I don’t consider this much of a tip. The rumor of Frank Branson’s sperm run amok is nothing new.
There could be a lot of little Franks and Francines hidden all over this town, secrets until they pop on ancestry.com or out of a drunken mouth.
Lizzie is just the girl who stirs the loudest whispers. The case against Wyatt has always been a prosecutorial nightmare for this very reason—a whole roster of other people would have liked to stick a gun in Frank Branson’s good eye, the crystal blue one that looked plucked out of Brad Pitt, and turn off his buzz for good.
But it doesn’t explain why Trumanell had to die, too.
Gretchen stands up and wiggles her skirt down over a splotch of varicose veins. It doesn’t matter how tight that muscle is, how intricate the tattoo on her calf, the blue spiderweb of veins is what people will always remember.
“People say all sorts of terrible things about Frank,” she says. “That he killed his wife and got away with it. That he killed Trumanell and then he killed himself and the son buried them both. That he killed Trumanell and ran his ass to Mexico. All I know is Frank was gentle. He cried a little when he told me he couldn’t get his friend’s dying face out of his head. If Frank came back from the dead, I’d screw him again in a heartbeat. I’d save him before my dog.”
Her long navy fingernails are digging into her thigh.
Blue Spider. That’s what my grandmother would call her.
27
The Chevy Bride is squealing away from the curb as I shut the front door.
The cop who built the Blue House in 1892 is glaring at me from the wall. The first sheriff in this town has hung in this foyer in a place of honor since his death. He was no relation but the first to disapprove when I snuck in late. Smug, like he knew everything.
I ignore him and scroll my texts. Maggie, reminding me that she was taking Lola and Angel to a movie and out to eat. Rusty, asking if we can move our chat about your boy to midnight, because his shift is going long. Finn from two hours ago, asking four times where the hell I am. Well, now he knows.
I answer Rusty, flip a heart emoji to Maggie. Delete all of Finn’s.
In our room, the bed is neatly made up, corners crisp and tucked, the best job I’ve seen from either of us in five years of marriage. Nice work, Finn. The things you discover your spouse is capable of after a split.
In spontaneous fury, I tug out every corner, toss the pillows, scramble the covers. The closet door hangs open, providing a clear sightline to a new batch of empty hangers. I slam it shut.
One boot at a time. That’s what my father always said to the girl I used to be.
I miss that girl’s tidiness and courage, her way of tuning chaos and fear to the low hum of planes flying overhead. Every day, waking up, choosing life over death, making a daily list of instructions. Now those planes are casting shadow clouds on the ground that I can’t outrun.
My body is begging me to fall onto the bed, but I drag myself to the kitchen. I pull Betty Crocker from the shelf, thumb to the back, and scribble faster and faster down the last page until even I can’t read it.
At the bottom, I write in bold block print, Don’t give up.
My eyes fly open. I barely catch the echo of the chiming sound that woke me up. My brain feels heavy, disengaged, like I’ve slept for five minutes.
I reach over to turn off my phone alarm, set for 11:30 P.M. Except my phone is silent. 11:02 is pasted over a picture of Lola’s big grin. I’ve been out for four hours.
The dinging wasn’t the alarm.
A coin dropping? A key jingling? The tip of a gun brushing against a doorknob?
My leg is off.
The panic, unreasonable. Unstoppable. I’m tugging at my other leg, the good one, but it’s tangled in the sheets that I felt such a compulsion to mess up.
And then I hear it again, loud and identifiable. The doorbell. A finger pressing in rapid, urgent succession. Four times. Six. It better not be Finn. Or Wyatt.
I will kill them.
I’ve tugged my good leg free of the covers. I grab my gun off the bedside table. Reach for my crutches. Stop. Think. I drop to the floor and crawl.
In the closet, I feel around in the dark for my leg. The only sound, my choppy breath. I slide my leg on in record time.
There’s no peephole in the front door. No window with a view of the porch. I only have two choices.
Sneak out the back door and maneuver around from behind.
Or open the front door with a smile and a gun in my hand, like my father always did when it was the middle of the night.
I crack the front door. Nothing. I shove it open all the way. The light on the porch, faithful as always, is beaming on the Texas flag.
It’s also shining on something else, propped against one of the white columns.
A new shovel. Blade up.
A math equation is painted neatly in red on the aluminum.
70X7
What does that mean?
Standing here half-dressed, gun drawn, I think it’s nothing good.
28
Lights and sirens at the Blue House.
By now, it’s all over the police radio, Twitter, the local Facebook mom group that Rusty says should be hired to track terrorism.
I called Rusty, told him about a shovel on my porch that appeared to be decorated in blood, and Rusty didn’t hold back.
“You OK?” Rusty has asked me three times. “You look like you’re still shivering. And it’s warm as sweet fuck out here.”
“I feel like I seriously overreacted to a little multiplication I could do in my head at age seven and a shovel that turned out to be painted with red fingernail polish.”
We’ve obscured ourselves under the drooping branches of the old oak that commands my front yard, its fat roots snaking deep under the foundation of the house. Up high, a branch still holds a knotted drip of rope from my childhood swing.
“We’re all on edge, Odette,” he says. “Give yourself a break. To be honest, I don’t like this, either. I’m glad you called it in.”
In every direction, neighbors in sweatpants and robes group on their front lawns in tight shadowy pairs and triplets. While cops dust my porch for prints, cars roll by in a parade like they’re looking at a gaudy Christmas light display.
Gabriel is bagging up the shovel, and doing a careful job of it. Almost every cop in town roused himself from bed and showed up for me. Maybe I should try a little harder with Gabriel. Look past his blowhard personality and the time he planted a kiss on Trumanell’s poster lips and laughed.
“You’ve really got no idea who left this?” Rusty asks. “What ‘70X7’ means?”
“No, but it has a familiar ring, like I should.”
“The number 490 has no significance to you?”
“Same.”
“If the town wasn’t in such a twaddle, I’d think it was one of these neighbors giving you a friendly hint about your front landscaping. You’ve probably got about 70X7 square feet out here to mow. Do you even own an edger?”
He takes a hit off a vape pen, which, inexplicably, he still thinks is safer than smoking. “The whole thing has that kind of juvenile feel. But my instinct says it wasn’t kids. Anything else going on I should know about?”