by Leanne Davis
“We do. We have to tell them. Or I can. If you’d prefer not to.”
She shook her head. “No. I will. They’ll need me…” The stunning reality hit her. “I’m now an only child.”
“Yes. I’m so sorry, Chloe.”
She leaned on him and fresh tears filled her eyelids. He let her cry on him for a long while before she calmed down. Gathering her things together, she prepared to go home and tell her parents their other daughter was dead.
The café was so quiet. Only Petra and Chet remained. She noticed Chet standing off towards the back of the kitchen. He was changing the garbage bags, and putting a fresh liner in the biggest one. She flushed when her gaze scanned the room and met his. He stopped what he was doing and straightened up. Biting her lip, she turned towards Ryder, who put his hand out for her to hold. Dear God, had she really kissed Chet? The busboy? No way.
She shook it off. Petra came towards her with plenty of hugs and sympathy. She began clucking over her with love and concern, but Chloe could only respond with fresh tears.
“I promise we’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry for a single minute about this place. Whenever you’re ready to return, we’ll all be here, waiting for you. We’re a tight family here and you know that.”
She nodded, but avoided looking at Chet, with whom she just enjoyed something very unlike a family gesture of affection. “Thank you, Petra. I’m afraid you’ll have to take care of everything. I just can’t…” Her voice drifted off. She couldn’t think of what to say, much less did she care now. She was not ready yet to address anything regarding the café, or her future life. Ryder was instantly by her side, resting his hand on her right bicep. He held her purse and light sweater. She blinked in surprise when she realized she hadn’t even considered them. How could he think so clearly still? How could he function so well? She wondered if she could ever function properly again.
Ryder tugged on Chloe and she followed him out towards her sedan. It was parked in her usual spot directly behind the back door. As owner, she always got the prime parking spot. Why not? She was always the first to arrive, and quite often, the last to leave. She put in long days. This place became a success not by accident but after Chloe spent long hours doing anything and everything. Chloe handled it all: changing the garbage, cleaning the bathrooms, washing the dishes, cooking and serving, greeting the customers and totaling the bills. That didn’t include the other paperwork either, from payroll to ordering supplies, and taking inventory. Chloe worked endless hours in order to pull out a decent living for herself and, at one time, for her sister too. But now it belonged only to her although Ryder still received a percentage of her profits.
The parking lot also held Chet’s low-riding Honda Civic. The windows were tinted so darkly, no one could see in. She wilted in the front seat of her car as Ryder sat down in the driver’s seat and moved the seat back. She stared out the window, mindless of the treetops and sky, or the small houses and quaint neighborhoods of Silver Springs. So small a town, but it was her hometown. She spent her entire life here, except for the few years she attended culinary school. That was only fifty miles away in Portland. She never really ventured anywhere. The cooking and running of the restaurant were exactly what she always wanted. She was so proud to own it with her sister, their shared business, which they started on their own. Mostly, she was proud of sustaining it for all these seven years. But now? She kept thinking, what did it matter? How could it possibly ever matter to her again?
Ryder pulled into her parents’ driveway. It was the same house she and Ebony were raised in. Her heart sank into her feet, feeling so heavy that any effort to move seemed like too much. She pushed her knuckles against her mouth. No. No, she could not go in there and destroy her parents. She could not ruin their lives or take away all their hope. They shared the desperate belief that someday, someday Ebony would call. Either the phone would ring or she’d simply show up again in town. Eventually, she would come home. Now? Chloe had to snatch that one hope away from them. She had to give them closure. The final curtain. The end of Ebony.
“I’ll tell them,” Ryder announced. Chloe didn’t argue, but nodded. Dazed, she wondered if she were having an out-of-body experience when she followed Ryder. She could not stay focused. They entered after only a light knock on the front door. It was approaching the dinner hour, so her parents were sitting in the living room, watching the local news as they did every single weeknight. Swallowing the fresh lump that was lodged in her throat and blinking her burning eyes, Chloe kept her gaze fastened on the ground. One look at her face and they’d both know something serious was wrong, so she bypassed them and went directly into the kitchen. She rooted around in the fridge as if she were getting a bottle of water.
Ryder quietly said his customary greeting and exchanged pleasantries before he launched into his articulate, soft, and very tender statement to her parents that their daughter was dead. Not just dead, but murdered. Violently, Ebony was murdered and her body was dumped in a swamp to rot into fodder for wild animals and parasites, the scavengers that ate dead bodies. She shuddered and gripped the counter, sagging over it.
Wait? How was she killed? How had she been murdered? She never even asked about one detail. Her mother was wailing. There was no need to hide her grief anymore. She wobbled towards her parents on shaking legs and collapsed into their embrace when they engulfed her in their arms and cried. She listened as Ryder finished telling them what happened to Ebony. Evidence showed she was shot in the back, a bullet hit her spine. She listened to the gruesome, simple and few details Ryder provided feeling like she was witnessing the exchange from out of her body. Her face was buried against her mom’s shoulder, and her eyes were tightly shut. Her dad rubbed her back in small circles.
The evening somehow passed. When they overcame their initial shock, a silence descended on the room as if they were all too exhausted to discuss their grief and no words could express it. No questions. Nothing. Ryder was amazing. He tried to coax them into drinking some water and eating some crackers but no one ate. He eventually convinced her mom to lie down after swallowing a sleeping pill. Ryder promised her parents he would answer more questions tomorrow but he had to go home to Wyatt.
Chloe walked him to the door and he wrapped an arm around her and hugged her. “Call me if it becomes too much to bear.”
“It already is…”
“Okay, I mean, if you or they plan to do anything stupid. Just call me.”
“Mom will want to see Wyatt. Can I bring them over first thing in the morning?”
“Of course.”
Chloe watched Ryder leave and shut the door. The house was eerily silent after the bomb that was just detonated. She padded softly back to the couch where she flopped down and placed her head on the armrest before closing her aching eyes. There was nothing left to say or do today. The heaviness in her chest made her wonder if she could ever find a fulfilling reason to talk to or interact with anybody again.
The world just needed to end. Now.
She wished she were only talking about this day.
****
The next morning, her parents awakened her. Staring at nothing but darkness all night, she waited until the dawn before she finally slept. She jerked awake at their firm stirrings. They didn’t smile or even say hello to Chloe, but simply stared at each other. Her parents’ eyes were as swollen and red as hers. There were no words of consolation that could provide any degree of levity. Chloe went into the bathroom and showered before putting on the same clothes. She didn’t even bother eating any food before they drove in silence to Ryder’s house.
There was Wyatt to consider. Hopefully, he’d revive them. Maybe they could even find a few kind words to say to each other. They had trouble just making eye contact. They saw so much grief in each other’s eyes, it made their own tears flow again. Tears fell from everyone’s eyes while they prepared to go to Ryder’s house that morning.
Chloe ran up Ryder’s front steps and knocked
at the same time that she rang the doorbell. After a few moments, she opened the door and stepped inside. She stopped dead. Tara. Damn it. Chloe assumed Ryder would have sent his little fluffball packing. But oh, no. There she was, sitting up, with a blanket falling off her shoulders and blinking at them with unmasked surprise. Obviously, they’d woken her up. Seething inside, Chloe tried to remain passive as she introduced her parents to Tara. Something felt wrong inside, but she did it anyway. She shook her head, realizing duh! Of course they already knew Tara. Well, in fact. Tara served them often at the café. Chloe couldn’t find her bearings this morning.
“Where’s Ryder?”
“Still sleeping,” Tara answered as meekly as ever. Despite her pretty blue eyes and blonde-haired beauty, Tara was humble, quiet, and seemed scared at times. It was something that originally endeared her to Chloe, and made her like Tara more. She even hired her because of it. She knew how well men would respond to Tara. There was something fragile and vulnerable about her, yet kind of mysterious. One didn’t fully know where one stood with her. She was unreadable, yet exposed just enough to be intriguing. Chloe was even pushing Ryder towards her, thinking Tara could be good for him. She never guessed she’d end up regretting it as much as she did now.
“Right here.” She turned towards the stairs as Ryder came down. Huh. They must have slept separately last night. Tara was staring at Ryder with hungry, sad, confused eyes. Good. She should have been. Ryder spoke in low tones to her parents. Chloe’s brain grew fuzzy just listening to them. Shaking her head, she tried hard to focus on herself. God. It was so hard. Wyatt understood that his mom, Chloe’s sister, was up in heaven with their Grandmother Pearson. But Grandma died in her eighties, not at age twenty-six.
A sharp jab stabbed her brain, her heart, and her gut, reminding Chloe that Ebony was dead. Murdered. She glared at Tara and her icy tone was undeniable. “Tara, do you mind giving us some privacy? We have family matters to discuss.” Chloe wasn’t sure why she began directing all her anger and grief towards Tara, but she did. That tall, skinny, blonde, white woman taking her sister’s place. Acting like a mother to her sister’s son. A partner to Ebony’s husband. It was so wrong. So wrong. And so unfair.
Her sister should have lived.
Being the good girl that Tara was, she instantly obeyed and ran upstairs. God. Her sister would have slapped anyone’s face who attempted to belittle her or tried to shove her into some corner. She’d never have allowed someone to tell her what to do. Ebony was fierce and outgoing and tough, as well as being strong and kind. Not like a whiny girl who couldn’t even stand by her boyfriend in his time of grief and sorrow. Chloe sneered after Tara’s retreating form. She wasn’t fit to fill Ebony’s shoes, let alone sleep in Ebony’s bed with her man.
There were new details from Ryder, including an investigation and official death notice and waiting. More waiting. Always so much waiting. But Ryder’s certainty that it was Ebony who was found dead never wavered. Not even once.
“Will you—could you lead the investigation?”
Ryder shook his head at hearing her mom’s question. His tone was so gentle every time he addressed her mother. A soft, but firm tone like one might use to explain something difficult or complicated to a child. It grated on Chloe when she heard it. No. Never. Never would there be a day when Adaline Carrington needed coddling or care. Her mother was tough and sassy and bossy. She always had been. That’s where Ebony and Chloe got their attitude. But no longer. Now her mother walked around in a trance and seemed confused about where she was and even who she was.
“No, Adaline. I can’t have anything to do with it…” Her mind spaced out again as Ryder explained how they planned on investigating the murder of her sister and Ryder had not been assigned, of course. She clearly understood why. How could he? How could he stand to conduct such a probe? Her brain vaguely seemed to float out of her body. They could not seriously be discussing her sister, or could they? Her sister, the subject of a murder investigation? A body? An unsolved puzzle? As if it were some kind of new game to solve the mystery.
“How do we… do this?” Chloe said as she zoned back in to her mother’s troubled statements.
Chloe got up and put her arm around her mother’s wide shoulders. She was rather overweight and Chloe rubbed her leg, trying to calm her. Her distress was so real. “What should we do?” What could they do on this day of all days? How did one spend the next day after learning their daughter was murdered? Murdered. Dizziness started to lighten her head and she feared her blood pressure would flatten before she fainted. How could that word—how could murder have become a part of her family’s vernacular? It would forever more belong to them. Becoming a part of their history and any future depictions people sought to describe them. Ebony, their daughter, sister, wife, and mother, was murdered. Murdered. She sucked in a deep breath to keep a whimper from escaping her lips. Any fortitude she may have once possessed disintegrated under the weight of her sister’s death. Her sister was a murder victim, which now warranted an investigation.
And yet this reality existed unbeknownst to all of them for three years and five months. During that time, they erroneously believed Ebony had run away and abandoned them all, even her own baby son. Now, the injustice of that assumption nearly crippled Chloe. They should have known better. Ebony would never have abandoned Wyatt or even Ryder. Of course she knew how much Ebony loved Ryder. And she adored her son despite suffering from postpartum depression. That wasn’t Ebony’s fault either, and no reflection of how she felt about her family. Chloe shook her head. She failed her sister. She knew it. She should have defended her twin sister until her dying breath. She should have denied and rebuffed any accusations or assumptions that Ebony would have ever left any of them.
Of course she hadn’t done that. Chloe’s guilt was as sharp as a scalpel opening her chest and slicing through her heart. Her grief bled out. She wasn’t sure how to proceed with so many contradictory feelings swirling around in her gut. Betrayal. Shame. Guilt. She falsely believed her sister was capable of such terrible things when instead, for all that time, her sister was dead. Buried in a stinking swamp. Rotting and decomposing…
Chloe shivered and her body jerked involuntarily at the thought of it. Decaying. Her beautiful, vital, smiling, shining, young sister was decaying into compost. And meanwhile, they failed to give her the honor and respect she was due. They never laid her to rest.
Chloe suddenly jumped up. “We need—we need to lay her to rest. Now. Not a month from now, or even weeks from now. We believed—we all wrongly believed she did a terrible thing and all this time, she was dead. We have to honor her life, and try to undo all the bad press we spread about her. We need to pay our respects to her now instead of sometime later on. I need to—I need to do this.”
She glanced around and her parents stared at her with visible shock in their gazes. But they didn’t seem fully coherent since finding out what had happened to Ebony. Ryder’s hazel eyes were filled with sympathy. Tears rolled down Chloe’s cheeks and choked her throat. Of course he knew what she meant. How many conversations had they shared over the years? All of them were about bashing Ebony. Endlessly. Ryder seemed stricken. He knew. Ryder recognized Chloe’s guilt since he’d been just as merciless as Chloe in any discussions about Ebony’s disappearance. The things they concluded, the terrible, degrading things. Cursing her with bad names and bad wishes. They bashed her mercilessly. They were devastated at the time, hurt and grieving, which became unresolved anger. Perhaps that was what made them so nasty. But only with each other did they say such things. Ryder nodded slowly at Chloe.
She knew he felt the same guilt she did. He should have known better too. Just as she should have. But what about all the clues and evidence they heard? All the items that supported the reasons why she believed the worst of her sister? She did suffer from postpartum depression after Wyatt was born. It was something that plagued Ebony although mental despair had never entered her life before. And what abou
t when Ryder and Ebony’s savings account was cleared out? No one else had access but Ebony. She’d stolen thousands from Ryder, or so they were led to believe, and what about the note? It came in the mail just two days after her official disappearance. That was the day after they first noticed her unexplained absence. The same day Ryder realized his money was gone. They were both frantically calling everyone they knew, looking for Ebony and any clues as to why she would do something like that.
When the mail came, there was a short letter. In no more than a paragraph, she tried to explain how she made a mistake by getting married and having a baby too young. She needed to get away from them and seek a new life that she really wanted. She couldn’t do it if she stayed in Silver Springs. She knew everyone would be disappointed over her decision and would hate her and she couldn’t face that. Not from Ryder, or Chloe, and certainly not from her parents. She listed all of them in her note.
One night, Chloe and Ryder crumpled the note up and burned it. That thought jarred Chloe now. How could they have done that? It was evidence. It could have been a clue as to who murdered Ebony. And they so blithely burned it one night while drinking together and yet again, bashing Ebony.
Ryder jumped up as she started to wobble. He gripped her arms in his hands, holding her steady. “Of course. We can do that. We can have a proper memorial. We don’t need—”
“A body?” Chloe supplied softly.
“Yes.” Ryder’s gaze held hers, and he seemed sincere in his sadness and empathy towards her. “Exactly.”
“Ryder, the things we said…” She shook her head and her voice drifted off in shame. She couldn’t even own it now, or fully admit how she bad-mouthed and betrayed her sister, the sister whom she used to adore and love, who was literally her other half.
“We didn’t mean any of it. We were just angry. We spoke out of love and pain, actually because we were so angry that she left us. Responding to what we believed. Pretty compelling proof, too. I know, Chloe. I feel the same way too. But try to remember, we didn’t have a damn clue. None. We were duped and whoever was behind it did a fucking superb job of making us believe it.”
