Bless Her Dead Heart by Meg Collett

Author:Meg Collett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Meg Collett
Published: 2019-01-23T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

APRIL 7, 2012

128.

128 days until Loey left for UT with Dale. They’d received their rooming forms the other day in the mail, and, as planned, they were roommates in their second-choice dorm. 128 days until freedom from this town. From the loudness of school and the brightness of the days. From the silence of the night and the pull of darkness. Freedom from him.

Sometimes, all Loey could see when she blinked was that number—when she wasn’t seeing Leigh Parker’s body dangling from the swing set.

She had to get out of this town. Even Gran and Pap were helping her plan and pack, their anxiety to send her on her way almost matching her own. It wasn’t that they’d sensed the change in her. They hadn’t. In fact, she’d sensed a change in them. They had more conversations that fell silent when she entered the room. Pap was out late at night, and sometimes, Gran never came home. When they spoke to Loey, it was in riddles and circles.

“Bad things are happening in this town,” they’d say. “It’s best you get out for a while.”

Since Leigh’s murder, much had changed in Righteous, and it wasn’t typical small-town fear either. People refused to stay out late; they locked their doors up tight at night; and parents didn’t let their kids walk home from school. There was a town curfew; no one could stay out after dark, lest they get arrested. Sheriff Jinks was taking the threat seriously. He’d stand before any reporter who’d have him, which was a dwindling number these days, and proclaim with more confidence than he had any right to that the boy’s murderer wouldn’t walk free much longer.

Except he was lying. And as the weeks wore on, people clamored for him to solve the case. The police had called Loey into the station time and again to go over her statement about that night. She’d told the story so many times she questioned her memory of the events. She wondered if she might be adding in details she hadn’t seen. Like, had there been a broken mirror on the ground, or had she imagined it? Had she heard laughter chiming above the rattle of the chains?

People wanted answers, and they wanted to feel safe again. Righteous didn’t feel like home. It brewed a potion of unease and tension, of short tempers and shorter fuses. The sidewalks were vacant, and for the first time in years, the coffee shop sat empty of patrons for stretches of time.

No one spoke about Leigh at school. His locker beside Loey’s was a talisman everyone ignored. But sometimes she opened it. His books were still inside, his backpack too, and a mirror was taped crookedly to the back.

She closed her locker and swung her backpack over her shoulder. The school was mostly empty; her student council meeting had run later than usual. Dale had already left to watch Travis at track practice. She’d stuck to her promise of playing the role of the dutiful girlfriend with an earnestness that worried Loey.

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