Read Online Burying the Honeysuckle Girls by Emily Carpenter - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Emily Carpenter
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weeks to dig them up.
Fourteen days.
I needed money. A plan. I thought of my car back at the house. Maybe it would start for me today, if the stars were aligned, if I prayed just right. It would have to. I would sneak back, get it before Wynn and Molly Robb had time to formulate a plan. Head somewhere safe. Get access to a computer. I had work to do.
I reached into the cigar box and pulled out an empty vial. It was the oldest one, the one Dr. Duncan had said was my mother’s. I read the label, like I’d read it a million times before. The pills were prescribed from an address in Tuscaloosa. Pritchard.
My heart revved the slightest bit.
Pritchard. The state mental institution. The original structure was over a hundred years old, deserted now, all the patients housed in another modern building on a different part of the property. Everyone in the state of Alabama knew the name Pritchard, synonymous with the worst of mental-health-care abuses. There had been a brief move in the eighties to restore the place, a limp effort that died as soon as the state legislature saw how much it was going to cost, and then, shortly thereafter, the state finally admitted it couldn’t keep up the Victorian behemoth and shut it down. As far as I knew, the place was just waiting for a bulldozer.
My mother had never been a patient there. I didn’t think.
But I did know someone who’d been connected to Pritchard. Someone I had tried my damnedest to forget.
I lifted the lid of the cigar box, dropped the old empty bottle inside. I tucked the box under my arm and walked outside, turning toward my house. The air was still and thick and humid, like right before the first winds of a hurricane.
I was bathed in sweat from the sticky, two-mile trek by the time I reached Dad’s drive. A tow truck, my car piggybacked on its bed, rumbled past me, and I began waving my arms like an idiot. The driver glanced at me but kept driving. Choking in the cloud of white dust he left behind, I glared up at the house. Molly Robb, in another beige old-lady dress and matching headband, watched from the porch. I stormed up the drive and stopped in the turnaround, hands on my hips.
“You can’t do that!” I shouted up at her. “That’s my car.”
“No, it’s our car,” Molly Robb said imperiously from her perch. “You sold us the title a couple of years ago, remember? And I don’t know what you’ve done to it but Wynn’s going to take care of it for you, so you should be thanking him.”
“I want to talk to him,” I called up.
“He’s busy,” she said. “Talk to me.”
“You’re gonna make a spectacular first lady, you know that? You’re like an entire Secret Service squad squished into one bony little beige package.” She rolled her eyes. “But you’re going to have to get over yourself, because I”—I enunciated each word in a loud, clear voice—“ want to talk to my brother .”
She shifted. “Wynn is busy. You probably don’t care, but Folly is missing, and your father is frantic with worry.”
“Folly?”
“His dog.”
The Pomeranian or Chihuahua or whatever. Molly Robb must’ve named it Folly. What a bonehead.
“Tell Wynn he’d better grab his shotgun,” I said. “I’ve seen plenty of gators up and down our banks.”
“You’re a monster,” she said. “Your father loves that dog.”
“My father can’t stand little dogs. If he was in his right mind, he would punt that dog into the river like a football. As it is, you’re probably too late. The gators have probably already had him for brunch.”
Without a word, she pirouetted and disappeared inside the house. Slammed the door, rattling the row of windows. I walked to the end of the drive, trembling with fury. On the long walk back to Jay’s, I kept repeating the same words in a loop in my head: Don’t let him be awake, don’t let him be awake.
I could hear the shower running from the back of the house. I guessed Jay had woken and, when he’d found
Fourteen days.
I needed money. A plan. I thought of my car back at the house. Maybe it would start for me today, if the stars were aligned, if I prayed just right. It would have to. I would sneak back, get it before Wynn and Molly Robb had time to formulate a plan. Head somewhere safe. Get access to a computer. I had work to do.
I reached into the cigar box and pulled out an empty vial. It was the oldest one, the one Dr. Duncan had said was my mother’s. I read the label, like I’d read it a million times before. The pills were prescribed from an address in Tuscaloosa. Pritchard.
My heart revved the slightest bit.
Pritchard. The state mental institution. The original structure was over a hundred years old, deserted now, all the patients housed in another modern building on a different part of the property. Everyone in the state of Alabama knew the name Pritchard, synonymous with the worst of mental-health-care abuses. There had been a brief move in the eighties to restore the place, a limp effort that died as soon as the state legislature saw how much it was going to cost, and then, shortly thereafter, the state finally admitted it couldn’t keep up the Victorian behemoth and shut it down. As far as I knew, the place was just waiting for a bulldozer.
My mother had never been a patient there. I didn’t think.
But I did know someone who’d been connected to Pritchard. Someone I had tried my damnedest to forget.
I lifted the lid of the cigar box, dropped the old empty bottle inside. I tucked the box under my arm and walked outside, turning toward my house. The air was still and thick and humid, like right before the first winds of a hurricane.
I was bathed in sweat from the sticky, two-mile trek by the time I reached Dad’s drive. A tow truck, my car piggybacked on its bed, rumbled past me, and I began waving my arms like an idiot. The driver glanced at me but kept driving. Choking in the cloud of white dust he left behind, I glared up at the house. Molly Robb, in another beige old-lady dress and matching headband, watched from the porch. I stormed up the drive and stopped in the turnaround, hands on my hips.
“You can’t do that!” I shouted up at her. “That’s my car.”
“No, it’s our car,” Molly Robb said imperiously from her perch. “You sold us the title a couple of years ago, remember? And I don’t know what you’ve done to it but Wynn’s going to take care of it for you, so you should be thanking him.”
“I want to talk to him,” I called up.
“He’s busy,” she said. “Talk to me.”
“You’re gonna make a spectacular first lady, you know that? You’re like an entire Secret Service squad squished into one bony little beige package.” She rolled her eyes. “But you’re going to have to get over yourself, because I”—I enunciated each word in a loud, clear voice—“ want to talk to my brother .”
She shifted. “Wynn is busy. You probably don’t care, but Folly is missing, and your father is frantic with worry.”
“Folly?”
“His dog.”
The Pomeranian or Chihuahua or whatever. Molly Robb must’ve named it Folly. What a bonehead.
“Tell Wynn he’d better grab his shotgun,” I said. “I’ve seen plenty of gators up and down our banks.”
“You’re a monster,” she said. “Your father loves that dog.”
“My father can’t stand little dogs. If he was in his right mind, he would punt that dog into the river like a football. As it is, you’re probably too late. The gators have probably already had him for brunch.”
Without a word, she pirouetted and disappeared inside the house. Slammed the door, rattling the row of windows. I walked to the end of the drive, trembling with fury. On the long walk back to Jay’s, I kept repeating the same words in a loop in my head: Don’t let him be awake, don’t let him be awake.
I could hear the shower running from the back of the house. I guessed Jay had woken and, when he’d found
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