The Girls Across the Bay

by Emerald O'Brien

  Her cell rang, and she pushed the button and pressed it to her ear. “Mac, John has Madigan,” she gasped. “They’re at the fairgrounds.”

  “I’m twenty minutes away,” he said.

  “I’m ten,” she said, pushing the gas pedal to the floor. “Seven. Send back up.”

  “Do you think Joe saw them leave and followed them?” Mac asked. “I’m sorry to ask you that, but—”

  “I think so.”

  “John’s car’s at the lodge,” Mac said.

  “Then they took Madigan’s bike. There’s a chance they lost Joe on the way. He couldn’t have known where they were going.”

  “Did you track her phone?”

  “She sent me a message,” Grace said, her heartbeat throbbing in her ears. “I can’t let anything happen to her.”

  “We won’t. I’m on my way. Sending back up now. I’ll meet you there. She knows you’ll come for her.”

  She let the words sink in and took a deep breath.

  “See you there,” Mac said and hung up.

  She tore down the next street, watching for someone in a truck. She imagined Joe would drive a truck. She reached the entrance of the fairgrounds and drove through, making a wide turn, looking for any vehicles and Madigan’s bike.

  Her bike.

  Parked by a dense tree line. She stopped short of it and took out her gun as she jumped out of the car.

  No other vehicles.

  She aimed her gun, looking through the trees and starting just ahead of the bike.

  Calm your breathing.

  Focus on where you’re going.

  Listen closely.

  She exhaled, watching her hot breath escape her mouth, and crossed over into the woods.

  “We’re almost there,” John said, pulling her along.

  “John,” Madigan said, trying to twist her hand away from him.

  “I have to show you,” he said.

  She felt the weight of the helmet in her hand.

  “Let go of me,” Madigan said, and John stared down at her hand. “Please.”

  Or I’ll knock you out.

  He let go, staring off past her, as if in a trance. She turned around where only trees surrounded them.

  “Here,” he said, pointing just past Madigan at the ground. “This is where I buried her.”

  She stared down at the ground.

  “Valerie?” she asked, her voice shaking as he walked past her, staring down at the same spot.

  He turned back around toward her, his eyes open wide. She stepped away from the spot he gave all his attention to.

  “Step away from her, John,” Grace said.

  Madigan turned around, and Grace had the gun pointed at John, waving her over.

  “Madigan, come here,” she said.

  “I didn’t kill her,” John said. Madigan took a step back toward Grace. “I didn’t kill Lily.”

  “I know,” Grace called to him.

  Madigan felt for Grace’s hand behind her, and Grace pulled her behind her back.

  “We’re all leaving now,” Grace called to him, hot clouds of breath expelling from her mouth.

  “I don’t think he’s armed,” Madigan whispered, shivering behind her.

  “I told Madigan I’d show her the truth,” he said. “You’ll see too once you dig her up.”

  “John, it’s not safe to be out here,” Grace said. “I want to protect you too.”

  John frowned.

  “Joe Harris, Valerie’s fiancé,” she said. “He’s convinced you did it, and he’s after you.”

  John hung his head and turned around, staring down at the dirt.

  “Go back to my car,” Grace whispered.

  I have to see this through.

  “When I got to the house that night,” John said, “a woman was lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen, and Eli sat at the kitchen table beside her with a gun in front of him. I realized it was the next-door neighbour when I got into the kitchen.”

  His voice trembled as he turned back toward them.

  “Evette was out that night, and you girls were in bed. There was a thunderstorm. I remember be-because…” He wiped his eyes, shaking his head. “Eli told me she’d come over and threatened to report them to child services. That she wanted to take you girls right then and there, and that she tried to go upstairs, but he stopped her. There was a fight in the kitchen, and when he got his gun, he shot her in the hallway before she could go upstairs.”

  My nightmare was real.

  “You dragged her to the garage,” Madigan said. “I saw you and—you saw me too.”

  He nodded, his fists clenched into tight balls. “I didn’t tell Eli,” he said. “I know what he would have done.”

  He tried to protect me.

  “Thank you,” Madigan said, and he nodded.

  “I had no one,” John said. “Eli told me if I didn’t help clean up his mess, he’d pin it on me.”

  “I’m sorry, John,” Grace said, still keeping Madigan behind her. “Did you love her?”

  John frowned and shook his head. “I didn’t know her. I buried a woman I didn’t even know, but I know her now. She haunts me. I just want to be free.”

  The fair.

  The pink bunny.

  It was Eli who was seeing Valerie behind Evette’s back.

  It was a lovers’ quarrel one night while Evette was out that ended in murder.

  “I was scared, more than I’d ever been in my life, and you both know that’s saying something,” John said. “I knew he could do it—frame me. I was high, and scared, and I didn’t want Evette to know. I didn’t want her involved, so I told him I’d take care of the body if he cleaned up. Like it was my idea.”

  John choked out a low laugh. “God, he did that well, didn’t he? Made us think we were doing something because we wanted to, or that we thought of.”

  Grace nodded and noticed from her peripheral Madigan nodding too.

  “I brought Valerie out here,” he said. “Where Eli told me to. He doesn’t know exactly where to this day, but he knows my DNA could be found on her. You know where his can be found? On a gun I’ve hidden in my home.”

  The gun under the floor boards.

  “I took it after you sent him to prison,” John said, taking a step toward them. “You’ll see my prints, but his too. It was the only leverage I had on him.”

  “I have more proof,” Grace said.

  Madigan stepped up beside her.

  “You do?” John asked.

  “Eli was seeing Valerie behind Evette’s back,” Grace said. “I have proof of it. There was a witness. He had something that belongs to me now.”

  The pink bunny had been used to cuddle with as they waited for the other’s beating to be finished. A source of comfort, she’d kept it in her room in her next house and the closet in her current home.

  “I know he was with her,” Grace said. “He lied to you to get you to help him. To make you think he’d been defending himself or us.”

  “I have proof too,” Madigan said. “Eli gave Evette Valerie’s ring. It’s the same ring I saw in a picture of Valerie.”

  “You’ll testify against him?” John asked.

  They nodded, and he stepped closer, but Grace kept her gun up.

  No chances.

  He frowned down at it.

  “We have to get out of here,” Grace said. “Will you come with us?”

  “You believe me?” he asked, taking another step forward.

  “Yes,” Grace said, pushing Madigan back.

  Keep the distance.

  He turned to Madigan and took another step.

  “Yes, I promise, I believe you,” she said. “I promise—”

  John’s eyes lit up at the same moment a loud crack rang through the air. Grace turned around where a man with a hunting rifle stood, aiming his gun at them.

  At John.

  She aimed her gun at him, ready to take him down.

  “Put the gun down, now,” Grace hollered.


  “John,” Madigan screamed, and the warmth of her sister left her side.

  The man with the rifle shifted to the right, and his hand flinched.

  Grace squeezed the trigger.

  He collapsed, and the gun fell out of his hands as he hit the ground, grabbing at his arm. Bushes rustled where flashlights shone through, casting stick shadows across the man’s face.

  Joe Harris.

  Mac slid down a hill and kicked the gun away from Joe while Malone and another officer grabbed him.

  Grace turned around where Madigan knelt over John, a puddle of blood pooling around where he lay upon the cold grave of Valerie Hall.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Light poured into the room as Evette opened the blinds.

  “He needs light.” She coughed, turning back toward them. “He needs to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin.”

  Madigan grabbed Evette’s cool hand and took her purse for her before helping her into the uncomfortable chair she’d sat in before Evette had arrived.

  Evette coughed, then she leaned to the side closest to John’s bed. Tubes ran in and out of his body, and the constant humming and beeping of the machines keeping him alive filled their own silence in the room.

  Don’t stop breathing.

  “You should have called me sooner,” Evette said.

  Grace gave Madigan a look before pushing herself off the wall. “I’m going to see when the doctor will be by this morning.”

  Madigan nodded.

  “So,” Evette sighed. “Grace told me what I needed to know then, but now you have to tell me why.”

  “Valerie Hall, your next-door neighbour that went missing?” Madigan said. “Her fiancé was convinced John was having an affair with her. He came back to get revenge after all these years.”

  She turned to John and shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense, and why would he leave police protection?”

  Madigan stared at John, his chest rising and falling, just like a normal chest.

  Almost like a normal chest.

  “Maddie?” Evette said. “Did you hear me? You were with him?”

  Madigan nodded.

  There was nothing I could do.

  Just like Drew.

  But she’ll think…

  “You stayed with him?”

  “Yes,” Madigan said, and Evette grabbed her hand, holding it tightly. A tinge of calm came over her before Evette let her hand go.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  How does she know? How does she know I did my best without having to ask me more questions?

  How does she know, but my own parents don’t?

  Grace walked back into the room and passed water bottles to Madigan and Evette.

  “Thank you, Gracie,” Evette said, taking the bottle. “Now that you’re both here, will you tell me what happened?”

  Madigan exchanged a look of sympathy with Grace, and she nodded her permission.

  “Okay,” Madigan said, “but first, John wanted you to know he loves you, okay? He did what he did because he loves you.”

  Evette frowned and looked from Madigan to Grace.

  “Back when we moved in,” Grace said, “maybe before, too, Eli was having an affair with the woman next door. Valerie.”

  Evette looked up at Grace, frowning and shaking her head after the words sank in.

  She doesn’t deserve this. Not now with her son on life support.

  “There’s proof,” Grace said. “The night of the fair? When we went for my birthday, and we ran off? He was there with her.”

  Tears filled Evette’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks. “Eli was a lot of things, but,” she choked out, “I don’t believe you.”

  “The pink bunny he brought us?” Grace asked. “He won it for Valerie first. I don’t know if maybe she wanted him to give it to us, or if he insisted…”

  Evette’s chin jutted out as she frowned, cocking her head to the side.

  “He killed her, Evette,” Madigan said. “One night while you were out, she came over, and he killed her. He called John and told him if he didn’t help him get rid of her body, he’d frame him for her murder.”

  Evette’s mouth hung agape, and she covered it with her hand and wide eyes staring up at both of them, looking from one sister to the other.

  “He gave you her ring,” Madigan said. “The silver one I asked you about.”

  Evette held her hand up in front of her face and stared at it.

  Like John stared at the engagement ring.

  She can’t believe it.

  She’s in shock.

  “He made John t-take care of it?” Evette asked, shaking her head and looking over at him on the bed.

  This is what real heartbreak looks like.

  “My Johnny,” she whispered, wiping at her glistening cheeks.

  Real tears.

  Grace had seen the same ones once before, and she pressed her lips together, stealing a glance at Madigan, who teared up as well.

  Madigan was right.

  The night of the fair when Evette had found them, she was really crying.

  Grace’s heart thudded faster.

  Crying about what? Us?

  No.

  She never cried for us.

  Through the beatings and the lies and manipulation.

  Never for us.

  Evette stood from her chair and grabbed John’s hand. Madigan wiped her hot cheeks with the backs of her hands and couldn’t help but stare at John.

  Will he ever get to know what happened to Lily?

  “My son,” Evette whispered. “I’m so sorry you had to clean up Eli’s mess. You always had to clean up his messes…”

  “Evette?” Grace said. “Why don’t you take that ring off now?”

  “Oh,” Evette said, staring down at it, sniffling and coughing. “They won’t slide over my knuckles anymore, Gracie. I’ve tried.”

  Madigan wiped her cheek and walked to the other side of John’s bed.

  “He told me he knows you tried to protect him from Eli,” she said. “That you didn’t really send him away.”

  Evette held back a whimper and nodded. “No one knows what that man’s capable of more than us—than me—but this…” Evette whispered.

  “We thought it was a nightmare Madigan had,” Grace said. “But it was real. She saw it.”

  Evette turned around toward Grace.

  “Saw what?” Evette asked.

  “She saw everything that night.” Grace nodded to her and gave her a calm and knowing look.

  A look that asked, right?

  “I did,” Madigan said.

  “Oh, Maddie,” Evette’s voice trembled as she turned toward her.

  Madigan opened her mouth to speak, but Grace spoke first.

  “Tell her who really killed Valerie,” Grace said, looking at Madigan.

  Is she talking to me?

  Evette shook her head and turned to Madigan, but she couldn’t quite meet her gaze.

  “You,” Madigan said.

  Madigan’s stomach felt like it was flipping, and her knees shook beneath her weight.

  Evette shook her head and let go of John’s hand.

  “Madigan saw the whole thing,” Grace said, “but she thought it was a dream. You told her it was a nightmare.”

  “It was,” Evette said, reaching out for the wall as she bent over coughing, walking toward her purse.

  The coughing. Her loneliness. The apologies.

  Everything she used to garner sympathy.

  She used me.

  Madigan nodded. “I’m awake now, Evette.”

  “You didn’t take us to the fair because it was my birthday,” Grace said. “It was our little secret because you took us on a stakeout to find out who Eli was screwing.”

  She caught him.

  She knew.

  “You were heartbroken at first,” Grace said. “But then you were angry, weren’t you? You saw it was the girl next door, and you couldn’t tak
e it anymore, so you killed her. Eli found out, and he told you to leave, didn’t he?”

  Evette grabbed her purse and wasted no time starting for the door, step by step as she coughed.

  “You both knew John would clean up the mess to protect Eli, but especially you.” Grace walked toward the door and closed it, standing in front of it. “You used him, just like you used us. You killed Valerie Hall.”

  She shot her.

  “I kept my family together,” Evette seethed, turning to Madigan. “You tore it apart!”

  Just like that, she reverted back to her eleven-year-old self, standing in front of the house as Eli was taken away and Evette blaming her.

  “You’re the one who tore a family apart,” Grace said in the same cool voice. “You called Lily’s parents to warn them about your own son. You made that call, and they went over to save her, but there was an accident, and she ended up dead. You didn’t even care, did you?”

  “Except that John wasn’t going to give you any extra drug money anymore,” Madigan said.

  Rage bubbled inside of her.

  “We were never a family,” Madigan sneered. “Never. Not a good family and not even a dysfunctional one.”

  Evette pointed to her with her shaky frail finger adorned with Valerie’s ring.

  She took it for herself off Valerie’s cold, dead body.

  “You ungrateful little bitch,” Evette spat.

  “You’re under arrest,” Grace said, opening the door and waving to the officer outside. “Cuff her.”

  She pointed to Evette, and the officer walked around her, taking his handcuffs out.

  “Nobody’s cleaning up after you anymore,” Grace said as she sat in the chair. “Take her to the station and get her in a cell, please. I’ll be there soon.”

  The officer nodded; the cuffs clicked on one after the other, and Evette sneered at her.

  Madigan held John’s hand in hers as the officer led Evette to the door. “I’ll be sure to tell him everything when he wakes up,” Madigan called to her.

  Evette turned her head away and shuffled out of the room with the officer.

  Tears ran down Madigan’s cheeks as she stared down at John.

  I’m so sorry.

  Grace’s arms wrapped around her before she knew it.

  “You’re fine,” Grace said.