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SOMETHING WOKE ME UP. It was a soft thud against the window pane. I was getting out of bed to investigate, and I heard it again. I looked at the clock. It was just after midnight. Once I was on my feet, I walked across the room and stood in front of the window. What I saw through the glass sent chills down my spine.
Lisa stood at the edge of the hop yard. At first glance, I thought she was wearing a white dress, but it was actually a t-shirt that was several sizes too big. The moon made the fabric seem to glow. She had on a pair of denim shorts that were barely visible.
With her right hand, she threw something toward me. Whatever it was thudded and bounced off the glass. It took me a second to realize that she had a handful of scuppernongs. She was throwing them one by one trying to get my attention. She must have finally noticed that I was up because she dropped the grapes to the ground, reached into her back pocket, and pulled out her phone. A second later, my phone, which was across the room on top of the dresser, dinged with an incoming message. I went to look.
WILL YOU COME OUT HERE SO WE CAN TALK?
I went back to the spot in front of the window. Lisa was staring up at me. It was obvious that she was waiting on a reply. I still hadn’t made up my mind on the way I felt about her or what she was capable of, and just when I was about to type “Leave me alone”, I saw movement in the rows behind her.
Someone stepped out of the field. It was the man with the black rain jacket, but now there was something different about his appearance.
Lisa must have heard the movement because she turned to look. When she saw what was standing behind her, she turned to her left and bolted into that side of the field. The predator ran after her. My mind had been going down the wrong path. Lisa had nothing to do with Cade’s murder, and now she was in danger.
I was acting on impulse when I spun on my feet and ran across the room. I realized that I could call the cops, but I knew that by the time that they got there Lisa could be dead. I had to go help. In my determination to get out of the house, I must have made a lot of racket and scared Wolf because the dog jumped up from the bed, barking her head off. Zee followed suit. I tripped over the door jamb and slammed into the hallway wall. Dad’s bedroom door jerked open. “What’s going on?”
I didn’t slow down. “Call the police.” I yelled back at him. “Now.” I rushed down the steps and through the front door.
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I RAN THROUGH THE HOP yard as fast as I could. Twigs and rocks jabbed at my bare feet. Because of her white shirt, it was easy to spot Lisa running away from me in the distance. I watched her go into the old tractor shed that stood outside of Mr. Callaway’s vineyard. A blur of black plastic went in after her. I was gaining ground on both of them, and, in no time, I was in the building too.
The floor had never been poured with concrete, and the dirt below my feet was so dry that it felt like I was running through powder. Old tires and rusty farm tools were everywhere. The inside of the building stunk like something had died. An antique tractor was dead-center of the space, probably in the same spot where it had been parked and left decades earlier. The front-end of the tractor was facing me, and the enormous back tire stuck out so far to the side that I had to turn sideways to maneuver past. I made it, and from where I was, I saw Lisa and her pursuer exit the far end of the building.
I had to duck underneath the upright harvesting equipment that was on the back of the tractor. Once I was on the other side of the machinery, I stood up straight and took a few more strides before I ran face first into a furry, cold, stiff something. The nastiness of whatever it was caused me to instinctively jerk away. I stepped back to get a good look.
It was a possum. No, three possums. The dead animals had been hung from the rafters so that their pink noses were facing toward the floor. Even in the darkness of the shed, I could see that they had been cut open. The source of the reeking odor was now evident.
Cade must have killed the possums out there and never made it back to dispose of the carcasses. That had been three days earlier, and the heat of the Southern September had caused the dead animals to have a stench that was agonizingly brutal. Being so close almost made me gag. I held my breath and pressed on.
The man in the rain jacket appeared in the doorway. It was obvious that he had come back for me, and I wondered—had I been lured into a trap? Planning my escape, I knew that there was no way that I would be able to make it back to the other side of the farm equipment fast enough.
My eyes scanned the shed, and I noticed a tall stack of wooden crates on my right. I moved slowly toward the exit. The man stepped closer to me, and when I thought that the time was just right, I reached out my hand and shoved the towering stack of crates toward him. The whole thing toppled over, but the impact didn’t knock him off his feet. Instead, the fallen crates created an obstacle that he would have to get past. Hopefully it would buy me enough time to make it out alive.
I made it to the back end of the shed and, as soon as I ran through, I realized what stood in front of me—Mr. Callaway’s vineyard.
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I REMEMBERED HOW I once thought that it seemed possible to get lost in the scuppernong field at night. Maybe I could lose my pursuer in the thick of it. I ran as fast as I could to get there.
I ducked underneath the first row and then the second. I went on like this until I was deep in the field. Then, only after I felt like I was a good distance from the maniac, I ran straight down one of the rows.
I heard Dad calling my name from somewhere in the field. He was out there looking for me. A second later, I realized that he wasn’t alone. Blue lights were flashing in the distance.
I stopped where I was and crouched down low so that my head couldn’t be spotted bobbing along the trellises. If I stay here, I thought, either the police or Dad will find me before the killer does.
From my right, a gloved hand shot through the vines and grabbed onto my shoulder. I jerked away from the grasp, spun around, and scooted myself backward just as the maniac pushed through the vines. I scrambled to my feet and ran in the direction of the police car. At the end of the row, my feet slipped, and, to steady myself, I wrapped my hand around a small tree that was growing there. The slickness underneath my feet, in addition to the grip that I had on the tree, caused me to spin around.
I fell backward into a mushy, sticky pile of goo. My hands came up and were covered in slimy gunk. Whatever it was that I had fallen into smelled ripe like fermenting wine. That was when I realized that it was the spot where Mr. Callaway threw baskets of overripe scuppernongs that were no longer suitable for selling.
When I looked up, the man was standing over me. The rain jacket’s hood had slipped off his head. It was Jacob Tanner, The Caretaker and Lisa’s adoptive father. I looked past him and realized that Deputy Roper had found us. He was running in our direction. He was holding a flashlight, and the beam danced across the ground in front of him as he moved. “Hands up,” Mr. Roper yelled, and Mr. Tanner did as he was told. Behind the deputy, Dad emerged from around the corner. He had his arm wrapped around Lisa. Somehow, she had escaped. Dad and Lisa ran to where I was standing. I stepped out of the slop I was in and let both of them wrap their arms around me.
I watched Deputy Roper handcuff Mr. Tanner. Some of the words Miss Steep said to me earlier that night replayed in my mind—“I’m worried the same thing that happened to Cade might happen to you.”
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THE REASON BEHIND JACOB Tanner’s actions was easy to explain—he had been protecting the creed of the community. People wanted that easy, straightforward kind of answer for Morris killing Davey, but there wasn’t one.
The reality was that a series of secrets and lies had led us to where we were. Some psychiatrists say that people with social anxiety are wearing a mask. They say that there is a fear of honoring part of yourself. And, for me, it was true. The reality of Davey’s death was something I knew I would have to face sooner or later, and I was at the point where I was ready. It was time to let Morris rest in peace. Finally, if somebody were to ask me what I was hiding, I would tell them the truth—my stepdad didn’t kill Davey Steep. I did.