Something in the Water Read online

  There’s a place just south of town that people hide their secrets. The police call it the killing field. Seven bodies have been unearthed there in the past thirteen years. Four of those were in the last few months alone. If you ask me, this whole town is a killing field, riddled with corrupted innocence and decaying youth.

  Nothing ever changed here. Maybe that's why I was drawn to the new boy who moved in across the street. Momma called him a heathen. He looked like freedom to me. I didn't care what it was that he was running from, as long as he took me along for the ride. But the distance couldn’t help me escape my past, and some secrets were best to stay buried.

  Copyright © 2012 by Teresa Mummert

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 9780463093795

  TeresaMummert(dot)com

  contents

  contents

  Prologue

  EMERY

  1

  FORD

  2

  EMERY

  3

  FORD

  4

  EMERY

  5

  FORD

  6

  EMERY

  7

  FORD

  8

  EMERY

  9

  FORD

  10

  EMERY

  11

  FORD

  12

  EMERY

  13

  FORD

  14

  EMERY

  15

  FORD

  16

  EMERY

  17

  FORD

  18

  EMERY

  19

  FORD

  20

  EMERY

  21

  FORD

  22

  EMERY

  23

  FORD

  24

  EMERY

  25

  FORD

  26

  EMERY

  27

  FORD

  28

  EMERY

  PROLOGUE

  EMERY

  April 3, 2011

  “You nervous, baby?” Momma asked as we sped down the empty highways and backroads toward our new home. I didn’t answer, but she didn’t seem to notice and continued on with her train of thought. “The sheriff lives on a plantation. Her eyes lit up, dancing in the rearview mirror. Her hair was nearly white now, bleached to the roots. She said she wanted to look her best for the sheriff. I didn’t tell her that she used to look just like me. Did I not look my best?

  I smoothed my hands down the skirt of my dress. My vision clouding over with the memories of my daddy. We’d left him behind in Georgia. I hadn’t seen him in six months, and Momma said there was no use hanging around for someone who was locked up. But Daddy had promised me he would come back to us. He wasn’t abandoning us like Momma said. He just had to pay for what they had done. No matter what you do, there is always a price. And one day, someone will come to collect.

  “Well, this can’t be right,” Her words cut through my self-loathing, and I craned my neck to look out the window. There was a large sign that read Hebert Plantation. Below in smaller letters was the word subdivision. I didn’t know what it meant, but it looked okay to me.

  We made a few more turns before pulling in front of a two-story home. “It ain’t no mansion,” she muttered before sighing loudly. I knew that sound. Momma was pissed. I didn’t dare say that word out loud, but I was welcome to think it as much as I wanted.

  “You made it,” A man stepped outside, letting the screen door slam loudly behind him. He was dressed like one of the men who got Daddy.

  Momma hurried from the car, arms outstretched to her new suitor. “You said you lived on a plantation, Sutton.” He embraced her, chuckling as his eyes danced over our car, landing on my brother and me.

  “It is, technically. They sold off some of the lands to build a subdivision. The big house is down the road some. They give tours,” his voice rose as he directed what he said next to us. “Doesn’t that sound fun?” he stepped closer to the car, resting his hands on the window frame. “You hear me, boy?” There was an edge to his voice.

  My big brother Eli fidgeted in his seat. I reached over, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze. He glanced up then, at the sheriff, and forced a smile.

  Momma grabbed Sutton’s arm, pulling the attention back to herself. “Don’t mind them. They’re good kids.”

  He nodded once, his thumbs looping under his belt and tugging it from his belly. “Most are when they want something.”

  I didn’t like his tone. Momma didn’t either. I saw a look flicker across her face. It was brief, but I’d seen it. She may have put us in fancy new clothes, but she couldn’t hide who she really was. Not from me.

  “It’s been a long trip, Sheriff, you gonna keep us waitin’ outside in this god-awful heat? Sugar melts, darlin’.” She smiled, batting her eyelashes. She had his attention now, and when he gripped her around her waist, she squealed.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Come on, kids,” she hollered as he carried her up the porch steps and into our new home.

  My brother and I waited on the couch as they went upstairs and rearranged the furniture. I don’t know why the sheriff hadn’t made room for us before we showed up. I guess because the stuff was so heavy he needed Momma’s help. It didn’t matter, as long as I got my own room.

  “Emery, you’re gonna go and ruin that dress,” Momma called out over the carnival worker who was rattling off the prizes for an impossible game. We didn’t even have time to unpack our bags before they hauled us out of the house. Momma was anxious to get the town talkin’.

  “It’s too hot,” I groaned as she shook her head in disapproval.

  I stood in the ticket line, my ice cream melting faster than I could eat it. The heat was oppressive; my skin coated in a thin sheen of sweat. You wouldn’t know it from the way I was dressed. My skirt was full with ruffled layers making it poof out at the bottom like a princess. It was yellow, my favorite color. My hair was tied up in pigtails with matching ribbons. The bows were too expensive, she said, and these would be just as pretty.

  Momma’s fiancé Sutton was off chatting with Officer Salt about something he said we were too young to hear about. I may have only been nine years old, but Daddy said I was smart for my age, Sutton just didn’t know that yet. The woman’s son, Marcus, was off riding rides with my older brother. They took to each other the second they met, which was only about twenty minutes ago. I, on the other hand, was stuck with Momma.

  She was used to being center of attention and didn’t take kindly to whatever tragedy had occurred and prevented her new man from fawning over her.

  “Go play on somethin’,” she huffed, shoving the strand of blue tickets in my face.

  “But I don’t have any friends,” I sighed, my eyes dancing over all the local kids playing and screaming.

  “And you won’t make any if you don’t go out there and talk to anyone. Go on. Make yourself scarce.”

  Reluctantly, I began to make my way across the baseball diamond. I passed by a game where you could throw rings on soda bottles and win a fish, and one where you could shoot a basketball and win a stuffed animal. It reminded me of the Ogeechee Seafood Festival we used to go to when I was younger. Daddy wouldn’t let us leave until we got one of those old-timey photos of us dressed up as bank robbers. Momma never hung the pictures, just shoved them in a drawer to only be seen the
following year as the pile grew. I saw them, before we left Georgia, in a box sat out to the curb for trash. We were a family, and she threw it away. It couldn’t have been more fitting.

  I kept walking.

  I walked until I was passing through a chain link fence, slipping through a field of fresh mud. I walked until the mosquitoes ate my flesh. Momma said they bit me more because I was sweeter than most. My skin rubbed raw on my heals. I slipped my shoes off and continued barefoot until I stepped on a fire ant mound.

  I hurried down a hill, tangled in the brush before I threw myself into the small stream that cuts through the woods. The water wasn’t cool like I expected, but it felt good all the same.

  It was only after something brushed my hand, causing me to shiver that I had realized I’d ruined my dress. The lace hung free from the hem, and even if it could be mended, there was no way the stains would come out. Momma was gonna be so mad at me. But it felt so good I couldn’t pull myself out. I laid on my back, the water deep enough to cover my ears and block out the sound of the town in the distance. I closed my eyes and pretended I was back in Georgia with Daddy on the beach at Tybee Island. If I tried really hard, I could still taste the salt from the water on my lips. I laid there until my skin pruned and I forgot I was somewhere new.

  “There’s something in the water,” someone spoke, followed by the crackling static sound of a walkie-talkie. I froze, not saying a word. I could hear sticks cracking in the distance before I spotted the sheriff. He trudged through the water, grabbing me by my arm and yanking me to the bank.

  “She’s safe. I’ve got her. Call off the search,” the sheriff spoke again into his police radio attached to his uniform.

  There ya go, Momma. Now you’re sure to be the talk of the town.

  1

  FORD

  May 23, 2018

  Everything I owned was shoved haphazardly in an olive drab duffle bag, the kind you saw in old war movies. It had belonged to my father.

  He was no hero.

  I slung it over my shoulder and knocked on the front door, hoping for some reprieve from the hot, southern sun.

  “Qui C'est q'ca?” A voice called from inside the modest home as heavy footsteps fell closer.

  I readjusted my stance, my legs restless after hours of travel. I hated the humid Louisiana weather, and the sun felt like it was burning the flesh of my shoulders through my cotton shirt. I could feel the heat creeping across my arms, and I strained my neck to the side, cracking it as the front door pulled open; a portal to my past.

  “Mais, garde don! You made it, T. Ford.” Uncle Daven’s dull, blue eyes traveled over me, his enthusiasm forced. He hadn’t shaved in at least a few weeks, giving him a disheveled, almost homeless quality and the odor of booze mingled with sweat wafting off him didn’t help. If it weren’t for his muscular build, I might have thought he was just squatting in this house like a stray dog waiting for his owners who’d abandoned him to return.

  “It’s just Ford. Where else would I go?” I took a step forward, across the threshold and he moved out of my way, allowing me inside and under a vent blowing slightly cooled air. I tried not to get upset that he used the nickname for me he had as a child. He didn’t know me anymore. I wasn’t his Petit Ford. I was practically a man now. I’d taken care of my own mother for years when it felt like the rest of the world had abandoned us. In truth, we’d abandoned the world, running from her fears. Lying, cheating, and stealing were our currency to something better. We never made it there... not really. Because I couldn’t run from who my father was and my mother could never look at me without seeing him.

  “Your mother thought maybe you’d head up North, ya’,” he replied, but his voice trailed off as if thinking out loud and perhaps wishing she’d been right. I couldn’t blame him.

  “You weren’t that lucky.” My eyes had danced over the expansive open-living room before I turned to face him, taking in our slight resemblance. Although I took after my father, my mother’s side shone through. We had the same angular jaw, a feature that had given me a hardened look. The same thing that made the guys my age think twice before fucking with me is what kept girls by my side. We also had the same ocean blue eyes, but his had lost their light long ago.

  “She said there was a gaienne... a girl.”

  I cringed, clearing my throat that threatened to close from the mere mention of Taylor, the only girl I’d let in. The one I’d lost. But there had been plenty of others since her. I thought they would help me forget. Nothing helped.

  “Not anymore,” I replied in a clipped tone as I let my bag slide from my shoulder, thudding hard against the oversized tile floor of the entryway. Daven nodded as he glanced around me, avoiding eye contact.

  “Yeah, well, women are harder to hold on to than a greased hog. You’re only seventeen. You got time.” His hand clamped down on my shoulder before he walked by me and into his kitchen ahead of me, leaving me trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. It had been years since I’d heard his accent and it was nearly impossible to decipher his words. My mother had taught herself to speak without it when I was still young. Mine faded not long after and I was thankful I could no longer hear my father’s voice in the echoes of my own.

  “I got some beer in the icebox to cool ya’ down. Sa fais chaude,” he muttered with a dialect only someone from this part of the country could mimic without being accused of having a few too many. He yanked open the fridge and reached inside, pulling back two brown long necks that clanked together in his one-handed grasp.

  “Yeah,” my voice wavered, and I cleared my throat, struggling to sound like him offering me alcohol wasn’t shocking. The smirk on his face let me know he was well aware of the situation I’d come from, but it soon fell, and I knew my mother spared no details.

  “I’m not going to pretend you came here as some misunderstood youth and you won’t insult my intelligence by pretending that’s what you are. Just ‘cause I speak a little slower doesn’t mean I’m stupid, ya’.” He cocked his eyebrow, holding out the bottle as a peace offering. Running my hand roughly through my hair, I closed the distance between us, Taking the beverage and nodding once before tilting it to my lips. The cold liquid felt like Heaven as it slid down my throat, offering a slight reprieve from the muggy weather.

  “So, you talked to Karen.” It wasn’t a question.

  “You call ya momma Karen? Seriously?” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as his head shook in disapproval.

  “What should I call her?” I snapped, but guilt tightened in my chest as I immediately regretted my words.

  Setting his bottle down on the beige speckled faux granite counter, he spun it between his fingers as a sigh escaped him. “I’m not saying she always made the right decisions, Ford, but she tried.”

  “Yeah, well, not hard enough.” I took another long pull from my drink, wishing it was something stronger.

  “Maybe not. But none of us are perfect.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” My gaze drifted over him as my body grew rigid, thinking of all the times I wanted someone, anyone from my family to come to get me. I hadn’t seen my uncle since I was a little boy. At one point, I began to think I’d imagined him and that my mother was the only family I’d had left in the world. I couldn’t blame him, though. My father was a frightening man, and when we finally escaped him, my mother kept us far from anyone we knew. She’d taken us from victims to survivors. We became brand new, but that didn’t heal my old wounds, only masked them.

  “We tried, Ford.” His palm, dampened by the condensation on his bottle, swiped across his forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles that formed there.

  “Not hard enough.” I finished off my beer before setting the bottle down carefully on the counter and returning to the front door to pick up my bag. I was seconds from disappearing back out into the heat and driving off until my tank sputtered lifeless somewhere along the highway. Anything was better than this half-assed family reunion
. I didn’t need a destination, I just needed to escape.

  “Rooms down the hall to the left. The second door past the batt’room,” Daven called out behind me, his thick Cajun French accent garbling his words, but there was no hint of anger or frustration in his tone. I adjusted my grip on the bag, teeth biting into the inside of my cheek as I weighed my options. I had none.

  “I don’t want to talk about her,” I called out, my jaw clenched hard causing the muscles to jump under the taut skin.

  “Which one? Your momma... or the gaienne?”

  Turning around to face him, I let my frustration dissipate, replaced by exhaustion. “Neither of them.”

  “Understood.” He raised his hands, palms out, in mock surrender. “You’re a man of mystery,” he quipped.

  I shook my head and disappeared back into the hallway, passing by the first open door on the left, the bathroom, before slipping into my new room and flicking on the light.

  The walls were a nauseating robin’s egg blue with a single size bed pushed against the far wall and an old four drawer walnut dresser on the opposite wall. Beside it, the remnants of a baby crib were stacked, propped up on the mattress. I dropped my bag on the bed and unzipped it, riffing through my clothes to see if I’d had the foresight to pack any shorts. A knock on the door startled me, and I spun around to see Daven shoving his hands down into his jeans pockets.

  “You hungry?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You can uh...” his hand rubbed against the back of his neck. “You can put that crib in the closet if you want. I meant to, I just didn’t have time.”

  My eyes went to the baby bed and back to my uncle as I registered his pained expression.

  “I could sleep on the couch. It really wouldn’t bother me at all.”

  “No, no. You should have your own room. It wasn’t getting used anyway.”

  I nodded, unable to think of what to say. My mother had only prepared me by saying Daven had suffered a great deal, but I was too wrapped up in my own bullshit to inquire further. There were no words for a situation like his, she said. He was going through hard times of his own, but that didn’t stop him from offering me help when I needed it, and I was an asshole for no reason. “I could eat,” I conceded.