Edge of the Storm by Valerie Geary

Author:Valerie Geary [Geary, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: KOBO MAY 2022
Publisher: Broken Branch Books
Published: 2022-05-17T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Lizzie pulled the blankets over her head as morning light began to seep through her bedroom window. She was never leaving this house. Never leaving this room. Someone would bring her food. She would grow old pacing the plush carpet. Through the large window overlooking the pasture, she’d watch the seasons turn and the landscape change and maybe every so often she would crack the window for a breath of fresh air and think about leaving. But she wouldn’t leave, not ever. There was nothing good for her waiting outside this room.

Someone knocked on the bedroom door, and her father, in a timid and watery voice, said, “Elizabeth? Are you awake? You’re going to be late for school if you don’t hurry.”

She tugged the blankets tighter, vanishing the last sliver of light that was creeping through the fabric. She was shrouded in darkness, tucked away where no one could find her, safe in the heat and stink of her own breath. The bedroom door clicked open, then someone yanked the blanket from her. She shrank from the light, and from her father, too, who was patting her hip, saying, “Up, up, get up. I’m making pancakes.”

Lizzie grumbled and rolled away from him. She tried to pull the blankets over her shoulders again, but he still had a hold of them. The bed shifted as he sat down beside her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sick,” she mumbled. “I think I have a fever.”

He pressed his hand to her forehead. It felt like a stranger’s hand. And wasn’t he? Ten months away from her—ten months was long enough for both of them to become very different people than they used to be. His skin was rougher than she remembered. His hands smelled like sawdust and hay from the hours he spent helping out in the barn, when before they smelled like the Old Spice aftershave he used every day before he went to work in his fancy downtown real estate office.

“You don’t feel warm,” he said.

“My stomach hurts.”

“Probably because you haven’t had breakfast yet. It’s the most important meal of the day, you know. Come on, up and at ‘em.” He patted her hip again, with a little more force this time, as if wanting to remind her that he still held some authority as her father.

She groaned into the pillow.

“Is this about that teacher you told Detective Buchanan about last night?” he asked. “You don’t have any classes with him, do you?”

She shook her head. She didn’t, but the high school was small and it seemed all the hallways fed into each other. She’d see Mr. Cadden eventually, even if she did everything she could to avoid him. She’d see him, and if he didn’t already know what she’d done, he’d see it in her eyes. The betrayal. The fear. The disgust.

When Detective Buchanan came to the house last night, Lizzie knew even before she opened her mouth that she was going to ask about the Newmark house.

The Newmarks want to press charges. They want me to arrest you.

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