“Go call them now. We may only have a few more minutes before he manages to break the door down and escape …” Philomena warned.
I ran for the phone in the kitchen, praying the cabinet would hold. The phone was yellow with age, the cord so twisted and tangled that I barely had an inch between it and the wall as I dialed.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?” a woman asked me.
I stared at Philomena and she stared at me as I recited the lines we’d practiced a dozen times over the last two hours.
“This is Andrea Eagon. I live with my uncle, Phil Eagon. I had a few friends over to stay the night. Well, he came home drunk and I think he hurt two of my friends … We managed to trap him in the bathroom, but I think he’s going to hurt us too. Can you please come as fast as you can?”
Chapter 27
NOW
My heart still bucking in my chest, I paced the floor in front of the living-room window, watching for the black truck I’d seen on Grant Street, or any wobbly shadows in the dark.
When her lights appeared, two bulgy yellow cat-eyes at the end of the street, I knew it was her and I released a ragged breath of relief.
I waited for her to pull in and park beside my van. Then I opened the door and waved her inside, hurriedly.
She was rattled; I could see it in her milky brown eyes. Her hair was scraped back in a low ponytail; she was wearing a pair of soft pajama pants.
I closed the door and turned off the porch light, then slid the deadbolt into place.
“What’s going on?” she asked, shakily.
Wordlessly, I led her through the living room, past Delaney’s empty bedroom, and down the long dark hallway to my room.
I don’t know if it was my imagination or not, but the bodies were starting to smell. Something strangely sour, but also sweet, permeated the air.
I opened the door and flipped the light switch on.
As expected, the bodies still lay covered on the floor, side by side. I walked over and stood by the dresser, stiffly.
“Philomena, he’s back and he left these bodies for me. For us, I think.”
“Why are you calling me that? You’re scaring me.” Pam reached over and grabbed the meaty part of my upper arm and squeezed.
It’s our history, our shared secrets … that was what had brought her name out of me.
I haven’t said it in, what … twenty … twenty-five, years? Maybe more than that …
We had promised to leave it all behind, to leave those God-awful names along with those two dead girls, but old habits are hard to break.
And for a while I was able to pretend none of it had happened, to pretend that we were just us, Ivy and Pam, two best friends from Indiana, two transplants from southern Georgia that were raised by Pam’s grandma and ended up in the same stuffy office as co-workers …
“I’m sorry. It’s just … everything is rushing back to me. I’m so scared, Pam. He’s here. I don’t know how he found us, but he did.”
“How could he be out of prison already? I thought they gave him a life sentence.”
“With parole,” I murmured, stepping toward the bodies. I half expected Uncle Phil to spring up from beneath the sheets …
Calmly, Pam set her purse on my bed, and stepped over to the corpses.
“Who’s under those sheets?” she breathed. For a brief moment, I was falling back to that old trailer, to that night we lay tangled under the quilt, clutching that heavy pan as though it could save us from our own evil mistakes …
She had been calm then, too, but also an edge, always an edge, of fear to her. We had changed, encompassing our new personas, but here we were, just the same.
If I let myself, I could see her for who she was. Without the fake blonde dye and the crinkles around her eyes, she was once again that young, beautiful girl who lit up a room, whose parents were rich and adored her. Who stood beside me, and vice versa …
We were cut from different cloths, she and I, but somehow, we had understood each other then, as we did now.
I took a deep breath and knelt beside the first body. I pulled the sheet down, far enough so she could see his ashy-white face and the now-black stab wounds in his stomach.
Pam covered her mouth with her hands, horrified.
It’s almost like she’s never seen a dead body before.
“I woke up to find him beside me in bed. And I have no idea how he got there. I don’t remember inviting him over. I don’t remember much of anything.” When Pam didn’t respond, I continued, “He had no license, no shoes … but there was a car parked out front with the keys inside. A navy-blue Camaro. The registration and insurance were for someone named Robin Regal. The address was on Grant Street, but I don’t think it belongs to him because in the bathroom cabinet I found prescriptions for … Phillip Eagon. And then I heard a car pull up. I know it was him. I ran as far away as I could from Grant Street, then I called an Uber. I don’t think he followed me … but I guarantee he knows where I live. Probably knows where to find you, too,” I said, swallowing back a lump in my throat.
Pam was quiet, too quiet, so unlike the carefree, bubbly persona she’d adopted since changing her name.
It didn’t matter that my uncle was the one accused of the murders, or that he was found guilty when he stood trial. The media had swarmed on my tiny town, and they had pummeled us for interviews and autographs and questions – some of them asked us if we were involved. If it was really us that had committed those murders. And Tamara and Mandy’s parents never believed our story. They gave interviews with the press, claiming Philomena was a stuck-up rich girl who killed their daughters over a boy.
And, as expected, Uncle Phil didn’t go down without a fight. Sure, he was a mean drunk with a record, but he hadn’t killed those girls, and there were witnesses who said they saw him at the tavern that night, that he was happy-go-lucky following news that he’d received a two-dollar raise at the toothpaste factory that day.
He had no motive to kill those girls, not that night. Not ever.
Philomena Nordstrom and Andrea Eagon … now, they had reasons. One being that Philomena was sleeping with Mandy’s boyfriend, and that I was a recluse who got picked on by the girls, and others, at school.
But despite the nasty rumors, Uncle Phil was still found guilty. I told the police about how he had been touching me for years; it was the only part of the story that was true. I told them about the horrible things he often did to me when he was drunk.
Did he deserve to go to prison for life for what he did to me after the tragic death of my parents? I think so. But I’m not so sure a court would agree.
The knife wounds that covered Tamara’s body and the suffocation of Mandy … they weren’t the kinds of things that two, young, weak little girls would do. That was something an old, drunken, pervert did.
The jury believed it, and maybe deep down … so did I. I wanted to forget that night, and for a while, I almost did …
But Uncle Phil hadn’t forgotten. He was out of prison, and I had no doubt he wanted me to pay for what I’d done.
Pam was already tugging on the other sheet.
“Wait. Don’t—”
But it was too late.
“Oh my God!” Pam lurched back from the body, nearly stumbling over Robin’s corpse. I caught her arm to stop her from falling, but she jerked away angrily, turning around to give me sharp look.