Page 66 of Bad Intentions

I couldn’t stand looking at her, not after what she just said, but I needed help.

“Fine,” I said, taking a deep breath and pushing my feelings away. This was not the time to fight. “You got here after you closed your bar. That’s the story. So did I. Victoria and Alysha stay here until morning. There’s a bag in the bottom cupboard in the garage, the one that has a hidden lever, you know. The weapon is there. So are their bloodied clothes. They’ll have to go. Far away from here. Clothes burned. The hammer dumped somewhere no one can ever find it.”

Donna nodded, her gaze stern and determined.

“I will clean up at the bar, then call you. We need to get the story straight. And we’ll need to figure out what to do with the evidence. It’s a two-man job.” I meant the boy I’d known all his life, who was now reduced to an object.

All sorts of scenarios ran in my head. How do I move the body? What do I do? Plastic? Tarp? Where do I take him?

Dougie was dead, and my heart ached for what had happened, but he absolutely could not be found in my bar. Several people had keys to the back door, like anyplace in a small town. Someone could’ve broken in. But the girls’ DNA was all over the place, and I couldn’t take a chance on the police finding that. This was my bar, my girls, my business, their lives at stake.

I gave the last instructions to Alysha and Victoria. They were quiet, tails between their legs. No fighting. Faces puffy with tears.

“Whatever you do, do not leave the house,” I ordered them. “Do not answer the house phone. Do not answer the door. Get in bed. When Donna and I are back, we will talk.”

“Where are you going?” Alysha asked.

Without replying, I closed her bedroom door behind me, then closed the blinds and curtains in the house, locked the doors, got in my car, and drove toward Ma Shirley’s.

It was only five minutes to my bar, but before even reaching there, I smelled it—smoke. Then I saw it, the windows of Ma Shirley’s lit up with orange, bright as bright can be, flames raging inside.

I swerved to the curb, afraid to get close, ran up to the side window, and looked inside.

The fire was in the kitchen, slowly creeping up to the main bar area. And there, on the floor—not visible from the window but I knew it was there—lay Doug Hartzel’s body.

It would be minutes before someone called 911, if they hadn’t already. There was no time for my original plan.

Think, think, think.

There was only one thing I could do, and I hoped that it would save the girls. Even if it put me in jail.

36

JOSIE

“There’s a problem,” says Mrs. Snickett, taking a puff of her cigarette, as she shuts the trunk. “No knife in sight.”

She kills the flashlight, and suddenly, everything around us turns dark again.

“We need to talk,” she says, and at first, I think she means me, but then she adds, nodding at me, “You stay here, and me and Rika will have a word.”

They walk toward the house and stop at a distance, whispering to each other. I wonder if they’re conspiring to give me up, but I’m willing to call 911. There’s nothing else we can do.

When they come back, I’m miserable, cold, and trembling. “We should call the police,” I say.

“Not happening,” Mrs. Snickett says, cutting me off. “We can’t. Number one, if this man was stabbed before he died, and someone has the weapon, and it has your fingerprints, there’s no chance of getting out of this without a conviction. You have no alibi. You actually saw this man being hit by the car, and you ran. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that looks even remotely good for you.”

I don’t mind that Rika just told her everything. I need to come clean and deal with this.

“Two,” Mrs. Snickett continues in a raspy voice, then pulls another cigarette out of her pocket and lights it. Smoke mixes with the smell of booze I now recognize. She’s been drinking. But then, she’s known for drinking every day. And she sounds sober.

“Two,” she repeats, “we can’t do this to your grandmother. Karen went through a lot back then. This is history repeating itself, and I need to fix it.”

“What do you mean, history repeating itself⁠—”

“Kiddo,” she interrupts me again and steps closer. Now I can see her face, her eyes vaguely sparkling with the reflection of the dim light at the back of her house in the distance. There’s no hostility in them. “Your grandmother and I, we go way back.”

I heard that before.