Just finding Lana’s story? Read Part 38 here to catch up on what Clay wrote on the second page, who Wade Pruitt really was, and the picture taken through the kitchen window.
Last time, Royce read the letter his brother Clay wrote the night before my mother died.
The second page named the man Clay was afraid of. Wade Pruitt. Cole’s big brother. Deke’s daddy.
Then my phone buzzed on Clay’s kitchen table.
A picture of all of us, taken through the window over the sink. And a message signed with one letter.
“Wade wasn’t driving that truck the night before your mother died. I was. Come to the grain elevator at midnight. Come alone. And don’t let my brother read the rest of that letter. N.”
I turned the phone face down. And Cole asked me who it was from.
The Phone Face Down on Clay’s Table
I have never lied to Cole Pruitt. Not once since the day I met him.
“Wrong number,” I said.
It came out too fast. I heard it. Royce heard it. I’m pretty sure the woodstove heard it.
Cole looked at me for one long second. Then he looked at the black window over the sink.
“Stay inside,” he said. “All of you. Lock it behind me.”
He went out the back door with his flashlight. Vera turned the deadbolt and leaned her whole body against the door.
I sat there with my heart going so hard I could feel it in my teeth.
I had just lied to the man who carried Vera up a creek bank. The man who sat beside me at the county jail. Over one letter. N.
Royce didn’t say a word. He just held out his hand, palm up, across the table.
I turned the phone over and gave it to him.
He read the message twice. His jaw went tight, the way it does when Willow won’t load.
“N,” he said quietly. “Nadine.”
“She called Cole her brother,” Vera whispered, reading over his shoulder. “She always has. Twenty-five years.”
“Then she doesn’t want Cole reading the rest of Clay’s letter,” I said. “So what’s in the rest of it?”
Nobody answered. All three of us looked at the second page lying in the middle of the oilcloth.
It looked so ordinary. Yellowed paper. A coffee ring in one corner. Clay’s heavy, slanted letters pressed deep into it.
But Nadine had stood outside this window in the dark to make sure I didn’t let Cole finish it.
I had only gotten halfway down it before the phone buzzed.
Outside, Cole’s flashlight beam swung across the yard. Under the oak. Along the fence. Back to the window.
“Read it,” Royce said. “Read it now, before he comes back in. Then we decide.”
The Rest of Clay’s Second Page
My hands were shaking, so I flattened the page on the table the way Royce had.
Clay’s handwriting got smaller near the bottom. Like he was running out of room. Or out of nerve.
“Wade doesn’t drive alone anymore, Roy. He’s got a new wife. Nadine. She’s eighteen years old.”
“Some nights she sits behind the wheel of that white Ford while he walks the fence lines. She’d drive into the river if he told her to.”
“If anything ever happens, look at who was holding the wheel. Then look at who taught her to. She is not the one to hang.”
Vera made a small sound. Royce closed his eyes.
“She was a child,” he said. “Clay knew it. Clay saw it. And he still couldn’t stop any of it.”
“He tried,” I said. “He wrote to you.”
“Twenty-five years late,” Royce said. “That’s how long it took the mail.”
There was one more paragraph. I almost didn’t want to read it.
“One more thing. Wade has had his little brother drive cattle for him at night. Twice now. The boy thinks it’s a favor.”
“It isn’t. Those cattle weren’t ours to sell. And the boy’s name is on the weigh tickets. Cole Pruitt, in his own hand.”
“He’s a good boy, Roy. He doesn’t know. If this ever comes apart, get him clear of it.”
I put the page down very slowly.
Cole. Twenty-two years old, pumping gas at the co-op. Signing weigh tickets for his big brother on a Friday night.
“He doesn’t know,” Vera said. “He still doesn’t know. Does he?”
“No,” Royce said. “And Nadine’s been carrying that for twenty-five years.”
I thought about the 5:52 weigh ticket we found weeks ago. Printed in Deke’s careful, blocky hand. The hand Nadine taught him.
Somebody in this family has been keeping records for a very long time.
“If that comes out now,” Royce said, “Cole loses that badge. Maybe more.”
“He’s the only honest sheriff this county ever had,” Vera said.
The back door rattled. We all jumped.
“It’s me,” Cole said through the glass. “Open up.”
I folded the second page in thirds and slid it under the Bible before Vera turned the lock.
What Cole Found Under the Window
Cole came in with cold air and dead leaves stuck to his boots.
“Somebody was out there,” he said. “Not long ago. The dirt under that window is still soft from the spigot.”
“Boot prints. Small. A woman’s size, maybe. Or a skinny kid’s.”
“They came from the creek side and went back the same way. Whoever it was knew this yard. They stepped right over the board by the porch that squeaks.”
Vera’s face went white. “Only family knows about that board.”
“I know,” Cole said.
He looked at the table. At the Bible. At the first page lying alone where two pages had been.
He didn’t say anything. But I saw him notice.
Then headlights swept across the kitchen ceiling.
Royce was on his feet before I was. Cole had his hand on his hip.
A horn honked twice. Then a third time, long and annoyed.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Vera breathed. “That’s June.”
June Whitaker came up the porch steps with a pie in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Exactly like Cole said she would.
“Somebody take this pie before I drop it,” she said. “The gun I’m keeping.”
For about ten minutes, it almost felt normal. Coffee. Pie. June bossing everybody.
She made Royce eat two slices. She told Vera her kitchen needed a good scrubbing. She told Cole his hat was crooked.
She set the shotgun by the door, barrel up, like it was an umbrella on a rainy day.
But every time I looked up, Cole was watching me.
The Clock Above Clay’s Rolltop Desk
At 10:40, Cole went out to his truck to talk to his deputy about the white Ford’s old titles.
June followed me into the hallway. She didn’t waste time.
“You’re going somewhere tonight,” she said. “I can see it all over you. Your mama got that exact look.”
I didn’t deny it. I couldn’t. Not to June.
“Don’t tell Cole,” I said. “Please. Not tonight.”
June studied me for a long time. Then she pressed something cold into my hand. Hank’s old flashlight.
“I won’t tell him,” she said. “But you are not going alone. I don’t care who said so.”
Royce was waiting by the back door with his hat already on.
“I read the message too, sweetheart,” he said. “She said alone. She said a lot of things.”
We made a deal right there in Clay’s mudroom.
Royce would drive me in his blue Chevy with the lights off. He’d wait at the crossroads where he could see the elevator.
If I wasn’t back in twenty minutes, he’d come in. And he’d call Cole on the way.
At 11:35, June started talking very loudly to Cole about pie crust on the front porch.
Royce and I went out the back. Over the board that squeaks. Down past the oak tree.
I stopped under it for one second. The ground was soft and torn up. Small boot prints, going toward the creek.
She had stood right here. Watching all of us. Waiting for my phone to light up.
I looked back once. Vera was standing at the kitchen window with her hand pressed flat against the glass.
The Grain Elevator at Midnight
The grain elevator sits where the county road crosses the old rail line. Nothing else out there but wind and a stop sign.
This was where they found Nadine’s car with the engine running. Her cardigan folded on the seat. Her badge on the dash.
Royce stopped at the crossroads, a quarter mile back. He cut the engine.
“Twenty minutes,” he said. “Not one second more.”
I walked the rest of the way with June’s flashlight off. The gravel sounded like gunshots under my boots.
The elevator rose up out of the dark like a church with no windows. The wind made the loose tin on the roof bang and settle, bang and settle.
I kept thinking about my mother. Climbing out of Rita’s car at the mailbox by Ruth’s lane, twenty-five years ago, never knowing whose lights had been behind her.
At 11:58, a shape stepped out from behind the scale house.
“You look just like her,” Nadine said. “Your mama. Standing there with your chin up like that.”
She was thinner than I remembered. Her hair was pulled back hard. She was wearing a man’s old canvas work coat, two sizes too big.
“You were under the oak tonight,” I said. “You took that picture.”
“I needed you to know I was close,” she said. “And I needed you to come.”
“Did you read the rest?” she asked. “Of Clay’s letter?”
“Cole’s name is on the weigh tickets,” I said.
She shut her eyes. For a second she looked eighteen.
“I watched him sign them,” she said. “Wade would hand him the pen and clap him on the back. Cole thought his big brother hung the moon.”
“If those tickets come out now, they’ll take his badge. Maybe worse. And then who’s left in this county to stand up to anybody?”
“He was twenty-two,” she said. “He thought he was helping his big brother move cattle. That’s all. He never knew.”
“And the white Ford,” I said. “The night before my mother died. Behind Rita’s car. With the brights on.”
“I was driving,” Nadine said. “Wade told me to follow Rita and see where the envelope went. So I did.”
“I didn’t know what that night was going to turn into. I swear to God, Lana, I didn’t know.”
“What did it turn into?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Her eyes went past me, toward the dark road.
Brights on the County Road
At first I thought it was Royce. Coming early, the way he promised he wouldn’t.
But Royce’s Chevy was still sitting dark at the crossroads. I could see the outline of his hat in the cab.
These lights came from the other direction. From the old rail line, where there isn’t supposed to be a road at all.
They came on all at once. High beams. So bright I had to throw my arm over my eyes.
“No,” Nadine whispered. “No, no, no.”
Through my fingers I could just make out the shape behind the lights. An old pickup. Square. White.
“Nadine,” I said. “Whose truck is that?”
“That’s Wade’s truck,” she said. Her voice was barely there. “That’s the white Ford.”
“Wade’s been dead twelve years,” I said.
“I know,” Nadine said. “I’m the one who buried him.”
Then the driver’s door opened.
And somebody stepped out into the light, and said my name.
So now I’m asking you. Who could possibly be driving Wade Pruitt’s white Ford twelve years after he was buried?
Should I have told Cole the truth about that text before I walked out of Clay’s kitchen? And should I ever tell him what Clay wrote about those weigh tickets?
What do you think Nadine was about to say about the night my mother died?
Next Part: Lana’s Story Part 40 is coming soon. Follow Reiterin on Facebook so you don’t miss it.
