Chapter Twenty-One

Jillie’s shoulders sagged as she listened to the conversation around the dinner table. Although the sisters didn’t come right out and tell David about her, he’d asked a lot of questions and didn’t seem completely satisfied with the answers.

Dix had been nice. And even though Lil had fussed about Jillie’s being there, she hadn’t told the policeman about her. But the old ladies could get into a lot of trouble for trying to help her, maybe even go to jail.

After a few more minutes of listening, Jillie had slipped down the hall and to the guest room where Dix had put her backpack on the bed. She stared at the fluffy, down-filled comforter topped with two thick pillows and almost changed her mind.

She was so tired: tired of running, tired of being alone, tired of dreaming about hollering, bleeding Digger. Mostly, she was tired of being alive when her sister was dead.

But Beth was counting on her.

Jillie straightened her shoulders and picked up her backpack. Careful to put her feet down next to the posts at the side of the stairs to avoid squeaks, she tiptoed downstairs and toward the front door. She’d just reached for the knob when the sound of chairs scraping on the dining room floor warned dinner was nearly over.

Quickly, she pulled the front door open. A fierce gust of wind pushed it toward her so hard she had to put her weight behind it to keep the thing from smashing against the wall.

Cold outside air shoved the warm, food-fragranced indoor air aside. It rattled the dried leaves and colored corn husks of a fall decoration hanging on the entryway wall.

Leaving the door open, Jillie scurried outside where she hunkered down behind a sage bush shrouded in darkness. Barely breathing, she peered through spaces between the leaves toward the back-lit doorway.

“I thought you said you were going to call someone to fix this thing,” Lil had shouted over her shoulder as she reached for the doorknob. Muttering, the old lady slammed the door and shot the deadbolt home.

Like a flaming sword, distant lightning blazed its initials across the sky. Jillie counted the seconds between the lightning and thunder. Fifteen seconds meant the storm was about three miles away. Hopefully, she’d make it to the train station before it broke loose.

Based on what Dix had said about someone at the hospital calling the police, Jillie didn’t dare go there. Besides, Beth’s body might already be at the mortuary waiting to be burned up. In that case, her trip to Albuquerque would be wasted.

Like Dix had suggested, although Margo was perfectly capable of doing something awful with Beth’s ashes, it’d be more like her to put the urn on the mantel or in the middle of the kitchen table where she could gloat over it with her morning coffee. As Jillie thought it over, she felt certain that at some point, Beth’s ashes were going to show up at the Elliott house.

As suddenly as it had blown up, the storm fizzled. Clouds scooted away, stars twinkled, and the air grew colder. Jillie picked up her pace.

Memories of the Elliott house made her queasy. But after weeks of cleaning it, she knew its every nook and cranny. If Beth was there, she’d find her. If she wasn’t there yet, Jillie would wait until they brought her.

Her memory flashed on the little wooden shed that stood several feet from the Elliott house. Margo had said the place hadn’t been used for years. And there might be old dried-out bags of mulch or something that would make a nice bed. Unless it got too cold, she’d sleep just fine in her down-filled coat with Mickey for company. She could forage for food from the Elliott’s pantry and water from their stash in the garage. Best of all, since the shed faced the house, Jillie could watch the Elliotts’ comings and goings.

Jillie pulled her hoodie up, adjusted the straps on her backpack, squared her shoulders, and headed toward the Los Lunas train station.