Read Online The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh - Free Book Online Page B

well, I guess.”
    â€œDoing better today?”
    I nodded. “I better get back to work.”
    He stared at me, hesitating. I wanted him to stare hard enough to see what was wrong without me having to say it. “Maybe we can talk more later,” he said, gesturing to the empty store. “When you’re not so busy.”
    â€œSure,” I said. Maybe later . It was one of those vague commitments you didn’t follow up on. The door closed behind him with a jingle of the bell, and I was alone again. I tidied up the counter and neatly stacked the day’s rental receipts. There was nothing else to do, so I thought I’d save Uncle Crete some time and file the paperwork for him. I used to help with the filing all the time when I was little, in exchange for an ice cream bar.
    I walked into his office and tugged on one of the file drawers, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried the others; they were all locked. I stepped around his desk and rolled the chair out of the way, figuring I’d find the key in a drawer, but the desk was locked up, too. Apparently, filing would not be one of my duties. I dropped the papers in his in-box. Then, as I shoved the chair back into position, it caught on the edge of the rug, wrinkling it up under the desk. I knelt to straighten the rug and saw the outline of a safe built in to the floor. It wasn’t so unusual that he had a safe—most stores probably did—but I hadn’t known about it. For some reason, seeing it hidden there for the first time gave me the feeling of pins and needles, as though my whole body had been asleep and was just now waking up.
    As I thought more about it, I knew I had to go back to the trailer. Maybe I’d missed something that would tell me for sure whether Cheri had been there. But I didn’t want to go alone. When I finally told Bess about everything I had seen in the trailer—the magazines, the stained floor, the necklace—she agreed to drive out with me and take a look. She told her mom she was spending the night with me, and Gabby let her take the car. I had to lie to Gabby, promising we’d be home before dark and lock the doors, which was impossible because our doors didn’t have working locks. I’d never worried about unlocked doors, and neither had Gabby before Cheri’s body was found. My dad believed shotguns worked better than deadbolts, so he kept our guns loaded on a rack in the hallway. I’d heard him and Birdie talking on the porch one evening, and Birdie, too, scoffed at locking doors. She gave the same warning she always gave when I was little, after reading “The Three Little Pigs”: If the wolf wants in, he’ll find a way.
    â€œI feel like we should be wearing all black,” Bess said as we headed down Toad Holler Road with the headlights off. It was two in the morning, and we were fueled by nerves and Mountain Dew.
    â€œIt wouldn’t matter,” I said. “If anyone’s out there, they’ll see the car. But probably the only person out there’d be Uncle Crete.”
    â€œWe should at least think of something to say if we get caught.”
    â€œWe’ll say we were going to meet up with some boys. Crete won’t like it, but he’ll probably believe it.”
    â€œWon’t he tell your dad?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” I said. “Remember in sixth grade, when you talked me into skipping school to watch that stupid Days of Our Lives wedding episode with you, and then I was too chicken to forge a note?” I’d called my uncle, bawling, scared my dad would find out. Crete was way more open-minded than my dad when it came to following rules, and it didn’t hurt that he hated to see me cry. He had come right over and written the note, laughing as he expertly copied my dad’s signature. Dry those tears, sweetheart, he’d said, squeezing my hand. What Carl don’t know won’t hurt