sisters.

  At the back porch, I turned around, again sensing that I was being watched. A high-pitched laugh, identical to Delaney’s, sounded faintly from the woods.

  “Did you hear that?” I whispered to Delaney. I placed a finger to my lips, and she stilled, cocking her head to one side.

  A few heartbeats passed, but only crickets and the buzzing of insects pierced the silence.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” she said, wrinkling her forehead, searching my face with concern. “Are you sure you did?”

  “Maybe not. Sometimes crows mimic our laughter, so it might have been them. Forget it.”

  “It must be stressful coming back here. Maybe you should call your doctor if you’re . . . um, having problems.”

  My face and neck warmed. “It was nothing.”

  I followed her inside and paused at the doorway, searching the inky blackness before shutting the door.

  I had heard something. I was dead sure of it.

  Much later that evening, after hours of hearing more about Sawyer and all of Delaney’s fun friends and her employer who raved about her bookkeeping skills, I’d slipped off to my room and fallen into a deep slumber, when the sound of a car door squeaking open awakened me. I hurried to the window, glancing at the time on my cell phone. 1:11 a.m. A repeating number—meaning the universe had sent me a wake-up call to notice what was happening. And I always paid attention to the signs.

  Pulling back the lace curtain, I caught sight of Delaney removing handfuls of bags from the back seat of her car. What the hell was she doing? Had she gone back out at night for groceries? Nothing local would be open this late.

  Delaney stepped under the porch light and quickly skipped up the steps. I read the bag labels she carried—expensive retail store packages and totes decorated with pink stripes and fancy logos. Things she must have picked up in Birmingham.

  But why sneak them in so late at night? As if sensing my stare, Delaney turned her head, craning her neck upward. Swiftly, I dropped the curtain and stepped back, crossing my fingers that she hadn’t spotted me. The front door opened and shut, and I scurried to bed, pulling the sheets up to my chin.

  Footsteps on the stairs, and then her light tread in the hallway. She paused at my door, and my heart inexplicably pounded. The doorknob soundlessly turned, and I shut my eyes tight as her presence crossed the threshold and drew close.

  “Violet?” she whispered.

  I didn’t respond, faking sleep, and seconds later she left, quietly pulling the door shut.

  My heart’s erratic thumping eased, and I drew a deep breath. So what if Delaney—and her fiancé—had gone on a shopping spree? She was perfectly welcome to spend her money as she pleased.

  Yet it didn’t sit right, and I couldn’t say why. When my sister had entered my bedroom, my scalp had tingled as she’d stood watching me in the darkness.

  Chapter 4

  HYACINTH

  Twenty-seven years earlier

  My stepdaughter was always a sneaky little thing. I came so close to not marrying Parker because of her. If I hadn’t been under so much pressure from Mom to make this match, I might have bowed out. After our wedding rehearsal, Parker brought her to Mom’s house, where a few of us had gathered for an after-dinner coffee. At the time, Delaney was a cute little four-year-old with snow-white hair and large blue eyes. But often, I’d catch her giving me an odd look, a cold, calculating stare that had no place on a young child’s face.

  She’s just nervous, I’d tell myself. Naturally, she’s afraid and jealous of me, I’d add when I caught her lying to Parker, saying I’d been mean to her when I had not. She’s used to having her daddy all to herself, I’d say when, yet again, Delaney manipulated something I’d said—as though I’d intended to hurt the child.

  Yet I was determined to win her love.

  Back then, I believed anything possible. Before Parker started drinking himself to ruin, before my stepdaughter proved to be as difficult as I’d feared, and before I wanted to leave Parker for another man.

  But the first crack in my fantasy world was at my wedding rehearsal. My family and friends cooed over how darling Delaney was in her pretty dress as she sprinkled rose petals down the bridal aisle. And she did look adorable. But some intuition had me follow Delaney when she sneaked out of the room where we all sipped coffee after the rehearsal dinner.

  I shadowed her down Mom’s carpeted hallway. Delaney never looked back. She entered the guest bedroom, where my wedding gown was laid out on the bed. With no hesitation, the little hellion walked over to it and deliberately upended her glass of grape juice onto the white lace of my gown.

  “What have you done?” I cried.

  A smile tugged the corners of her mouth. “I don’t want you to marry Daddy. I want you to go away.”

  I blinked back angry tears. This wasn’t a child’s temper tantrum or an angry outburst. This was . . . I wasn’t sure what it was. But I didn’t like the child’s calm, calculated move.

  Footsteps came rushing down the hallway and through the door. Parker entered first.

  “What happened?” he asked, his face lined with worry.

  As if on cue, Delaney burst into tears. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I came to look at Miss Hy’s dress, and I accidentally spilled my juice.” She hiccuped and rubbed pitiful little eyes that held no tears.

  My mother rushed in. “We’ll soak it in water right now and then rinse it with vinegar. It’ll be fine.” She slanted me a worried glance as she scurried to the laundry to try and fix my ruined dress. How I wished Dad were still alive. He’d see through Delaney’s act in a heartbeat. But all Mom cared about was appearances, and she was determined I marry into Parker’s highbrow family, whose ancestors had founded the area. Ridiculous to me, since we were far wealthier. But my mom believed the money Dad had inherited from his grandfather’s moonshining had in some way tainted the family name. All that mattered to me were Parker’s blond good looks and the way his touch lit me up.

  Parker stared at me accusingly, at my flushed face.

  He picked up Delaney and stroked her blonde curls. “It’s okay. Hy understands you didn’t do it on purpose. Don’t you, Hyacinth?” His eyes held a desperate appeal.

  What could I say? To tell the truth was futile. Delaney would give her four-year-old’s innocent denial, and I would look like the typical coldhearted stepmother, so jealous of her husband’s affection that she’d misconstrued a child’s
clumsy accident.

  I swallowed my anger and considered my reply carefully. It wasn’t too late to back out of the marriage ceremony. I wasn’t legally bound to Parker. I could still leave him at the proverbial altar.

  I suppressed my misgivings and bit back my words. I didn’t want to live in my mom’s cold house anymore with its stifling rules and rigid formality. And I did love Parker. Surely his daughter would come round eventually.

  But going through with the wedding was my first big mistake in a long stream of misjudgments and foolish attempts to have a happy marriage and family.

  Chapter 5

  VIOLET

  Present day

  The whispering began the moment we entered the drugstore. I folded my arms under my chest and pretended to be absorbed in a display of bandages and laxatives. Delaney patted my shoulder—“You’ll be fine,” she breathed in my ear—and got in line to fill Dad’s myriad prescriptions.

  The morning had gone normally enough—well, as normal as it got in our household. Dad had muttered and grumbled, pretty much ignoring us, while Delaney and I had talked about the day’s tasks ahead. What a drama queen I’d been last night over nothing. Everything appeared back to normal between us.

  I shifted my feet from side to side and, from the corner of my eye, watched the lunch crowd as they stared and pointed. An older lady with a helmet head of permed curls approached.

  Please don’t speak to me, please don’t—

  “Violet? I can’t believe you’re home after all these years. It’s me, Hattie Pilchard. Your English teacher from seventh grade.”

  Hattie had not aged well, and she’d never been a beauty to start with. Her skin was ruddy and her eyes myopic behind thick glasses. She smiled, but I sensed the hateful tiger waiting to pounce. The woman had not liked me then, and I could only imagine her opinion of me now.

  “Never thought you’d return to town. What gives?”

  The room grew quiet. I frantically sought Delaney, but she was talking to the pharmacist, her back to me.

  “Visiting family,” I replied, almost coughing, my throat parched. Involuntarily, one hand reached into my pants pocket, and I rubbed the smooth glass chip.

  Hattie’s eyes gleamed. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  I shook my head, sure my nervousness was making me thickheaded and slow. “What’s ironic?”

  “This.”

  She thrust a newspaper at me, folded open to the local section, and I reluctantly read the headline.

  Hatchet Lake to Be Drained for Dam Repair

  A black-and-white photo of the dam slammed into my brain. The print swirled, and I grew dizzy. I massaged my temples. I wasn’t prepared for this violent, public reminder of the night Ainsley had disappeared.

  “Wonder what they’ll find?” Hattie continued, smirking. “Ainsley’s skeleton?”

  The tittering of the onlookers passed over me in a wave, and I swallowed hard. I wanted to run out of the store and lock myself in the car, but my legs and brain were disconnected. My mouth opened, then shut.

  “You always were a hateful old lady.”

  For a moment, I wondered if I’d said my thoughts aloud—but no, the words came from a woman my age with purple-streaked, bobbed hair. She strolled over to us from one of the tables.

  Hattie flushed and frowned at her. “You’re as crass and cheap as ever, Libby. The worst student I ever had.” She scathingly eyed Libby’s outfit. She wore cutoff blue jeans that showed plenty of tanned thigh, and her hoochie-mama top revealed a wide expanse of both stomach and chest.

  “Oh yeah?” Libby drawled, not put out at all. She gave an exaggerated sweep of her lashes, so long and dark that I concluded they must be extensions. “You’re breaking my heart.”

  Something about the angle of her chin and features was familiar, although only the ghost of the plain, fresh-faced girl remained. “Libby Andrews?” I asked.

  She nodded. “That’s me.”

  Hattie gave Libby the cold shoulder and glared my way. “Keep the paper.” She marched out of the store, orthopedic shoes squishing on the cheap linoleum.

  “C’mon and sit over here,” Libby invited, cocking her head at an empty table. “We’ll be two outcasts together.”

  I threw another desperate glance at Delaney, who was still conferring with the pharmacist. The few customers standing nearby flicked their gazes back to the merchandise on the shelves, but I felt their intense interest and knew they still listened and watched.

  Libby leaned toward me and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Give a great big ole smile like you’re doing just fine. They’ll hate that.” She raised her voice. “In case you don’t remember, Walt’s has amazing handmade chocolate malts.”

  I flashed a fake grin and mechanically followed Libby to a table, into the heart of the lion’s den.

  “Another malt,” Libby called to the teenage server. He nodded, eyes lowering to her cleavage. Libby winked at him. “Thanks, sweetie.”

  I tossed the newspaper on the empty chair beside me. Libby drew a long sip of her drink, staining the straw with crimson lipstick. I folded my hands, bracing for an interrogation. There was no reason for Libby to lure me to her table, unless she intended to ask questions and probe the mind of Normal’s infamous madwoman.

  She set down her shake. “I remember the time Hattie read your poem in class and labeled it hilariously bad.”

  I blinked at the unexpected topic, my mind shuffling through memories of Ainsley, who’d sat beside me in English. My mouth curved in a tentative smile. “I’d almost forgotten that stupid poem.”

  It was my most cringeworthy memory of high school. My angst-ridden attempt at poetry had indeed been hilariously bad, in a typical teenage-girl kind of way. And I’d never have written it if I’d known Ms. Pilchard would read my creative-writing assignment aloud and ridicule me in front of my classmates.

  “How did that poem go? I only recall rhyming lines with rain and pain, and tears and years.” Libby threw her head back and guffawed. “I’ll never forget how red your face was when she read it.”

  “Yeah, it was a hoot.” Was Libby making fun of me or trying to be nice? At least Ainsley hadn’t laughed along with my other classmates. She’d told the teacher she liked my poem. Even now, the memory glowed inside me.

  Libby’s laughter dwindled to a chuckle. “Pilchard still shouldn’t have ridiculed you, though. She didn’t read anyone else’s work aloud.”

  “It didn’t bother me all that much,” I lied. “Nobody liked her.”

  I remembered that later, I’d casually mentioned the incident to my family at dinner. The next morning, Mom had confronted the principal and threatened a lawsuit if Hattie or any other teacher singled me out like that again. It wasn’t the first time Mom had intervened on my behalf. I was considered odd by kids my age, but that was the first time a teacher had bullied me.

  Libby eyed me curiously, and I hurried to fill the silence. “Mom threw a fit at school about Pilchard, and I received a very undeserved A in English,” I said. After rushing home from school and shredding the remaining poems in my notebook, I’d vowed never to write another damn thing.

  “You were always a strange one,” Libby observed, fingers drumming the table. “Always in your own little world. A loner.”

  Our server arrived and set down my shake. The milk chocolate nearly frothed over the top of the thick glass. I took a sip and closed my eyes, feeling like a kid again. Mom, Delaney, and I used to come to Walt’s nearly every Friday, celebrating the end of the school week.

  “As I remember, you had the attention of all the boys,” I said.

  Libby snorted and waved a hand over her breasts. “That’s what happens when you’re the first seventh grader to grow tits.”

  I took another long draw of the shake, wondering what her life had been like since junior high. Wondered what a normal life entailed—dating, graduating, possibly marrying and having children, a career. My own life had been, in many ways, frozen and barr
en as I’d grappled with the mystery of my missing best friend and what role I might have played in her disappearance.

  “So,” I began, wadding up a napkin. Conversation had never been my strong suit. “What have you been up to all this time?”

  “The usual boring story.” She shrugged. “You know, married right out of high school, got a divorce six months later. Managed to get an LPN license and then had a kid.” Libby rummaged through a purse and then stopped abruptly, gripping the edge of the table. “Walt hasn’t let anyone smoke in here for years, but I still reach for a cigarette. Old habits.”

  “How old is your child?” I asked in a diversionary tactic, afraid she’d ask questions about where I had been and what I’d been doing.

  “Just turned four.” A gentleness softened her features, and she looked like a young teenager who’d played in her mom’s bag of makeup with a heavy hand. “His name’s Calvin.” She scrolled through her phone and showed me a photo. “The cutest kid you’ve ever seen.”

  I obligingly studied the photo. He had curly dark hair and a wide grin that made me think of Opie from Mayberry. “Cute,” I agreed.

  Libby stared expectantly.

  “Very cute,” I elaborated, shifting in my seat. Truth was kids all pretty much looked the same to me. I must have missed some vital nurturing gene.

  Libby put her phone away and observed me sharply. “How’s the homecoming been?”

  I hesitated. “Subdued.”

  “Yeah, your dad’s pretty bad off, and he keeps your sister running.”

  I looked over my shoulder, observing Delaney, at last, paying for the medicine. I hated that everyone knew our family’s business, but at least it kept explanations to a minimum.

  “Hand me your phone,” Libby demanded suddenly. “I’ll give you my number.”

  I slid it across the table, and she punched in data.

  “Why would you do that?” I asked, genuinely confused.

  “Because I think you might need a friend,” she replied, sliding it back to me. “Small towns can be lonely places.”