Page 35 of The Unmaking of June Farrow

Hearing him say my name sent another chill up my spine. There was no formality in it. No edge of uncertainty. His mouth moved around it like he’d said it a thousand times.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He pressed a hand to his forehead, as if there was pain there. “My name is Eamon,” he said, impatient. “Eamon Stone.”

“Why do you have a picture of me in your house?” I blurted out. I was cold all over now.

“Come with me and I’ll tell you.”

“No. Tell me now.”

His face changed as he measured his words. “I know you. You just don’t know me yet.”

“Yet?” I stilled, watching him. The panic I’d felt standing in that bedroom was now terror. “Howdo you know me?”

His hands fell heavily to his sides, fingers curling into fists. “Look, you need to come with me.”

I took another step deeper into the water before his eyes snapped up to the road. I could hear another car pulling onto the shoulder behind the trees.

Eamon shifted on his feet before he set the hat back on his head and a car door opened. There were footsteps moving behind the brush.

“Everything all right?” a man’s voice called out.

“Yeah.” Eamon smiled at whoever stood on the road, but it looked wrong on his face.

“Saw your truck.”

A man in an old style of police uniform appeared at the top of the bank, attention on Eamon. He had one thumb hooked in his belt as he wiped a handkerchief across his brow, and the badge on his chest was engraved with the worddeputy. He froze when he saw me.

“June? That you?”

I looked to Eamon, the cinching feeling around my lungs now an excruciating pain. What the hell was happening?

Eamon’s eyes bored into mine, like he was truly afraid of what I might say. “Just got back,” he stammered, turning so that he was half blocking the man’s view.

Back? From where?

The man stepped aside, trying to see me. His hand absently moved from his belt, and I had the fleeting thought that it could be drifting toward the gun at his hip.

“Well, it’s good to see you. Your mama doin’ all right?”

I looked from him to Eamon. My mother? Susanna?

My mouth opened, but before I could speak, Eamon was cutting in again.

“Much better,” he answered, eyes shooting to me. The muscles in his throat tightened, and he gave me an almost undetectable nod of his head.

“Yeah.” I swallowed, taking my cue from him. I didn’t know what else to do.

“Good.”

I nodded awkwardly.

The deputy’s gaze moved to my feet. “Everything okay?”

I looked down to my boots, now submerged beneath the water.

“Yeah,” I said, more loudly than was necessary. I was still out of breath.