Page 65 of Paper Ghosts

“We need to talk. Come with me.” She tried to lead Bailey away. Bailey held her ground until Tasha said, “Are you really going to make a pregnant woman stay out in the rain?”

With one last look at the water, she let Tasha take her to the back of the Tillbury house, into a beautiful laundry room with pin-striped wallpaper and navy-blue appliances. Once Tasha closed the door against the storm, it was so quiet it was like being encased in cotton. Bailey pushed her hair out of her eyes.

Tasha took two towels off the shelf. “Here,” she said, handing one to Bailey.

Bailey shook her head. “I’m just going to go home.”

Tasha looped the towel around Bailey’s neck anyway. “Not until you hear what I have to say. The night I threw your car keys and left you in the church parking lot, my mother picked me up as I was walking home. And Clutch was with her,” she said. “He’d caught a ride into town.”

Bailey started to say something, but Tasha held up her hand.

“Let me finish. She dropped him off, and then she came here to this neighborhood, because she liked driving around it when she got manic. That’s when we saw Clutch again. He was coming to your house, because he’d obviously figured out that it was you who’d hit him. But my mother, in her infinite wisdom, thought he was here to rob you, so she got out of the car and chased him behind your house, toward the creek. Only she came back, completely wet.”

Tasha opened a drawer below the laundry folding station and rifled through it. She finally brought out something and handed it to Bailey. It was an old barrette with Bailey’s name on it.

“My dad gave this to me for my ninth birthday,” Bailey said, turning it over in her hand. “I don’t remember how I lost it.”

“I found it on my property years ago. The creek current is always carrying things from town out there.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to tell you that Clutch isn’t out there. He’s dead. But you didn’t kill him. When my mother chased him, they both fell down the hill into the creek.” Bailey gave her a funny look, which Tasha seemed to find infuriating. “Do I have to spell it out? He died in the creek behind your house that night because of my mother, and the current took him downstream to our property as some sort of karmic retribution.”

“Tasha,” Bailey said gently, “didn’t you get my message after I left town?”

Tasha made an annoyed sound. “I got a message. I didn’t listen to it. I deleted it.”

“Jesus, Tasha.” Bailey took one end of the towel and wiped her face before saying, “When I finally found my keys and made it home, I saw Clutch beside my house. He had obviously made it out of the creek and had already been to see my grandmother by that time.”

“What did he want with your grandmother?” Tasha demanded.

“Blackmail is my best guess. She won’t tell me. She just sent me away and told me to never come back.”

“And you saw him?” Tasha seemed to desperately want this lifeline Bailey was offering, but she wouldn’t let herself take it because it was, after all, Bailey. “Are you sure it was him?”

Bailey thought back to that night, trying to see past the panic. “It was like him, but not him. His clothes were torn. And he was soaking wet, but at the time I had no idea why.”

“He had your side-view mirror with him,” Tasha said. “He dropped it when my mother chased him. I left it on your doorstep.”

“By the time I got home, my grandmother had it, along with the whole story of what happened. I keep telling you this had nothing to do with you. Do you believe me now?”

“So have you been seeing him out there, or not?”

Suddenly, something clicked. What really happened to Clutch eight years ago was more complicated than either she or Tasha could have imagined. Mim had been telling her all this time there was nothing to worry about, that he was gone. But then she had distracted Bailey with a love story because she knew that would keep her from asking too many questions.

Bailey handed the towel back to Tasha. “No, he wasn’t out there. I’m sorry I scared you. I need to talk to my grandmother.”

Tasha watched Bailey run in the rain back to the Wester House. As soon as she was safely inside, Tasha closed the laundry room door with a quiet snap.

She stood there, her hand on the doorknob, trying not to cry.

She would not cry.

She had cried over her mother enough. She was done.

She angrily wiped away her tears and found another nightgown in the dryer. She donned it, and then she put her wet nightgown and the towels in the washing machine, starting a small load.

She leaned back against the washer, taking deep breaths. After a moment, she stopped and put her hand on her stomach. She could smell butterscotch and vanilla, the happiest scents she knew. It reminded her of first grade, when her teacher Mrs. Marshburn threw a classroom party for every student on their birthday. For Tasha’s birthday, there were butterscotch cupcakes with vanilla frosting, and she got to wear a paper crown all day. It had made her feel so seen. It was the only unchaotic childhood birthday Tasha could remember.