She instantly slipped in the red-brown mud that was already up to her shins.
Sure enough she could see the van had hit the kind of sludge and muck that would not be easy to break from, especially as the rain continued.
Wanda leaned against the wood panel siding of a van she’d never wanted and began to cry.
Later, when they were safe at home, they’d never speak of what happened that afternoon.
How, like an angel, a man had suddenly shown up not long after their mother had her crying fit against the van. He’d been in a truck, the kind built for rescuing damsels in distress who were stupid enough to take a wrong turn into the Aucilla Sinks.
They’d never say a word about their mother leaving the girls alone for almost thirty minutes to talk to the man alone in his truck, how they’d been told not to leave the van under any circumstances.
Meg and Dee had played a travel-sized Connect Four while they waited for their mother to negotiate the terms of their rescue.
The man had pulled them out of the mess they’d found themselves in, chaining the front of their Chrysler to his lifted truck.
Their mother had, understandably, insisted on the girls thanking him profusely. The rain had stopped now. They’d opened the sliding door so they could see him and seemingly so that he could also see who he’d rescued.
Their Chevrolet Savior was tall and wide, with a trucker’s hat and a Nike t-shirt. He kept staring at Wanda, just like most men did, as he told them about where they’d ended up.
“This here,” he’d waved around him. “It’s the Aucilla Sinks. Girls, you’re on a road surrounded by sinkholes. The kind that buried mammoths and cavemen. At least that’s what they say, anyway. The last place you’d want to be during a monsoon like this one.” He spit out the last word before adding. “Unless you need to bury a dead body.”
He and Wanda laughed at the dark joke, not knowing it was one that would echo in the girls’ minds for a long time.
Neither of the sisters said anything. Their large eyes just blinked in response.
“Are y’all twins?” he asked.
Wanda laughed, the kind of laugh the girls never heard unless a man was around.
“No, just very close in age,” Wanda replied. “We just can’t thank you enough! How scary that we were in such danger. We’ll certainly never take these roads again.” Their mother had kept touching his arm. Meg would never forget that part either.
“They’re not so bad, long as it ain’t rainin’,” the man said, grinning. He wasn’t handsome, but he wasn’t ugly.
Dee wondered what he’d talked about with their mother in the truck for thirty minutes.
“Well, again, I can’t thank you enough,” Wanda said. “And we should just go this way?” Wanda pointed at a road ahead of them.
“Yes, that should get you back to the 98,” the man responded. “Back to civilization.”
As the sliding doors shut and their mother climbed back into her seat, none of them spoke. As a matter of fact, they didn’t speak again the entire ride home, which was less than an hour once they found the right road again.
“At least we never have to be here again,” Meg had grumbled as they drove away from the man, his truck, and his unsuitable ogling of their married mother.
If only they’d known that fifteen years later, they’d be back there again.
But next time, they’d know exactly where they were going.
Forty-Eight
Meg couldn’t help but notice how many state troopers, deputies, and local cops were on the road the night she drove to the Aucilla sinks to bury the body of Rooster McCoy.
It was the longest two-and-a-half-hour drive of her life.
Meg’s proximity to law enforcement had never been something she’d paid any mind to before. Until that night, they’d been a welcome sight, or at best, one not worth taking note of.
After all, Meg wasn’t a criminal.
She was a mother. Her sleeping baby was right behind her. Meg prayed Jessa stayed asleep and was grateful she’d have no memory of any of this.
But now that she had the dead body of a mogul’s son in the back of her Jeep Cherokee, the cop cars were all she noticed. Every time she passed one she’d stare at it in her rearview mirror, holding her breath as their taillights vanished in the darkness.
Dee on the other hand, was catatonic in the passenger seat. Which made sense being that she’d just stabbed the love of her life to death in her adolescent bedroom. He was currently wrapped in the sheets and comforter from it and stuffed in the back of the Jeep.
Meg supposed anyone would be in shock were they in Dee’s shoes.
Yet, somehow, Meg stayed laser-focused on what needed to be done.
Rooster was dead. Meg wasn’t sorry about that, not for a second. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been them.
The only thing she regretted is what his death could cost them if they weren’t smart about this.
Meg had found the turn to the trailhead, despite the darkness. They hadn’t seen another vehicle for at least fifteen minutes, something she was grateful for.
No one turned into the Aucilla sinks in the middle of the night. It would have been noticeable to any witness. The last thing they needed was someone to remember them.
Meg drove until the felt the asphalt transform into gravel. The last time they’d been on this road they’d only been girls, with no idea what the future held for them.
Meg could never have imagined then what was in store.
“Dee.” Meg’s voice was calm, but emphatic. She needed Dee to get her shit together. Dee could have a nervous breakdown later, but for now she needed to be someone that Meg could depend on.
She couldn’t do this part alone.
“What?” Dee’s voice was quiet, raspy. Shaky.
“We’re here. At the sinks. I’m going to drive us as far into them as I can,” Meg spoke slowly and deliberately, like she would with a child. “Once I find a fork, I’m going to turn the headlights off. We need to be as quiet as we can. There shouldn’t be anyone out here, but I don’t want to draw attention to us. I need you to hold in your emotions until we’re back on the road home.”
Dee nodded.
“I don’t feel anything right now,” she replied. “I’m not sure this is even really happening.”
“Unfortunately, it is,” Meg said, accelerating slightly so they could get to wherever they needed to be quicker. She was desperate for this to be over with.
“What about Jessa?” Dee asked, and Meg’s body tensed.
“What about her?”
“Well, what if she wakes up while we’re…” Dee couldn’t even finish the sentence. She had no idea how to.
“One of us will comfort her and try to get her to go back to sleep,” Meg replied. “We’re in the middle of the swamps. No one should be around to hear us.”
Of course she was sick that her baby was with them to witness this very bad thing they were about to do. But there was no other choice.
They didn’t have anyone else but each other.
It had taken them an hour to make sure his body and the sheets he was wrapped in were submerged in the muck of the swamp. Meg had mostly done it alone while Dee stayed with Jessa, who miraculously slept during the entire thing.
Meg couldn’t help but thank God for that.
On the way back to Panama City Beach, they said nothing. Meg just hoped to beat their father home. He’d be leaving the motel as soon as seven hit.
“Fuck, his car,” Meg said as they finally crossed into Bay County. “We have to get rid of it.”
“How?” Dee asked.
“We’ll drive it to Cove Boulevard. Leave it there,” Meg replied. Cove Boulevard was on the other side of the bridge from the beach in a terrible neighborhood. “It’ll be stripped for parts before it’s even found. And I bet he paid cash for it. He didn’t want people to know he was here.”
“I can’t,” Dee was crying now. “I’m tired and f
reaked out, Meg.”
“Suck it up!” Meg hissed. “You brought this mess to our door. You’re going to help me clean it up.”
Dee leaned against the window of the Jeep and said nothing else.
She knew Meg was right. It was the real reason she was crying.
Dee hadn’t just ruined her life. Now she’d ruined the life of the person she loved most in the world.
There was nothing left to say.
It took over a week for Rooster’s family to realize he was really missing. After all, the McCoy children were known for frequently dropping off the radar for travel. It wasn’t unusual.
According to what Dee and Meg found online and what they saw on the news, Rooster had last been seen getting off a plane at LaGuardia. He’d rented a car with an open-ended return date and the last proof of his existence had been found on a security camera at the airport car rental parking garage, driving away in a black, Nissan Altima. He’d been wearing a Dodgers ball cap and sunglasses.
After that, nothing.
He hadn’t touched his credit cards. Of course, Dee and Meg knew why, but no one else did. It made it look like something had happened to him shortly after leaving the airport.
And whatever had happened had been over a thousand miles away from the Becketts. No one seemed to suspect that he would have ended up in the Florida panhandle.
Or that his body was currently decomposing in a sinkhole in Aucilla.
Forty-Nine
It took a few months after Rooster’s death for Dee to finally get out of Florida.
The only reason she’d waited as long as she had was because she loved her family. But even they weren’t enough to stay. The nightmares came every night, along with the panic attacks in the middle of the day.
Their love couldn’t protect her from her own memory.
Florida and their little house on Derondo Street had once been the place she felt safest. It was the home she could always come back to and know she was loved.
But she hadn’t been able to go into her bedroom since the night he’d been killed. She woke up almost every night from a panic attack or nightmare.
She’d see Rooster’s face as he sunk into the swamp and muck of the sinks, but in her dream his eyes always flew open right before he went under, and he was screaming at her to save him, to please help him.
She’d wake up covered in sweat on the living room couch, shivering from what had felt so real.
No, she couldn’t live in the panhandle anymore. This was her punishment for what she’d done. She had to exile herself.
“But what could possibly be waiting for you back in LA?” Meg had said a couple of days later when Dee told her the news about leaving. “It’s full of monsters. They almost killed you, Dee. They destroyed your life.”
Dee shook her head. “Rooster is dead. I can go back and start again. They’ve never suspected me of being part of his… ending. There are plenty of ways to make it and I still have name recognition. That has to count for something. Hollywood has a short memory.”
“What exactly do you want?” Meg snapped. “What is there to prove? Why can’t you just be happy with what you have?”
“Because if I don’t leave this house and this town, I’ll die!” Dee yelled.
Meg jumped back, startled at her sister’s sudden emotion. She’d been walking around like a zombie for months, after all.
“I don’t understand,” Meg said, her voice quiet now.
“I don’t expect you to,” Dee said. “I wish it wasn’t like this. But I can’t stay here. I’m surrounded by constant reminders of what we did and it’s too much. I’m so tired. I just need to move forward. I can’t do that here.”
“What will you tell Dad?” Meg asked. “This will kill him.”
“I’ll tell him the truth,” Dee replied. “I’m moving back to LA to try again. He’ll understand. Unlike you, he actually always believed in me.”
“That’s not fair,” Meg said. “This isn’t about that. You’re making it about something it’s not. This is about you being okay, Dee. You need help. Maybe I do too. You can’t run from your demons or your problems. You can’t run from me either. Did you ever consider that I need you? Who else do I have in this world other than you? Jessa needs you too. I’m scared of what will happen if you go back.”
Meg was crying now, something that happened so rarely that Dee had no idea what to say.
“I’m sorry,” Dee pulled her sister in for a hug, letting her shake and sob against her shoulder. “It’s because I love y’all that I have to leave. The way I’m going, I’ll bring both of you down with me. I can’t do that. I’ve already caused you more trouble than you ever deserved.”
“I don’t regret what we did, Dee,” Meg said, pulling back, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands. “He would have killed us both. He’d already killed you, the part of you that I haven’t seen since before you left us the first time. I’d do it again if it meant I had you back.”
Dee stared at Meg for a long time.
She didn’t deserve her sister. As much as she believed Meg, she knew, deep down, she couldn’t say she didn’t have regrets.
She’d already lied to her family enough.
Of course Dee wasn’t an idiot. She knew, as it stood, her career was over in Hollywood. She was blacklisted and thrown away as far as the industry was concerned.
Still, it didn’t have to stay that way. Right?
April Randolph was the one person who’d stuck around. For whatever reason, she hadn’t been afraid to help Dee out when everyone else turned their back on her.
Later, maybe she’d wished April would have rejected her too. It might have saved her a whole lot of trouble in the end.
They’d had their lunch in Glendale where the yachting had been mentioned. At first Dee hadn’t been completely on board with it.
That was, until she found out how much money there was to be made. April was able to negotiate her the same pay she had made weekly on The Good Cop.
And nothing was expected of her. She wouldn’t have to do anything she didn’t feel comfortable doing.
She’d heard that before, of course.
No one is forcing you to do anything.
This time, she hoped it was true.
Fifty
As soon as Dee arrived in the lobby of The Four Seasons that morning, she started to regret what she’d signed up for.
A driver was waiting for her, to take her to the airport.
April had told her she had to look her best, of course. But not in the same way she had to look for an audition. This was different. She was selling the fantasy of being with Delilah Goodacre, not Dee Beckett. She needed to look the part.
Dee maxed out one of her last remaining credit cards on some slinky dresses and designer swimsuits. She’d gotten her hair highlighted and blown out straight. Nails were done, self-tanner liberally applied. She’d bought expensive, enormous sunglasses to hide behind when needed. A great pair of sunglasses was as formidable as armor as far as she was concerned. They allowed a hint of mystery and the ability to disguise her disgust if need be.
God, what Rooster would think if he could see her now.
He’d tormented her almost their entire relationship with the sad tale of the yacht girls; the has-beens and never-made-it types that he and the other people in Hollywood saw as sad, cautionary tales— nothing to be respected.
“Just a bunch of expired women,” Rooster would say.
But Dee understood now that she’d never really lived in Rooster’s world anyway, the one where men sat on pedestals looking down at the people below them, judging them for the things they did to survive.
People like Rooster had never had to be afraid a day in their lives.
She’d only been a visitor in his life. Someone who was welcome as long as she toed the Hollywood line.
What did the McCoys know about struggle? Or shame?
Nothing.
It was times like this when Dee
didn’t regret what had happened to Rooster McCoy at all.
She only regretted it hadn’t happened sooner.
Her first job would be in France.
April had told her most of the jobs would be on the Mediterranean in the summer and the Caribbean in the winter.
“Isn’t that exciting?” April had chirped. Dee had only shrugged. What did she care?
Dee had been to Europe only once. It had been almost a year ago with Rooster, for a trip he’d booked as a surprise to make up for dislocating her jaw during one of his rages. He’d rented them a 5,000 euros a night villa over the cliffs of Positano on the Amalfi coast.
It had been a beautiful getaway. He’d been his most charming self.
Dee couldn’t help but remember it as she went through customs in Nice. How could she have ever guessed the next time she’d been in Europe this was what she’d be doing?
And that Rooster would be dead.
Dee shivered. She couldn’t think about that right now. She needed this job to work. Her bank account was almost completely depleted. It was either this or going back to Florida, a place that now haunted her nightmares.
She’d been told someone would meet her at the Nice airport to drive her to St Tropez where the yacht was. It was almost a two hour drive and Dee dreaded it. She was exhausted from the long flight. She’d been traveling for over fifteen hours just to get to Nice.
At least she could nap in the car.
When she entered baggage claim she saw a sign with her name on it, a skinny man who looked to be in his late 30s holding it. After getting her one large suitcase, she walked toward the person holding it, and let them know she was ready to go.
“Okay, we’re just waiting for the others,” the man said in a French accent. “You can wait on the bus if you’d like. It’s parked outside.”
“Bus?” Dee was confused. “I was told a car was picking me up to drive me to the harbor.”
Yacht Girl Page 18
