Page 24 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

Dear God, where had she been?

Her lower lip began to tremble, then slowly, bit by bit, her entire body followed suit. She felt the threat of tears and steadfastly pushed them back. What was Troy’s comment, that she always played the victim? Well, no more. Never again. Her jaw clenched when she thought of her dead husband. “Damn it, Josh,” she whispered. “What the hell happened?” She noticed a business card that Detective Reed had left on the coffee table. Maybe she should call him.

And tell him what, that you dreamed you were at Josh’s house? Or that you don’t remember if you were really there? That your memory is shot—you just have bits and pieces that don’t make any sense. Or maybe you could explain that you’re a fruitcake, just like Grandma Evelyn . . . you remember her, don’t you . . . remember what happened at the lodge?

Caitlyn shivered, her mind reverberating with the questions Kelly would certainly throw at her if she ever found out that Caitlyn was considering confiding in the police. You want to end up in the looney bin, again? That’s what’ll happen. And how the hell are you going to explain the blood? Jesus, Caitie-Did, one way or another, they’ll lock you away for good this time! Prison or a psych hospital. Take your pick.

“But I didn’t do anything!” she said, pounding a fist on the table. Breathing hard, nearly gasping, she felt herself falling apart. But she wasn’t out of her mind. No . . . hadn’t Dr. Wade said as much? She willed her body to quit shaking, refused to feel sorry for herself. When she talked to Kelly, she would find out the truth. Whatever it was. Oh, yeah? Well, paranoia runs in the family . . .

She shot to her feet, knocking over her tea, scattering ice cubes across the table and feeling the scabs on her wrists pull tight. She couldn’t think this way . . . couldn’t let all her self-doubts get the better of her. Quickly grabbing a sponge from the sink, she began swabbing up the tea while tossing the skittering ice cubes into the sink. She was losing it. Really losing it. She threw the towel into the basin. She needed to get out of the house, to take Oscar for a walk or run through Forsyth Park until she was sweating and breathing rapidly, her heart pounding, her head finally clearing. Yes, that was it. She had to get out. Get away. Just as she had since she was a kid.

Life had been so much simpler then.

Or had it been?

Staring out the window to the walled garden, she remembered growing up in the old plantation house, running with Kelly and their friend Griffin through the woods and the squatty old slave quarters, chasing through the dilapidated rooms with hard dirt floors, crumbling walls and the musty smell of old sweat and wasted dreams. Wasps had droned in the rafters, and spider webs had clung to windowsills leaving the dried, desiccated corpses of insects littering the ledges.

Caitlyn and Kelly hadn’t been ten years old yet, more like eight or nine, and Kelly had loved to play hide-and-seek in the interconnected rooms, disappearing into the shadows.

“You can’t find me . . .” Kelly had taunted, and Griffin had always run toward the sound, not realizing that it bounced and ricocheted through the rotting timbers and broken doors. Some of the roofs had fallen in, and there were bird droppings flecked against the weathered walls.

Kelly had hidden in the most disturbing of places, old alcoves and dark niches that made Caitlyn’s skin crawl. Places where rats and palmetto bugs and snakes could hide. Places that felt dark. Evil.

“Oh, you’re just a fraidy cat,” Kelly had teased

, egging Caitlyn and Griffin into a crammed corner where a dark stain discolored a wall. “See here . . . this is where the old slave, Maryland—you remember the one Great-grannie told us about, she was named after the state where she was born—this is where Old Maryland squatted down and had herself that baby that died. Right here.” Kelly had pointed to the floor beneath the stain and Caitlyn had shuddered.

Somehow Kelly had garnered all kinds of knowledge of the slaves and she’d sworn they practiced voodoo, killing chickens and heaven knew what else in a particular room or closet she found in the long row of houses. Her stories had never seemed to be the same, changing with the seasons or her whims, yet she’d insisted that every atrocity she spoke of was true. “If you don’t believe me, ask Lucille, she’ll tell you.” Kelly’s eyes had twinkled mischievously as sunlight danced through the leaves of a gnarled oak to dapple the ground in eerie, shifting shadows. It had been sticky-hot. Muggy. The temperature over a hundred degrees. But Caitlyn had felt a chill as cold as death.

“Maryland still haunts the house,” Kelly had said. “I’ve seen her. She’s looking for that dead baby.”

“No way.” Caitlyn had shaken her head vehemently. She’d always hated it when Kelly started telling her ghost stories.

“I have. Swear to God.”

“I don’t believe you,” Caitlyn had lied, but Griffin, always gullible, had trembled and whispered, “I think it’s the truth. I heard ‘em one night, moanin’ and cryin’.”

“Why would I lie?” Kelly had asked with a smug smile. She’d known she’d gotten to them both.

Because you like to, Caitlyn had thought, but hadn’t said it. Would never. Didn’t want to chance a lashing from her twin’s sharp tongue, or worse yet, her lapse into silence which could last days and require a hundred apologies from Caitlyn.

“It’s the truth,” Kelly had said more times than Caitlyn could remember. “Swear to God and if I lie, poke a thousand needles in my eye.”

Just the image had made Caitlyn cringe, but Kelly had only giggled and darted off, her laughter trailing after her and fading like the music at the end of a movie scene. Caitlyn had turned on Griffin. “You never heard those slaves.”

“Oh, yes, I have,” Griffin had insisted, nodding his head, his brown hair flopping in his eyes, his skin pale even though it was summer.

“When?”

“Tons of times. It’s . . . creepy.”

Caitlyn had let the subject drop. Griffin, a neighbor boy whom Caitlyn and Kelly had been told to avoid, who was not allowed on the Montgomery property, had always sneaked over. He’d ridden his bike along an old deer trail through the woods and left it hidden in a thicket by the stream, until he had to go.

Two years younger than Caitlyn and Kelly, Griffin was gullible enough to believe anything Kelly said. Secretly, Caitlyn thought he was fascinated by her sister and afraid to disagree with Kelly. The truth of the matter was that Griffin wasn’t any smarter than he was welcome at Oak Hill.

Caitlyn tried not to mention his name around the house, for when she did, her mother would get that pinched expression on her face, as if she was worried or mad. As if Griffin had done something Mother disapproved of. Amanda, their older sister, had always rolled her eyes expressively whenever Caitlyn slipped and talked about him. Lucille, forever hovering near Berneda and usually polishing some piece of already gleaming furniture, had, behind Berneda’s back, pressed a thick finger to her lips, silently warning Caitlyn not to distress her sickly mother with talk of the boy. Caitlyn never understood why her mother disliked Griffin so, but assumed it was because of “bad blood,” which was always the reason Berneda Pomeroy Montgomery snubbed a person.

But that had been years ago. Caitlyn didn’t know why she’d thought of him now. She hadn’t seen Griffin since they were kids; didn’t know what had happened to him. Today, she had to concentrate on the problem at hand. She sent a dark look toward the telephone, desperate to hear from her twin. She looked for her cell phone, missing since yesterday. Not in her purse. Not in the car. Not in the bedroom . . . not anywhere. Maybe she’d left it with Kelly . . . or at Kelly’s house....

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