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She waited.
In less than five minutes, the front door opened again, and the large man walked outside, scanning the area before climbing into his truck and parking backwards, so that the bed of the truck faced the door.
“What is he doing?” she breathed.
He went into the house again and Shavonne waited until the men returned and swung the door open. They were going back and forth in conversation until the burly man tossed something at Brynn’s ex. The ex stepped back, so she couldn’t see what he was doing, but in a matter of seconds both men bent down. She noticed they both had gloves on.
She tried not to make a noise as the men lifted a rolled-up rug and grunted as they shoved it onto the back of the truck. She bit into her bottom lip and tasted blood when she realized the rug wasn’t empty—that it was lumpy and misshapen, and pieces of hair stuck out of the ends. Brynn.
She pulled out her phone, making sure it was on silent before going to her camera, zooming in, and snapping a picture of them. In the photo, Brynn’s ex clung to the end of the rug to make sure it didn’t fall. She cursed under her breath. It was a bad picture. To anyone else, it would just look like he was putting something on the truck, not a body.
The big man in the truck spoke once more as he withdrew the truck’s bed cover to conceal the body and Shavonne took that opportunity to run back to the brick fence and jump it. She was in her car and behind the wheel when the black pickup rolled out of the driveway. When the man drove past, she started her car, made a U-turn, and followed him out of Marshview.
FORTY-SIX
SHAVONNE
Four years ago
“Damn it.” Shavonne dragged a hand over her face as she stared at the mini glowing orange sign on her dashboard. She was running low on gas. She’d been tailing this pickup truck for three and a half hours, making sure to stay several cars back. She was not at all prepared for this journey.
“Please just stick with me. Hopefully it’ll only be a few more miles,” she whispered, more to herself than her 2012 Toyota.
To her luck, the truck took a ramp off the highway. She followed it, staying behind with no clue where she was. They were still in Louisiana based on all the signs she’d followed, but this particular area was one she’d never heard of.
The truck slowed and turned onto a narrow path. She stopped before the turn as the truck kept driving. She couldn’t follow him like she wanted. He’d definitely notice someone tailing him on a solo path—one that clearly led to backwoods or another private house.
She gripped the wheel, staring at the dashboard. A minute ticked by. Then two. Now was good. She turned off her headlights and drove in the dark, passing tall swaying grass and lurking Spanish moss trees that looked like hanging dead bodies in the night. She couldn’t see a damn thing, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when her car chimed again, alerting her that gas was low.
The path ended and she cracked the windows, smelling mud and salt. Shavonne waited at the end of the path, looking ahead at the open field of grass and trees. Where did the truck go? She looked left, then right. No sign of it . . . that is until she spotted red taillights ahead, snaking between a cluster of trees. She veered left and drove toward overgrown shrubs, parking along the side of them. No one would see her car. With haste, she climbed out of the vehicle and ran across the field, stopping short of the truck and hiding behind a tree.
The man had the headlights of his truck flashing forward and stood in the light with a thick-handled shovel. With a heavy grunt, he pitched the sharp end of the shovel into the ground and began digging. Shavonne went around the back of the truck as the man continued digging and listened for any sign that Brynn was alive. She couldn’t hear a thing.
She moseyed into nearby bushes and waited. She didn’t know what the hell she was going to do, and her phone was down to seven percent. She could’ve called police but there was no cell reception out here. This man had chosen this location for a reason and now she regretted not calling the police at the house when she had the chance. What the hell was she going to do to stop him? She had no weapons on her, other than some bear spray and a pocketknife. That wouldn’t take him down though, and if Brynn was dead, she would be putting her life at risk for nothing.
She sat with her back against a tree trunk, listening for what felt like hours as the man dug until, finally, he stopped and walked around the truck. A tree branch snapped under her knee as she shifted forward to get a better look and the man’s head whipped back. He looked in her direction and she cupped her mouth, trying to make herself as small as possible. Her breaths felt loud as they poured out of her nostrils. The man stared for a long, long time. He took a step in her direction and her heart might as well have shot up to her throat.
Then, just when she couldn’t take another second of the still silence, a rabbit scurried past her and hopped across the field. The man sucked his teeth and went back to what he was doing. He opened the bed of the truck and hauled out the rug with Brynn’s body. He dragged the rug around the truck with mild grunts and gasps, then he unrolled it next to the hole. He wasted no time dumping Brynn’s body into the ground and Shavonne could’ve sworn she heard a small sound—a whimper or a cry as he did so, but the man acted like he didn’t hear a thing. He tossed in a purse with her and went straight for his shovel to start scooping dirt and dumping it into the hole.
Thick tears lined Shavonne’s cheeks as she watched him cover her best friend. What she really wanted to do was get into the man’s truck and run him over, but she was shaking like a leaf. She’d never dealt with anything like this before in her life and she wasn’t brave like Brynn. She didn’t fight men or spray them with pepper spray. She just . . . cowered. And she sat there while her friend was being buried alive, and the man kept shoveling and scooping until he’d finished. And when he was done, he threw the dirty shovel onto the bed of the truck, along with the bloodied rug, and drove away.
But Shavonne wouldn’t let this be it.
She may have been scared to confront him, but she could still try to save Brynn. She waited until the man drove away, taking the path to the main roads. When she could no longer see his taillights, she ran back to her car and pulled out a shovel of her own. It wasn’t anything like the man’s in the truck. Hers was half the size of his and rusted with a cracked handle. She’d bought it when she and Krystal had gone to the beach to look for shells they could sell in the shop. It was possible the shovel would break on the first dig, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t stop. She’d get Brynn’s body, dead or alive.
She dug quickly, thankful the dirt was soft. It was a bit moist, but it was fine. She kept digging with heavy breaths. Her shoulders ached and her arms grew numb. Her palms were sore and raw, and she was getting tired, but she didn’t relent—not until she saw one of Brynn’s hands. It was twitching. Then she heard moaning. It was faint, but it was definitely coming from the hole.
“Oh, God. Hold on, Brynn!” Shavonne wailed. She ditched the shovel and dropped to her knees, scraping at the dirt. It wedged beneath her fingernails as she clawed at it, powering through the numbness and pain until she could see Brynn’s face.
Dirt clogged her best friend’s nose, and her eyes were closed. There was a gash on her forehead that was so deep she could see some of the white meat. Dirt had wedged its way in there too. Shavonne was positive it’d get infected, but an infection was better than death.
She clawed and clawed until finally, the top half of Brynn’s body was visible. Then she grabbed Brynn’s arm and hauled her up while using her own body to climb out of the hole. She wasn’t sure how she’d done it. Never in her life had Shavonne felt strong. She didn’t lift weights and she hardly worked out, yet she’d managed to get Brynn’s body onto main ground, and she cried when Brynn’s bloodshot eyes fluttered open and looked right into hers.
FORTY-SEVEN
BRYNN
I truly felt like I’d died that night. Perhaps a part of me did—that bright-eyed, kind, and generous version of myself. The woman who gave every person the benefit of the doubt, who cared more than she should have, and made time for people who truly didn’t deserve it? She’d been buried. When all the dirt had piled up, filling my nostrils and every other facial hole, the nice Brynn was no more. I’d become a Brynn in survival mode.
