Page 86 of Two Couples

She started swaying again, twisting her body more violently this time. “It’s his.”

“His? You mean⁠—?”

“Todd’s. There was a coyote prowling round the back of our… our h-house.” She took a deep breath, still crying softly.

Emily came into the room and placed the water glass on a coaster in front of Jordan. I picked up the glass to hand it to her, but Jordan shook her head. “His shoe. I think the…” Her sobs increased. “I think the coyote took it off his foot.” The last word trailed off into a long wail of grief. “Coyotes—they found his grave. They dug it up and…” Another sob burst out of her.

“When I saw it—the shoe—I went to look for him.”

“Did you find him?” I asked softly.

Emily moved closer to us, her hand over her mouth. Her eyes reflected the horror I felt. I couldn’t imagine Jordan’s emotions.

Jordan nodded. She gave me an accusing, angry glare. “Yes, I found him.” She stood suddenly and threw the shoe across the room, hitting the stone surrounding the fireplace. The shoe smacked the wall and fell on the hearth.

“He’s right there! Right next to your front steps! In that space where there was supposed to be a storage shed for firewood. It’s blocked by that shrub, so I didn’t see it right away. But when I came over…” She’d spoken so fast, she was now gasping for air. “I saw another shoe on his…” She let out a long, piercing wail. “She did that. I know it now. My mother. She meant it as a warning about this house. That’s why he’s buried right there. It’s a warning for me to stay away from other men. That the house was a mistake—it took me away from her, it made me think I could have my own life, my own home, a man in my life, maybe even children. My own pets. Everything. I know her. I know how she thinks. It’s so awful.” She stood in the center of the room, crying softly.

“I need to call the sheriff.” Jordan pulled her phone out of her pocket.

“No,” Emily said. “We need to think this through.”

Jordan shook her head. “There’s nothing to think about.” She swiped her finger across the screen.

“There’s no proof your mother did this. Just your own feelings. They’ll question all of us. We need to⁠—”

“The sheriff will figure it out. That note scared me, but I’m not scared anymore. I should have called them right away. I saw him—in the pool. I read that note! This never would have happened if I’d called then, but I was too scared.” She began whimpering. Her hand shook as she tried to bring the phone app to the front of her screen.

“Just slow down,” Emily said. “Nothing’s going to change if you wait fifteen minutes to report this. Or fifteen days,” she mumbled.

Not wanting to upset my best friend, I stood, unsure what I was planning to do. I’d made a mistake pushing Jordan so hard. Now that Keith was gone, who would protect us from aggressive, unanswerable questions, from the cynicism of a sheriff who might assume the outsiders were guilty by default? What if Jordan was playing us? What if it was something else entirely? Maybe Todd had dumped her and she’d killed him in a rage.

I wasn’t sure if Jordan heard Emily’s comment about fifteen days, but she’d absolutely read her mood. She veered around me and Emily, hurrying toward the kitchen, her phone in front of her.

Emily was right. We needed to think. Maybe get a lawyer first. Without considering it any further, I shoved Jordan, grabbing her wrist and jerking her arm. The phone flew out of her hand. It fell on the tiled floor of the entryway. Despite the protective case, the screen cracked into a tangled web of fractures.

Jordan grabbed the phone off the floor and scurried into the kitchen. Emily and I rushed after her.

Jordan was stabbing her finger at the shattered screen. After a few attempts, she inspected her fingertip for cuts. “It doesn’t work! Why did you do that? I thought you were on my side. I thought you were helping me! I thought you cared about Todd!”

She dropped her phone onto the counter and grabbed me, feeling around my dress for a pocket, trying to get at my phone.

I clawed at her arms that felt like the limbs of an octopus squeezing the life out of my body. She stabbed her fingers into my pocket. “I need your phone. We have to call the sheriff right now. He’s out there, exposed to the coyotes, and everything. Give me your phone!”

With both arms holding me tightly, she shoved her hip into mine. Pain shot through me and I felt myself falling. We both went down hard on the floor, Jordan on top of me, still grasping at any part of body she could, scratching my skin, screaming in my ear.

SIXTY-FOUR

SAMANTHA

With Jordan on top of me, I could hardly move. She put her hands on my lower arms, pinning them to the tile floor. Pain shot through my elbow and down to my fingers, causing them to lose sensation.

“Get off me!”

“Where were you? You said you would be with me to tell my mother what I know, and then I find you sitting here sipping tea while coyotes dig up Todd’s body!”

“I came over, but⁠—”

She stuffed her baseball cap into my mouth, all the way to the back of my throat. The stiff fabric filled my mouth and forced my jaw open. I turned my head, blowing out air, trying to dislodge it from my mouth. Instead, tiny fibers and saliva pooled in my throat. I coughed uncontrollably. Pain filled my lungs as the hard, dry coughs tore through me.