The Family Tree: a psychological thriller Read online

  My skin crawled. I wanted to believe last night wasn’t real. But it was real. Real as the red mark on her cheek and the purple bruise on my elbow. Real as the cuts and scratches on our legs. “I don’t understand what’s happened to you. How can you be so blasé? I killed a man last night. We buried him in your backyard.”

  “That never happened.” Her tone was dead-calm flat. “And I don’t ever want to talk about this again. It’s the only way.”

  “I’m worried someone might’ve seen us burying him.”

  “How? It was pitch black. We could barely see.”

  “I…I swear I saw someone running across the lawn.”

  “Who?” Annette tossed me a sharp look.

  “I don’t know, it was so dark. But I saw something… someone, running from the woods and across the front lawn.”

  “Girl, we were seeing unicorns and rainbows last night. Remember that part. Forget everything else. It only happened in our imagination.” Annette’s shoulders relaxed. “Get real. Don’t you think if someone saw us burying Mike, they would’ve called the police by now?”

  “My head’s so cloudy, I’m not sure what to think anymore.”

  “No one can see the back of the house from the road. Especially at night. A car would have had to drive onto the lawn with its headlights on to see anything. And that didn’t happen.”

  It was true that Annette’s house was set back at least half an acre from the road. But I still felt uneasy. “But what if someone was out for a walk? They could’ve seen us.”

  “A walk at ten o’clock at night? Doubt it. If someone saw what we were doing, they would have already reported us to the police. But no one saw, so I’m not worried.” She turned up the radio and sang along with the Eagles. “Take it eeeeasy, take it eeeeasy...”

  I glanced at Annette, her cool face and mechanical movements. Did I really know her? We’d become best friends when we were seven years old and my parents moved to Lighthouse Beach. My mom had been best friends with Patsy for years. After Mom died, Patsy took me under her wing. Annette and I had bonded over our single-child status and had become like sisters. How could she act so calm, not show any feelings of guilt, remorse, or fear?

  Annette turned into the parking lot of Old Dominion Nursery. “Okay, dear friend. Let’s go buy a beautiful American Red Oak for my mom.”

  We weren’t just buying a tree, though. We were buying a tombstone.

  Fifteen minutes later, we drove back to Annette’s house with a five-foot oak sapling in the flatbed of the truck, swaying in the wind. We had one thing left to do.

  A tidal wave of nausea carried me back to last night. The crumbling crack of Mike’s skull. His frozen eyes. Rolling him into the pit. I picked at the specks of dirt under my fingernails. Guilt was eating at me, and I needed to get a handle on what we were getting ready to do. But I remembered our mission. We both had big dreams. Graduate from college. Get the hell out of the backroads and move someplace more promising.

  One day, I’d leave this narrow-minded town. All of this would be forgotten.

  With effort, I could forget. I’d been forgetting for years. I’d built mental compartments specifically for storing unwanted memories.

  My gut twisted. Loyalty versus social responsibility. I didn’t want to compromise my loyalty to Patsy and Annette, but I hadn’t been thinking clearly last night. Would I have reacted differently if I hadn’t taken the acid?

  Too late for regrets.

  If the truth was discovered, I’d be doomed, sent to jail and ripped away from everyone I held dear. I hadn’t intentionally killed Mike. It had been self-defense. But I’d become guilty of murder the moment we’d rolled him into the pit. There was no going back.

  Annette turned into her driveway and my heart seized. A white-and-black police car. A grey-haired cop in mirrored aviator sunglasses standing on the verandah. He watched us through hidden eyes, hands on hips and a grin on his face.

  Busted.

  My heartbeat pounded in my ears. “Someone reported us,” I said, trying not to move my mouth in case the cop could read lips.

  “I’m not worried about Baker.” She smiled and waved at the cop through the windshield. “He’s just a hound in heat. Been trying to get a date with my mom ever since he found out she was getting a divorce.”

  I wiped my clammy hands on my denim shorts. Patsy was a sexy and flirtatious woman, so I had no reason to doubt he’d come by to see her. And perhaps this cop had taken a fatherly liking to Annette. But he was a law man, and he couldn’t be trusted. “What’s he going to think when he sees our bruises?”

  Annette parked next to the police car. “Just act natural and let me do the talking.”

  Act natural. I wasn’t sure how to do that anymore.

  She hopped out of her truck and called out, “Good morning, Officer Baker.” Her voice was all Southern belle and sing-song sweet. “You here to see my mama?”

  Officer Baker moseyed along the walkway toward us. “Yeah. She around?”

  I slipped out of the passenger side and kept my distance, afraid that if I got too close, he’d smell my guilt.

  Baker stopped at the end of the walkway and shot me an indifferent glance. Then I recognized him. His son went to the same high school I’d gone to, though Noah was a high school senior this year, and I was going into my junior year at college. I doubted Noah’s father recognized me.

  “Mama’s gonna be home later this afternoon.” Annette stayed cool and relaxed. “Any message you want me to pass on?”

  Officer Baker took a deep breath. “Just let her know I stopped by. I’ll catch up with her another time.” He took off his sunglasses and wiped the back of his hand across his brow. “Today’s gonna be another scorcher.”

  My feet froze to the ground. I wished the fuck he’d leave, but he scanned the verdant landscape like he was taking in a painting, lingering over every detail and in no hurry to walk away.

  Annette jingled her keys. “I’ll be sure to let her know.”

  He slipped on his sunglasses. “Thanks. Have a good day, girls.” Walking toward his police car on the other side of the truck, he hesitated at the truck bed. “You girls plantin’ a tree in this heat?”

  Annette tugged on her loose hair covering the red mark on her face. “It’s a surprise for Mama. Always said she wanted an oak tree in the backyard.”

  Baker turned his mirrored eyes to Annette. “Uh-huh. You tellin’ me, with over twenty acres of forest land, your mama wants to plant another tree?”

  Annette stood proud. “Not just any tree. A Southern Red Oak. One that reminds her of her grandma’s house in North Carolina. She grew up there, you know?”

  He ran his hand over the leafy branches. “Where you puttin’ this?”

  Sweat beaded on my forehead and I trembled from my core. What the hell was this guy doing?

  “We have a spot in the back where she wants it,” Annette said.

  “That’s a long haul.” Baker lowered the hatch on the truck bed and grabbed onto the pot. “Let me carry this for you.”

  A bolt of adrenaline sent me lunging to him. I gripped his arm. “No. No. Thanks. We’ve got this.”

  He looked down at my arm, dotted with bruises, and then two straight lines formed above the bridge of his nose. I yanked my arm away. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Annette and I both had unmissable marks on our bodies.

  Annette cut between us. “We want the exercise. Jolene and I are trying to get back into shape before we start school next week.”

  He lowered his glasses and considered us for a moment. “Okay.” He laughed and pushed his sunglasses back up. “No sense in trying to argue with a couple of determined women now, is there?”

  I laughed along with Annette, but the tension didn’t leave my shoulders until he’d backed out of the driveway. “He showed too much interest in the tree,” I said.

  Annette shrugged then dragged the plastic pot to the edge of the flatbed. “So? What’s suspicious about planting a t
ree?”

  I wiped my sweaty face with the back of my hand. “Planting a shade tree isn’t suspicious. But we are.”

  “You think too much.” She dragged the potted tree to the edge. “Let’s just get this done.”

  Block it out.

  We each held a side of the pot and carried it around to the backyard, and all along I wished this was an ordinary summer day—Annette and I had gone to the beach and hung out with friends and met some cute guys. I’d covered my fair skin in sunscreen while Annette slathered suntan oil over her olive skin. A party was happening someplace at the beach. We were preparing to go. I wanted that. Go to a party. Could we go back to that innocence?

  “Set it down here.” Annette lowered the potted tree next to the filled-in hole.

  I noticed the footprints on top of the soil. My footprints. Annette’s footprints. Any fear that Mike had been alive and dug his way out disappeared.

  Things would never be the same.

  Less than thirty minutes later, the tree was planted, backfilled with fresh garden soil and mulched with fragrant pine straw. A sprinkler swished around the roots of the tree. We’d connected the sprinkler to the long garden hose from the house, making certain the sapling had excellent conditions for health and growth.

  “It’s done,” Annette said, picking up the shovels. “And we will never speak about this again.” She walked off to the shed in the corner of the yard.

  Never speak. Exactly what I’d done after I’d lost my mother when I was nine. Trauma-induced PTSD was what the doctors had told my dad. Not uncommon in children who struggled to deal with grief and death. My silence had worried my weak father so much, he’d agreed to have me hospitalized.

  But I was older now and had no choice but to keep quiet. Forget the past twelve hours of my life. Last night didn’t count as something that had happened to me. It had happened outside of me, because I’d never been involved in such a horrendous offense. Someone else had buried Mike. I’d only been an observer, a holder of the secret.

  I’d find a way to live with the buried secret. Somehow.

  It never happened.

  “Hello, my beautiful girls.” Patsy’s voice carried from the deck.

  I startled and turned around. My neck ached like it had been stuck in one position too long.

  “Mama!” Annette came out from the shed. “You’re back early.”

  Patsy waltzed across the lawn, all sunny personality and golden tan. “I decided to get a head start and beat the traffic.” She cupped her hand over her eyes, shielding them from the bright sun while the breeze flicked back her long, sun-streaked brown hair. She stopped at the tree and sighed. “What in heaven’s name have ya’ll done?”

  Behind Patsy, Annette sent me a don’t-say-anything-glare then sidled next to her mother. “We wanted to surprise you.” She used her perkiest voice. “You’ve been talking about filling up the koi pond hole and planting a shade tree here since last year. So, we did it.”

  Patsy looked at the tree, hands on hips. Expressionless.

  My knees weakened. Patsy and her flights of fancy. What if she didn’t want the tree? Or wanted to move it?

  “This is unexpected,” Patsy finally said, a smile spreading across her face, “but I like it.”

  Relief washed over me, and I exhaled a pent-up breath.

  “How’s my second daughter?” Patsy hugged me, and my body softened in her arms. She smelled like coconuts and sunshine, and I didn’t want to let go of her motherly warmth.

  The first time she’d called me her second daughter had been after my mother had died. When my grief had spiraled into depression and my father had declared me mentally ill, it had been Patsy who’d taken me under her wing. She’d made me part of her family. How would she feel if she knew the truth about me? The truth about what we’d done? I held Patsy tighter, wishing I could make everything go away and not be the type of person who could do the things I’d done.

  Patsy pulled back and looked at me. “Are you doing okay, Joley?” She brushed my bangs off my face. “You look peaked.”

  I gave a cheerful smile. “I’m just hot from the yard work.”

  Annette edged in, breathless and upbeat. “Hey, Mama.”

  Patsy gave her the same bear hug. “How’s my baby doll?” She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “I just can’t believe you girls actually planted this tree on your own.”

  My hands tingled and I checked them for residual dirt. I’d rinsed them under the hose and picked the soil from under my nails, trying not to leave a speck. But it was there. The grime. The guilt. The urge to wash it all away.

  “Look, Mom.” Annette pointed to the back of the house. “The hose reaches all the way from the deck to here. You can turn the sprinkler on from the spigot at the house.”

  Patsy crossed her arms and stared at the tree with a rosy-cheeked smile. “I still can’t get over you girls taking on a project like this.”

  I let the whish whish whish of the sprinkler fill a minute of silence. Water dripped off the young sapling’s leaves and ran down the skinny tree trunk. I watched the water soak through the soil and imagined it reaching the roots. Roots which needed to flourish. An image flashed. Roots, like long, crooked fingers, clawing at the nutrient-rich corpse. My stomach churned.

  Block it out.

  Annette swooped in and wrapped an arm over Patsy’s shoulder. “Admit it, Mama. The tree looks much better than that muddy hole and pile of dirt.” She gave me a conspiratorial smile which clearly meant to assure me this was all over.

  I nodded my acknowledgement. I’d promised to keep the secret, and I would stay loyal to Annette. Protect my family. Protect the tree.

  Patsy laughed. “You’re right. And putting a pond back here would only attract mosquitos, anyway. A shade tree makes a lot more sense.”

  Avoiding the sprinkler spray, I adjusted the fine green netting loosely covering the branches. “The branches need to stay covered for a few more weeks.”

  “Don’t worry about that, sweetie.” Patsy loosened the protective netting like she was adjusting a shirt on a child. “I’ll keep those damn cicadas off the branches. God knows I’m ready for that noisy chatter to go away.” She circled the tree with a satisfied smile. “This tree will be beautiful one day. Big and strong. I’ll hang a swing over the sturdiest branch and watch my grandchildren run and play croquet on the lawn.”

  I had a different vision. Hopefully the surrounding woods would encroach on the lawn and the tree would blend into the forest. Become another one of Patsy’s forgotten projects. “That’s a nice dream.”

  “More than a dream.” Patsy pulled me and Annette to her sides. “I’m so glad the divorce from David is over. No more marriages for me. All I need is you two girls. You’re my family.”

  A deep contentment warmed my chest. Patsy deserved happiness. Her first husband was a rotten scoundrel who’d run off to France with a dancer once he’d learned she was pregnant. He hadn’t even been around for Annette’s birth. David, her second husband, had been a decent husband and good father to Annette, but Patsy was too flamboyant for simple-minded David, and they’d grown apart. But I had Patsy’s love and acceptance and believed I could make this moment last forever.

  “You know what?” Patsy looked lovingly at the tree. “I declare this our family tree.” Her face lit up. “You’ll both come here with your children. We’ll make memories.”

  The three of us stood, looking at the tree.

  We should have buried this secret deeper.

  Chapter Three

  Seventeen years later…

  I sat behind the wheel of my Jeep, closed my eyes, and snapped my fingers to the count. “One, two, three, four, five.” Snapping out five more sets of five until I reached thirty. I had to do it perfectly or something bad would happen; I knew it would.

  Finished with counting, I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

  The white-steepled church was cradled by a lush green forest showing sprinkles of pink camelia
flowers. Bursts of magenta and white crepe myrtles lined the brick-paved walkway to the church steps. July in the rural backroads of Lighthouse Beach. Postcard perfect.

  I needed to go inside, but the ache in my chest weighed me down. Only five months ago, I’d been here for Annette’s funeral. She’d fought brain cancer for eighteen months and lost the battle at thirty-five years old. Today, it was Patsy’s funeral, and I was as worn as a dried bone.

  A piercing pain, like a string of barbed wire, tightened around my heart. I’d always thought that if I lost either Annette or Patsy, I’d crumble, like I had when my mother had died. But I was an adult now. I needed to stay present. If I didn’t pull myself together, I’d lose the last family I had left—my children. I had to stay clearheaded if I wanted any chance of having my custody rights restored.

  I looked down at my dry, cracked hands, at my nails trimmed and scrubbed free of dirt. To others, my hands might have looked clean, but I saw the filth. The need to wash away the dirt rose from deep in my core. Scrub, scrub, scrub.

  No. The cracked skin had to heal. Don’t pick. Don’t pick. Don’t pick. Count.

  I took in deep breaths, slowly counting each inhale. “One, two, three, four, five.” I picked at the raw skin under my fingernails. I could feel the dirt. Grimy. Guilty.

  A knock on the driver’s window jacked up my heartbeat. I shuddered. It was Melissa Harrington in a burgundy sleeveless shift, one size too big on her petite frame. A friend from back in our primary school days, and another person touched by Patsy’s love.

  She put her round face to the closed window. A breeze sent wisps of straw-like bleached hair over her suntanned skin. “Hey, girl.” Her sing-song tone didn’t match her grief-lined face.

  I cracked a smile, then turned and grabbed my purse from the passenger seat, discreetly reciting my mantra. “Two, four, six, eight, now it’s time to radiate.” A pep cheer I’d created for when I needed encouragement. It worked, but I had to repeat it five times. Five perfect times.