Ultimate Sacrifice

by S. E. Green

  She shakes her head. “Where’s your father?”

  I swallow. “The police came and got him. It looked like he’d been in a fight.”

  Her eyes well with tears, and she hurries down the hall to their bedroom and seconds later comes out in jeans and a tee. She grabs her purse. “You two please stay here.”

  “We will,” Travis assures her.

  She nods, not looking at either one of us, and hurries out the front door while I stand helplessly rooted to my spot, weighed down with the remorse of what I just did.

  After I hear her SUV drive away, Travis turns to me and I expect him to be mean, to call me a bitch, to something. Though I’m not sure why I expect this because he’s never said anything like that to me before.

  Tears push hot against my eyes as I defenselessly look into his. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  His face gentles into the Travis I know, and it sends relief surging through me. “I wasn’t with Honey, I went out drinking with some buddies, and they wanted to see where Michelle was murdered. That’s why I was coming from the woods. It was stupid of me to take them, and I completely realize that, so I would appreciate it if you don’t tell Mom and Dad.”

  Another secret.

  “That number I was texting,” he continues, “belongs to a girl I met online.”

  “Oh.” I think about that a second. “Does Honey know?”

  “Actually, yeah.” Travis looks down at his dress shoes. “Vickie, there’s a lot of stuff you don’t know about me and Honey. I’m not trying to be mean when I say it’s between me and her.” He lifts his eyes back up to meet mine. “I know how much you love Honey and please know I love her, too. I don’t keep things from her. In fact, she knows I went out drinking with my friends. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I answer, but I’m not sure I like his answer. He’s right, though. It’s their relationship, not mine.

  “Now,” he nods toward the hallway, “I’m going to get a shower and drink about a gallon of water and try not to have a hangover because right now I don’t think I can tackle the enormity of what you just said about Michelle.”

  “Sure. So . . . we’re good?”

  He gives me a tired smile. “We’re good. No worries.”

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE you got in a fight with mark Doughtery!” Mom yells. “Why did you even go over there last night?”

  “Because . . . because . . . I don’t know! Jesus!” Dad yells back. “I just found out Michelle was possibly my daughter. I had to do something! I didn’t know he was hanging in the shadows watching. It’s not like I went over there looking for a fight. He saw me go in. He confronted me. Things got out of hand, and we fought. Some neighbor called the cops, and Mark took off.”

  Mark took off, again, which means the police never did find him the first time. But he’s here in town, obviously, or he wouldn’t have been lurking around Bee-Bee’s house.

  “Does he know your Michelle’s father?” Mom demands.

  “He does now!”

  My parents have been doing this yelling thing for the past thirty minutes. Yelling. Arguing. Screaming. Dad spent the night at the police station, Mom drove him home this morning, they went straight into the garage, and me and my brothers migrated out onto the porch to listen. I wish they would’ve done this away from here because they’re yelling so loud I’m sure even the reporters can hear them. Heck, the next county over can probably hear them.

  “How many times?” Mom asks.

  “How many times what?”

  “How many times did you SLEEP WITH HER?” Mom bellows.

  “Just once.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. You and I had a fight and I took off to think. I saw Bee-Bee outside of her house checking the oil in her car, and I stopped to help. She invited me in, we got to talking, next thing I knew—”

  Mom screams. “I can’t believe you!”

  “Oh, you’re one to talk! How many ‘working dinners’ have you had with the principal of your school?”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  Kevin shoots to his feet, and I look over to see tears rolling down his face. I reach for him, “Kevin . . .”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t listen anymore. I’m going to PaPaw’s.”

  I go to get up. “Kevin—”

  “Let him,” Travis says, standing, too. “I’m with him. This sucks. I’m going to Honey’s. I’ll drop him at PaPaw’s.”

  “But—” I watch my brothers walk off together toward Travis’s truck and seconds later they’re gone, leaving me all alone on the porch.

  I agree with them. This sucks.

  Mom charges out of the garage. Without a glance toward the house, she climbs in her SUV and is gone. I watch her the whole way—down our gravel driveway and around the curve to where she disappears for a second, then I catch site of her in the distance speeding away.

  Something dense and bitter gathers in my stomach and I don’t know, I honestly don’t know what this means. I’ve never actually witnessed one of them walking out on the other.

  What about Mom’s working dinners with her boss—so Dad’s insinuating she cheated, too? I don’t buy that. I’ve met her boss, he’s the principal of the elementary school I attended. He’s old, and I definitely don’t see them together.

  I look up to the garage apartment and wonder where Uncle Jerry is. By now he probably knows. My gaze trails out to where the light spattering of news crews are. I’m sure it won’t be long before this latest bit hits the waves.

  My dad, Michelle’s biological father.

  Uncle Jerry’s car zips up the driveway and his door flies open before he’s even braked to a stop. He looks to the porch and straight at me. “Where’s your dad?” he demands.

  “I’m right here,” Dad says from the open garage door.

  I swallow hard and watch as my uncle stomps across the short distance and straight into the work shop. The door slides closed and I expect to hear yelling, but instead there’s only silence.

  Then something crashes, and I leap to my feet. I take off running, but I don’t run toward the garage and my dad, I run straight into the woods toward PaPaw’s. There won’t be any yelling and fighting there. There’ll be peace.

  I race through the woods, following the trail that leads from our property to PaPaw’s. The sun is high this morning, flickering brightly through the pine trees. It strikes me again how I never used to think twice about this trail. I grew up sprinting back and forth between the two properties.

  But as I run, thoughts start going through my head. I don’t have a weapon. What if the killer is watching me? Will anyone hear me if I scream?

  I run at full speed, my heart thumping through my veins, my breathing raspy, and my eyes darting around.

  I’m completely aware I’m passing the spot where Michelle’s body was found. I’m completely aware, and yet I still slow for a second, and from a distance, I stare. Just there, over the small hill, is where it is. The yellow police tape, the tent still up, the dirt stained red because it still hasn’t rained, the flowers Bee-Bee puts on it every day. It’s there. Right there.

  Michelle’s giggle floats through the air, and I turn a slow circle. Then the giggle fades and a cry of terror surrounds me and clenches through my muscles. What the heck?

  “What do you want?”

  With a gasp, I whirl around to see Mark Doughtery standing in the shadow of the pines, jaw clenched, glaring at me.

  “I . . .” I take a step back, automatically reaching for my phone before realizing I don’t have it on me. Why don’t the cops have this guy?

  His eyes narrow at my movement, and I’m caught in the ferocity of his stare. “I had nothing to do with this,” he tells me. “I can prove it.”

  I nod and take another step back, and he takes a step forward. Even though I don’t lower my eyes from his, I see the veins pop in his arms as he clenches his hands into fists.

  “The cops are looking for you,” I tell him, not even sure wh
y. The last thing I need to do is antagonize this guy.

  “I knew it. I knew she wasn’t mine,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “But I didn’t care,” his voice wavers a bit. “I loved her like she was.”

  I nod and take another step back.

  He lets out a short, harsh laugh, and lifts his fingers to strum his temple. “None of this is over. You’ll see.”

  A lump grows thick and sick in my throat.

  Mark lifts his other hand and with a shaking fist, he points his finger at me. “My little girl. You don’t think I know, but I do. I’ll figure out who did this, and I will kill to make amends.”

  BURSTING THROUGH THE woods, I come out behind PaPaw’s goat barn and climb the picket fence faster than I’ve ever climbed it in my life. The twenty or so goats give me an inquisitive look as I sprint across their grazing area, climb out the other side, and race over the grass to PaPaw’s brick house. I leap the porch steps and run inside.

  “PaPaw!” I yell, “Kevin!” but am greeted with silence.

  I hurry into the kitchen and look out the window to see his Jeep gone, but PaPaw has a spare car, and it’s here. There’s no way I’m going back through those woods to our place. There’s no way I’m staying here either, not alone. PaPaw and Dad are right—there is something not right with Mark Doughtery.

  I grab the keys to the car and leave a quick note. Took the car back over to our place. I’ll go the long way around back home and tell Dad about what just happened in the woods. Then we can call Crandall and report it and hopefully they can finally pick Mark up.

  Jumping in the car, I hang a right out of PaPaw’s driveway and cut down the dirt road that will connect back in with County Line Road. But as I near the corner of our property, I take in the news vans and the people, the cameras and the reporters.

  Screw this, I’m not driving through that crap.

  I hang a left instead. Travis said he was going to Honey’s. I’ll go there, tell him what happened, then we can call Dad and meet him at the police station. Surely, we can file some sort of restraining order against Mark. He can’t just come on our property and threaten me, threaten us like that.

  Honey lives on the other side of town, but it only takes fifteen minutes to navigate the country roads, then out onto the main highway, through the small downtown area, and up the hill toward her house.

  She lives on this really cool lot of land that is situated high above the town and surrounded by woods. Her dad died a long time ago and save for the occasional visit from Edwin, Honey and her mom live alone.

  I pull up to their wood and stone house and park behind her car. Travis’s truck is here, of course, and another car I don’t recognize. The plates are Tennessee, but the county is one over from ours. Her mom’s car isn’t here, and I assume she’s working. I don’t see Edwin’s motorcycle either.

  I kill the engine and climb out and make my way up their stone walkway to the porch. The sun is blaring, but with all the woods, Honey’s house is always covered in perpetual shadows.

  Music, low and thumping, seeps through the walls and I pause to listen. Low and thumping and weird. Like chants or something. Not the usual country that they both listen to. Drums, too, in a steady deep rhythm. A flickering catches my attention and I lean to the right to look through the dining room window where I see candles lit and filling the room.

  Several shadows move—apart, together, merging—and then separating again in the flickering light. I step closer and cup my hand to the glass and peer inside. Yes, their dining room is filled with candles as is their family room that sits beyond that. At first I don’t see them, the naked bodies on the floor, but as my eyes adjust I realize there are three of them: Travis, Honey, and another girl—all naked, arms and legs intertwined, having sex.

  No, not three, four. There is a fourth person, a man, and he is dressed in all black and sits in a chair in the corner watching them. He says something, and the three of them switch positions.

  I jerk away from the glass and flatten my back to the stone wall, but I can’t move any further. That music, something about it is entirely too familiar, but I don’t know how that even makes sense. My first inclination is to bust inside and break things up and tear my brother out of there. There’s a lot of stuff you don’t know about me and Honey. That’s what he said and obviously, this is what he’s talking about.

  But what exactly is going on? The candles, the drum beat. That man. That other girl. Who are they, and how long have they been hooking up with Travis and Honey? Does this have something to do with the mysterious number he was texting?

  I don’t know. God, I feel like I don’t know anything. How did my normal ordinary life become anything but?

  I push off the wall, and in a daze, I hurry away from Honey’s house. I get back in the car and I just drive . . . everywhere—past the elementary campus where I used to go and where Mom teaches. Past the place we always get soft cones. The community field where I played softball on our church league. The city pool with the high dive. The used car lot where my dad always buys his vehicles. The hospital.

  I drive, and I keep driving—weaving in and out of neighborhoods, idly taking whatever road, trying to wrap my brain around any particular thought, but finding my head so full and crowded I can’t reach in and pick just one.

  I don’t know how much time goes by, maybe an hour, but somehow I find myself pulling into Wade’s driveway. I’ve never actually visited Wade. If I see him it’s at school or church or a field party or hanging out at our place.

  I don’t think, I just walk right up to his glass door and knock.

  He steps into view and his brows come down in confusion as he opens his door. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  I look past him but I don’t see his parents. “Are you alone?” I ask, though I’m not sure why.

  “Yes, my parents won’t be back until tomorrow.” Wade tilts his head and studies me. “You okay?”

  Am I okay? I don’t know. I look into his house again. “Can I come in?”

  “Oh.” He steps back from the door. “Sure.”

  I find my way into the living room and sit down on the crème fabric couch. I look around. It’s a nice living room. Family pictures. A burgundy woven rug. Dark wood furniture with crème cushions. A fireplace with a mantel. A stack of magazines on the coffee table. An afghan thrown over a rocking chair.

  “Vickie, are you okay?”

  I look at him standing hesitantly in the archway and nod my head, even though I know I’m not.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “You have any alcohol?” I ask and immediately wonder why. Save for trying beer at an occasional field party, drinking alcohol isn’t something I do. But somehow asking for lemonade or iced tea or a cola just doesn’t match my mood.

  “Um, yeah. Be right back.”

  He disappears and I hear him in the kitchen and I continue to sit perched on the couch staring now at the stack of magazines. The one on top is People and the one below that is Men’s Fitness.

  Wade comes back in and hands me a glass with bubbly dark liquid and ice. “It’s rum and Coke.” He sits down beside me and I take a sip, like it, and take another. “Vickie, what’s going on?”

  With a sigh, I slide back into the couch and look over into his kind eyes. I look at his curly black hair cut close to his head, at the smooth dark skin outlining his strong jaw, at his brown lips, and as I’m staring at those lips, the corners of them curl up, which makes my eyes go back up to meet his.

  “Do you need a kiss?” he quietly asks.

  Do I need a kiss? I’ve never had a boy ask me that question before. I’ve had a boy ask if he could kiss me but never if I needed one. Yes, yes I do need one. That would be very nice. But I don’t say anything, I only nod.

  With sure hands, he takes the glass from my fingers and sets it on the coffee table. He scoots closer and I lean back, and he follows me until we’re both stretched out on the couch, facing each other. W
ith those same sure hands, Wade runs the pad of his index finger lightly along my nose, then across my cheeks.

  “Your freckles have always intrigued me,” he softly says.

  “Really?” I ask. “I always thought there were too many.”

  His eyes take on a mischievous glint. “I’ve seen you in a bikini. There are not too many.”

  I blush, and he leans in for the kiss. It’s a soft one, him nibbling across my lips, and I sink back into the cushions as I close my eyes and fall into the sensation. He follows, moving more on top of me, and I open my lips to invite him further in. Our tongues touch, stroke, circle, and he shifts a little to deepen things. He tastes like mint, and idly I wonder if when he went to make my drink if he freshened his breath. I love that he did, that he was thinking of kissing me before I even made it apparent that I wanted it.

  He shifts a little bit, going down to my neck, and I stretch back, letting him have whatever access he wants. I don’t know where this is going to go, but I’m ready for wherever we want to take it.

  Wade’s hand moves up my body as he pulls me closer and his palm stops right under my breast. I arch my back, letting him know it’s okay to touch, and he very gently runs his fingers across me. I expected him to squeeze my breast, not caress it, obviously he knows what he’s doing. That thought makes me both glad and jealous. Jealous that he explored another girl’s body, but glad I’ll reap the benefits.

  I move my hands, exploring, feeling the strong muscles of his back, of his biceps, of his chest. He lowers his head and puts his mouth where his fingers just were and circles with his tongue.

  I look down to watch, and he glances up at me. “Any time you want to stop, you just say it, and we’ll stop. Okay?”

  I nod. “Okay. And you, too, if you want to stop.”

  Wade chuckles at that, and the sound of it vibrates through my chest. “I don’t.”

  I grab the hem of my T-shirt and lift it over my head. “I don’t either.”

  Outside, clouds move across the sun, blanketing the living room in shadows as Wade and I lose ourselves in the moment and in each other. For the first time since Michelle’s murder I don’t think about anything. Just him and me and this. Because I know as soon as I step beyond these walls, things will be ugly again.