Tilly blindly sitting in silence, angry and hurt with all of them for ruining the only day of the year she received any attention.
The disappointment and pain pulled at her like she was a worn-out rubber band that wouldn’t break.
But she was breaking. Had been for months now.
The nightmares dogged her like demons. Could she really face them?
Long ago, her therapist had suggested that making peace with her past might help her heal. Give her closure. That perhaps the mystery of her sister’s disappearance was the reason she was obsessed with murder cases and unsolved crimes in other small towns.
If she learned the truth about what happened to Ruth, maybe she could glue her fractured family back together.
Find forgiveness for herself.
She passed the Welcome to Brambletown sign swaying in the wind with a grimace. A coffee shop had been built on the corner and she swung into the parking spot, tugged her raincoat on and ran to the entrance. A bell tinkled over the door and as she stepped inside, curious eyes turned her way. They probably weren’t accustomed to strangers around here—or did someone recognize her?
A quick scan of the room and she instantly saw Nosy Nell Nickerson. Her daughter Trina had been prom queen, and Nell bragged about Trina’s acceptance into an Ivy League school, which only fueled Trina’s justification for her condescending attitude toward her female classmates.
Hushed whispers followed Tilly as she made her way to the coffee bar to order and she winced when she heard someone say, “That’s that Higgins girl, ain’t it?”
“She ain’t been back in years.”
“Bet she heard about that body they found.”
“Wonder if it’s her sister.”
Tilly’s chest tightened, but she held her head high. She was not the same shy teenager she’d been when she lived here.
No, she was an adult, a survivor, a success in her field.
And she was going to fix the broken side of herself by getting answers about her sister.
The truth lay somewhere in the foothills of these mountains.
And she would dig it up with her bare hands if she had to.
TEN
Briar Ridge Mobile Homes
Ida Bramble Jones stared at the mushy leftovers on the stove in disgust. Normally she didn’t mind cooking but today she’d had a bad headache that was quickly morphing into a migraine.
The scent of burned beans wafted to her and she grabbed the pot and dumped them in the trash.
She hated her life.
After the scandal over Ruth Higgins’ disappearance when her father was accused of killing Ruth, Ida thought the gossip and stares would never die down. At times she’d wanted to disappear herself and run from Brambletown where every Bramble man she’d ever known was a loser. No wonder the town treated them like trash. They were no more than poor dumb hillbillies with a reputation for drinking, fighting, cussing and causing trouble. Accusations that Earl had killed Ruth had flown from day one.
They’d even locked him up for a few days. But lack of evidence and the fact that Ruth’s body had never been found forced them to release him. Two days later, her daddy had gone missing, which made him look as guilty as sin. As if Earl Bramble had killed Ruth and run off to escape incarceration.
She breathed out a sigh just like the day she had when he’d left. Having him out of their lives had been a relief for her and her cousin Hetty.
Hetty had sometimes helped their father in the graveyard when they were little. Now she owned her own business, a nursery and gardening center named The Green Thumb. Barely having graduated high school, Ida had been desperate to get out of her house and away from the cemetery. Although for some reason she hadn’t been able to leave town. The graveyard where they’d grown up was all she and Hetty had ever known.
Worse, Ida had stars in her eyes that Joe Jones, a semi-fit guy at the time who worked for their father doing maintenance on the cemetery grounds, would give her a better life. Ha.
He’d crawled in her pants and knocked her up. They’d had to get married.
But he turned out to be a sexist, a slob and a hypochondriac, a mama’s boy who wanted her to practically wipe his fat ass.
