44. Beth

Before he can break through the wall of overgrown weeds, I'm already slipping through it. Startled, he jumps and looks me up and down, taking in my disheveled appearance. I keep my distance, putting six feet between us. The rain still falls but lightly now.

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

Lucas glances down at his boots and then back at me. "I came to find you."

"Why?" I take the smallest step back, putting another foot between us.

A rock lays by my shoe, large enough to do some damage, but light enough for me to pick up. My gaze goes to Lucas again. I study his face. Did he know already? Is that why he seemed to be snooping around the house, looking for something? Is that why he stormed off? Was I close to figuring it out, and he needed to break me?

"What's going on? Is something wrong?"

I'm not sure what to say because I don't know if I can trust him, so I just stare back.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Beth," he says, taking a small step toward me. I nearly flinch.

I glance at the tangled web of overgrowth behind me. The truth is in there, the entire mess of twenty-plus years, reduced to three holes in the mud. I can prove I wasn't lying to him, even if it means tarnishing my own parents. I can give him closure, answers...

Don't trust...

Maybe he already has the answers. Maybe he already has closure, and he's here now to ensure that closure stays buried.

"Lucas... how did you know I was down here?"

"I took the trash out, and then I was standing at the top of your driveway, deciding whether or not to come talk to you. I felt bad about the way we left things. I heard you scream, and I came running."

I just stare. There are too many emotions and questions swirling around my brain to think clearly. I don't remember screaming. But maybe I did. I can't even remember digging up the graves anymore.

"Beth? Are you hurt?" Lucas asks, taking another step toward me.

I shake my head and take an equal step back.

"Then why were you screaming?"

"Was I?"

He gives me a peculiar look. "Yeah, but why?"

"Because I found something."

"What? What did you find?"

His blue eyes pull me in like the ocean's tide. I can't resist him, even if I'm not sure I can trust him. "Emma," I say.

His mouth falls open, and his eyes go so wide that I think they might split at the corners.

Before he can speak or react or call me a liar, I say, "And my dad."

"What? Your dad left town years ago."

"No, he didn't, Lucas." My bottom lip quivers. "He's been here this whole time."

"I don't understand what you're saying."

"They're dead. They're buried in holes in the fucking ground behind me! What don't you get?"

"How?" He shakes his head in disbelief as tears spill from his eyes. "And who put them there?"

"I told you my parents had something to do with Emma's disappearance. They must have been the ones that buried her in there." I point to the wall of tangled weeds that have concealed my parents' dark secret all these years. "But I don't know who buried my dad or the person in the grave next to his."

Tears fall in a never-ending stream. I'm shaking, and I can barely see. My heart beats so fast, it feels like it's not beating at all. It's just a continuous hum.

The color drains from Lucas's face as he registers what I'm saying. "There're three bodies?"

"It's just bones, but yeah, there're three of them."

"Beth... did your parents kill my sister?" His voice cracks. The sadness is gone from his face, giving way to only anger. The red streaks from his tear tracks have melted, filling every bloodshot branch and tendril as they crack and fissure across the whites of his eyes.

"I don't know, Lucas."

He balls up his fists and a thick vein throbs in his neck. I take another small step back, worried at how angry he is and scared that he might erupt at any moment, a dormant volcano ready to let loose after decades of inactivity. Lucas looks at me with narrowed, accusatory eyes. "Do you think they killed my sister?"

"I don't know." I tell him I'm sorry because I don't know what else to say.

Questions flood my brain, trying to make sense of it all. Why would they kill Emma? No, they couldn't have. Not Mom or Dad. But if they didn't kill her, why would they get rid of her body rather than call the police? Why would they risk going to prison? Why cause so much pain and mistrust and sorrow, especially when they had young chil... Oh my God! I let out a gasp as realization sets in and the pieces start falling into place.

Lucas looks at me with wild, tearful eyes. "What is it?"

"Don't trust..." I say.

He takes another step forward. "What? Don't trust what?"

"Not what... who." I hang my head, shaking it back and forth in disbelief.

"Who shouldn't you trust, Beth?" he asks.

The sound of metal hitting bone twangs with a dull thud, immediately muffled out of existence by the rain and wind. My head snaps up just as Lucas falls to the ground, blood gushing from where the shovel connected with his skull. I want to run to him but I can't. I want to run away but I can't do that either. Neither fight nor flight has kicked in. I'm frozen in fear and disbelief, completely immobilized.

"You should have just left the past in the past, Beth," Michael says, gripping the handle of the bloody shovel.

I stumble backward several steps, putting more distance between him and me. Lucas lies still in the tall grass. I focus for a moment on his back and watch his lungs slightly expand and contract. He's breathing. He's still alive.

"What have you done, Michael?"

He tosses the shovel at my feet and pulls a gun from his pocket, pointing it directly at me, "Pick it up and let's go. Back into the thick of it." Michael flicks the gun, gesturing for me to move.

"Please, don't do anything..."

"Crazy? Jesus, Beth, I'm not gonna hurt you. I could have done that a million times already if I really wanted. Now walk."

I turn and look back into the dense mess of branches, dead vines, bushes, and trees. All these years, right in plain sight, this vegetation encased my mom's deepest secrets, the roots contaminated, feeding off the decaying bodies of the past. Am I about to join them? I crouch down and crawl through the opening, swallowed into a womb of death.

"That's far enough. Now turn around," he says, passing through the clearing and standing upright.

My eyes go to the graves and the remains inside of them. "This is why you wanted the house so badly, isn't it?"

"Ding. Ding. Ding. If someone would have just let me give her a ton of money for this dumpy piece of shit house, we would all be on our merry way, but nope. You just couldn't do that, Beth."

"You can have the house," I say.

"It's too late for that. Who else knows about this?"

"Just me."

"Where's Nicole?" He scans the area and listens for movement through the storm.

"I don't know."

"Mom's station wagon wasn't parked out front when I pulled in. Did she leave?"

"She must have."

"Probably opened that letter from Mom and went and got a fix. Shit, when I read it, I thought about shooting up heroin, and I don't even do drugs, so I can't imagine what it did to her." He smirks.

"What are you talking about?"

"I may have switched mine with hers," he says with a shrug. "Mom had much nicer things to say to Nicole than she did to me, which was surprising since one of us is a drug addict and the other is a successful tech entrepreneur."

"Yeah, and one of you is a murderer. So, I bet for Mom, that canceled out your success."

"I'm not a murderer," he says in a serious tone while standing stone-faced.

I gesture to the holes. "Then why are you pointing a gun at me while hovering over three unmarked graves?"

His eyes shift to the holes, and he sighs, lowering the gun to his side. But I notice his finger is still on the trigger.

"Did you kill Emma?" I ask.

"No... it was an accident."

"How? If it were an accident, Mom and Dad wouldn't have buried her. They would have called the police."

"Maybe. Maybe not." He shrugs. "It's hard to know what someone will do in a stressful situation."

"What happened?" I press.

He pulls his lips in. "Does it matter? She's dead, has been for a really long time."

"It matters to me."

"Like I said, it was an accident." His nostrils flare.

"How?"

"We were playing down by the creek, skipping rocks, just goofing around. We climbed the hillside to the bridge, so we could skip rocks from up high. Emma leaned over the guardrail and pretended she was in that Titanic movie, arms out, declaring she was the queen of the world." There's a sheen to his eyes, but he speaks with no emotion like he's reading from a cue card, a rehearsed speech. "I thought it'd be funny to scare Emma, so I ran at her like I was going to push her off. I wasn't going to, but she turned just in time to see me running and got startled. She leapt back and fell." Michael lets out a sigh and blinks five or six times as though there's distance between himself and his story. "She missed the creek by a foot, hitting the bank instead. Her head must have caught a rock because there was blood everywhere." His jaw tightens. "I tried to wake her, but she wouldn't move. I was just a child. I didn't know what to do, so I covered her with brush like we were playing a game of hide-and-seek."

"What about Dad?"

"I told him what happened later that night after everyone got back from searching for Emma. He cried and he held me and he said he would take care of it."

I'm not sure I believe him, but I'll pretend I do because his finger is still on the trigger.

"But why is Dad lying in one of those graves?"

He looks at the holes again and then back at me. "How do you know it's him?"

"Because he's wearing his wedding ring."

Michael nods and his mouth forms a hard line. "I don't know what happened to Dad."

"Did you know he was buried here?"

"No."

I don't believe him. He just learned that our dad is dead and buried in that hole and he's not shocked or sad or devastated. He had to have known. I want to scream, but I need to stay calm. I need to keep him talking because he might be the only person alive that knows the truth of how these three bodies ended up buried on our parents' property.

"Why didn't you ever come home after Dad disappeared?"

"Because it wasn't home to me anymore," he says with a shrug.

Another lie. His hand grips the gun a little tighter.

"Who's in the third grave?" I ask.

"Your guess is as good as mine. I only knew about Emma's."

"And Dad's," I correct.

Michael lets out a heavy sigh and shakes his head. "The guilt put him in that hole more than I did."

"What do you mean?"

"Dad never forgave me for what happened to Emma, and he never forgave himself for his part in it."

"Can you blame him?"

"Yeah, I can," he yells suddenly. "It was an accident, and I was a kid. He could have gone to the authorities, but he chose not to."

The memory of Dad pushing me off my bike and out of the way of an oncoming car floods my mind. His head cracked against the windshield as he took the hit that would have probably killed me. Only my small knees were scuffed up, thanks to him. That was the kind of man he was. He would do anything to protect his children. Dad didn't go to the police to report Emma's death because he didn't think he had a choice. It couldn't have been an accident.

"What happened to Dad, Michael?" A tear rolls down my cheek as I remember all that time I spent searching for him. I destroyed my life trying to find him, and he was dead all along, buried in the backyard of my childhood home.

"Like I said, he never forgave me or himself." There's anger and resentment in his voice. "I came home seven years ago. The girl I was dating had passed away unexpectedly, and I wanted my mom and dad. I was depressed and broken and alone. Doesn't matter how old you get, sometimes you just need your parents."

I lift a brow. "Did you kill her, your girlfriend?"

"Fuck you, Beth," he spits. "You're just like Dad. That's exactly what he thought, and he wouldn't believe otherwise. He kept asking question after question while I was grieving, or at least trying to. I could see it on his face. He thought I was some psycho killer." Michael shakes his head and scoffs. "It was obvious he regretted protecting me. He thought he'd made a mistake."

"You can't be sure he thought that," I say.

"You're right. I wasn't sure. Until I was."

"What do you mean?"

"Dad went off on me. Screaming, ‘How many more holes do I have to dig back here, Michael? My marriage is already buried in there, as are our souls. We are nothing because of you!' and on and on. He had every right to be mad and yell, but he should have been doing that in a mirror. He made his own decisions. But then he lunged at me, wrapped his hands around my neck, and squeezed as hard as he could. He was trying to kill me, and... it was self-defense."

I keep my eyes on Michael, watching carefully for any sudden movement. He's not looking at me anymore. He's staring off into the woods, almost in a trance, like he's reliving that memory.

"What about Mom?"

His gaze meets mine. "What about her?"

"Did she know what you did to Dad?"

"She helped me bury him."

Something in me breaks. Maybe it's my soul. Mom knew? How could she go along with something like that? How could she watch me lose my family while trying to find him? How could she sit back and watch Nicole destroy herself with drugs? Why would she ever let us believe that Dad was out there? Let us hope that one day he would return and walk right back into our lives?

"Why would she do that?" I ask.

"Because it's what Dad would have wanted."

"Dad wouldn't have wanted any of this. Look what it's done to our family."

I narrow my eyes at him, realization dawning. He didn't reappear after seven years to lay Mom to rest. He's here to make sure the past stays buried. "How the hell did I get an email from Dad this week if he's lying in that hole, Michael?"

"Oh, come on, Beth. That's an easy one. You know how good I am with computers."

"But why? Why bother going through the trouble?"

"You mean, send Nicole on a wild goose chase to keep her busy, get you two fighting so you ignore everything else, and then I buy the house and make sure it all stays buried... simple. Same reason I erased the tape. Same reason I tore pages out of Mom's journals."

"And the break-in?"

"That was Nicole's drug dealer." He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "You two are so easy to just nudge right off the deep end. I'd call it pathetic if it wasn't so convenient. Like little wind-up dolls marching in circles. You should have just listened to me, Beth. You should have sold me the house, taken the money, and left this place, because now..." Michael's gaze falls to the graves. "You never will."

While he's lost in thought and distracted, I grab my shoe and throw it at him. A mass of wet mud flings off the heel, splatting across his face.

"Ah, what the fuck?" he yells, scraping the sludge from his eyes.

I lunge for the gun clutched in his hand. His elbow connects with my face, crunching the bones in my nose, and sends me tumbling backward. I nearly fall into Garfield's grave. Getting to my feet, I charge at Michael again, taking him by surprise as he's still trying to get the mud out of his eyes. He gasps for air when I hit him in the side with my shoulder.

"Goddamn it, Beth," he wheezes as his body collides with a tree.

I bring my knee up, thrusting it into his groin. He crumbles and sinks to the ground. I twist the gun as hard as I can, prying his fingers from it. But then I feel a sharp pain in my lower back. It knocks the wind out of me. He slams his fist into my kidney again. This time I release the gun and collapse to my knees, sucking for air and wheezing through the pain.

"Beth!?" I hear Nicole's voice in the distance.

"Nicole!" I scream with what breath I have left. "I'm down..." Michael's free hand covers my mouth, smearing mud into my nostrils, pushing it through my teeth, trying to choke me into silence.

"You'll only get her hurt too," he seethes.

"Beth!" she calls out again.

I consider prying his hand from my mouth and screaming for Nicole, but he's right. He'll just hurt both of us. Instead, I open my mouth and use my hand to push one of Michael's fingers into it. Then, I bite down as hard as I can, until a new liquid besides mud and water begins sloshing around my mouth.

Michael screams and clocks me right in the face with the gun. A stream of warm liquid gushes from my nose and lip. My mouth involuntarily opens as I shriek in agony. He pulls his mangled finger free from my teeth. I spit out my blood and Michael's, trying to plead, but no words come out.

"I don't know why I even thought I could have a civil conversation with you, Beth." He stands over me with the gun cocked, pointing it right at my head.

I put my hands in front of my face, shielding what I know I can't stop, and look over at the unearthed soil that I'll soon call home.

The dull thud of metal on bone twangs again, and I glance up to see Michael clutching his arm. Blood spills from a fresh wound, and Nicole stands behind him with a shovel in hand. She raises it again, but her arms shake and her movement is too slow this time.

Michael drives his elbow back hard and fast, connecting with her mouth. Her lip splits open and blood pours from it like a faucet. She stumbles, tripping over a fallen branch, her head smacking against the ground.

I'm on my feet, taking two steps and diving toward the shovel. Michael notices my movement and lunges to beat me to it. Nicole lifts her leg and trips him midstride, causing him to crash face-first into the mud. I grab the shovel, raise it over my head, and swing. Just before the blade hits his skull, he rolls out of the way. The shovel punctures the ground.

Sirens roar in the distance, and Michael's eyes go wide as panic sets in. The only way out is death, either his or ours. And he knows this.

He raises the gun again, pointing it at me. But Nicole leaps forward, grabbing onto it with both hands. I follow suit, and now the three of us are grappling over the pistol. Tugging back and forth like we're children again, fighting over our favorite toy.

The sirens grow louder and louder, slowly drowning out our grunts and curses and cries and pleas. Nothing but sirens... until the gunshot rings out.