Page 84 of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She gaped at me, her lips parting, though she said nothing.

“I’m sorry that my mother didn’t have the courage to acknowledge you. I’m not condemning her,” I quickly added. “I understand her fears, but I know how much it must hurt to love someone who refuses to love you enough to fight for you.”

I reached over and squeezed Colt’s hand. I’d almost let him go over my stupid pride and insecurities.

He squeezed back, and I could feel his love pouring through to me.

“Did she give him money?” I asked.

“No,” Rachel said. “First she asked him why he’d picked the creek as a meeting spot, and he said he knew what it meant to her from Bethany. That she had pictures that were now in his pocket. He told her he wanted one hundred dollars, and then he’d give her the photos and keep quiet. Bethany said the money was so she and Chuck could leave town together. But Lila told him she didn’t have one hundred. That she could get him twenty, but then Bethany piped up, volunteering that Lila had money hidden in a box under her bed.” She grimaced. “That lit a fire in Lila. She was furious. She jumped up off the log and started for her sister, saying why go through with this charade when Bethany could have just taken the money in the first place. But then Bethany shouted she didn’t want the money. She just wanted her sister back.”

“Then what happened?” Dixie asked.

“Well, Chuck wasn’t havin’ any of that. He said he wasn’t leavin’ until he had more money in his pockets than he’d had when he showed up. Lila said then she could arrange for him to never leave, and she lunged for her gun on the other side of the stump.”

Belinda reached over and took my other hand.

“I was frozen,” Rachel said. “I was in total shock. Lila was lyin’ over the log, stretched to get the gun, and then Chuck was on top of her, tryin’ to get to it too. I guess Bethany had more loyalty to her sister than she’d realized, because she was on top of Chuck, fightin’ to stop him from gettin’ to the gun.” She swallowed. “And all I could do was watch in the bushes.”

“Fear can do that,” I said. “It can paralyze you.” I knew that firsthand too.

Rachel nodded but didn’t look entirely convinced. She definitely still looked guilt-ridden.

“Did Chuck get the gun?” Summer asked.

“Yes and no,” Rachel said. “Durin’ the struggle, Chuck threw Bethany off and she fell onto the creek bank. That freed Chuck to get his hands on it, but Lila had a strong grip on it too. I couldn’t see much of who was winnin’ that battle, but Ididsee that Bethany wasn’t movin’, so I finally snapped out of my daze and dashed toward Bethany.”

Tears had begun to stream down her cheeks. “Bethany’s eyes were open, but she was just so still, and blood was everywhere. I screamed, and then to my surprise, Chuck stopped fightin’ Lila and lunged for me. Only he wasn’t lungin’ for me, he was lungin’ for Bethany.”

A small sob escaped her. “But Lila didn’t know that and she pulled the trigger.”

“My mother killed Chuck Petty?” I asked, my voice strangled.

“She thought she was savin’ me. She’d shot him in the side, but he ignored me and he ignored the gaping wound at his siderapidly staining his shirt with blood, and he grabbed Bethany, shakin’ her and tellin’ her to wake up. That he was sorry.” She sobbed again. “He died next to her, tellin’ her he loved her.”

“He and Bethany were in love?” Belinda sputtered.

“We’ll never know the full truth,” Rachel said. “But he obviously loved her. Was she usin’ him?” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“How did Bethany get from the creek to the stock pond?” Summer asked.

“Once Lila figured out what had happened, she lost it. Not only had she killed someone, but her sister was dead too. She kept sayin’, ‘I’m gonna go to jail. I’m gonna go to jail,’ and I wasn’t sure she was wrong. So I sprang into action.”

“You obviously didn’t call the police or sheriff,” Summer said.

“Lila shot him in the back, defendin’ me, and she was poor white trash to boot. White trash girl killin’ the mayor’s son? What doyouthink would have happened to her?” she asked in disgust.

“So you came up with a plan?” Summer asked.

“Someonehad to, and Lila was hysterical. I grabbed her by the shoulders and said, ‘No, you’re not. But I’m gonna need you to help me. Do you trust me?’ Lila stared at me with those big doe eyes of hers and said, ‘I trust you, Rachel.’ So, first we concentrated on movin’ her sister. I got a sled from my barn, and we put Bethany on it and slid it partway to the pond. Then we carried her the rest of the way with a sheet. We laid her down so it looked like it’d happened there. Lookin’ back on it,” she said, looking sick, “I can’t believe the sheriff’s department fell for it. If they’d looked a little harder, they would’ve found the drag marks from the sled, and they would’ve realized that she hadn’t bled out anywhere near there, but the sheriff wasn’t exactly a brilliant man, and he wasn’t really trying that hard to find out who killedher. As far as he was concerned, she was just one more white trash girl he didn’t have to deal with.”

“That’s terrible,” Belinda said.

“Maybe so,” Rachel said, “but that’s the truth of it. So we laid Bethany there, next to the pond—grateful none of Chuck’s blood had gotten onto her clothes—and then we tried to figure out what we were gonna do with Chuck. The only solution I could come up with was to bury him by the creek. No one would look for him there. So we spent half the night digging a hole deep enough to put him in and covered him up. We also dug up the ground with blood on it and tossed the rock that Bethany had hit her head on into the creek. Then the next day, I found Tim and I convinced him to say that Chuck had been with him the night before, should the police come asking. And they bought it,” she said. “For forty years, they bought that Chuck just happened to run away the same night that Bethany was murdered.”

“But the postcards,” Summer said, “and the letters. How did you send those?”

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