Page 50 of Our Lips Are Sealed
After assuring Josie she was okay to go alone, Miranda took a hesitant step into the ballroom, sucking in a sharp breath when she caught sight of the other two piles of white. She paused, telling herself not to go to the smaller mass. The one holding the perfect little girl who, just days ago, had squealed in excitement over the inflatable pink chair Josie had purchased for her new room at Parkland Grounds.
But no, she couldn’t risk remembering Livy like this, no matter how much she wanted to go over and rip the sheet away to see her one last time.
The reddish-brown color Evie wore streaked the floors, and as Miranda trudged onward, she gave up trying to step around it, letting it soak into her white canvas shoes. Making it to Ben, she crouched down on shaky legs. The thin sheet covering Laura Jean’s body allowed the blood and gore beneath to show through, cruelly hugging her midsection to outline her pregnant belly.
“Ben?”
He continued to whisper to the hand in his lap, rocking steadily. Miranda could only hear fragments of what he was saying, but what she heard nearly cracked her wide open.
Stay, Stay, Stay.
He was begging Laura Jean to stay.
Stay until the end of it all.
They had a deal.
“Ben,” she said again, touching his shoulder. “Look at me.”
The whispering stopped, and then the rocking. “Miranda?”
“It’s time to let the officers do their job,” she said, dying a little at being tasked with this. “They’re ready to take her.”
“No, they can’t take her. We’re going home,” he roared, heaving in gulps of oxygen with his screams. “I built us a home. A castle. I built a castle for her. The nursery isn’t done. I don’t know what color she wants to paint it. She has to come home. She has to stay. I’ll marry her on the beach. I won’t complain anymore.”
Miranda dissolved with him, powerless to do anything other than cry. Josie watched from the doorway, but disappeared when there was a commotion outside the room. She returned a few seconds later, her face drawn tight. Coming in, she was careful not to look in the direction of Livy or Rebecca.
Getting down on the floor with them, Josie placed her face in Ben’s line of sight while he sobbed. “I need you to come and take care of the children,” she said firmly. “Simone can’t do it.”
The rocking that had returned slowed, and Ben’s bloodshot eyes zeroed into focus. “What’s wrong with the kids?”
“Selah is upset because they can’t find Simone,” Josie replied, brilliantly using the one thing that would drag Ben back to them. “And Evie isn’t doing well. You’re all she has left, and she needs you.”
Blinking slowly, Ben lifted Laura Jean’s hand to cradle to his chest. “What do you mean they can’t find Simone?”
“Selah said she went to find help but never came back, and I just heard a request go out for more ambulances.”
Mathis ran by the door, followed by a batch of officers racing to the front of the house. Miranda left Josie with Ben and sprinted after them.
Outside of the ballroom, lights from an ambulance strobed through the open front door, and Miranda hurried towards it, emerging onto the front porch where Ty stood crying with his hands on his head.
“Devon,” he wailed, crumbling in his grief. “Sh-she killed Devon, and shot Abraham, too.”
Miranda traveled down the path as fast as her legs would take her to the ambulance where paramedics were loading Abe inside on a gurney. Simone crawled in with him, clutching a muddy Annabeth to her.
Simone’s eyes met hers as the ambulance readied to close, and the pain there stopped Miranda in her tracks. Like Ben, her friend’s soul had been ripped from her body.
“Take care of them, Miranda.”
But unlike Ben, Simone didn’t have the luxury of falling apart. Her concern for the children wouldn’t allow it.
“I will.”
The doors closed, and the ambulance disappeared down the driveway. Miranda stood momentarily to watch it go while planning her next move.
Returning to the porch, she went over to Ty. “I need you to help me with the children,” she said, attempting to stay steady and strong like Simone would do. “I don’t want them here when they bring out the bodies.”
The bodies.
