Page 92 of The Unmaking of June Farrow

The sound of the rifle cocking echoed out in the night just as Caleb reached his car, parked up the road. The sound of the shot tore through the silence, and then Eamon was cocking it again, setting the gun against his shoulder and taking aim.

The headlights of Caleb’s car illuminated, the engine roaring to life just as I reached Eamon, and I took hold of his arm. But the gun fired again, making me recoil when the sound exploded.

I shoved into him, forcing the gun down, and Eamon watched, his face contorted with rage, as Caleb drove away.

“What are you doing?” I screamed.

Eamon pushed past me, back toward the house, and I caught him by the wrist. “Eamon!”

He didn’t answer, tucking the gun beneath his arm and pulling free of my grasp.

“Stop!” I followed him inside, but he didn’t return the rifle to the wall. Instead, he took the truck keys from the hook.

I tore them from his hand, holding them away from him. “Eamon,stop.”

Finally, his eyes locked with mine, and he went still long enough for me to set my hand on the center of his heaving chest. He was coming back into himself now, his breaths slowing.

When he didn’t move, I reached for the gun, and he let me take it. Carefully, I hung it back on the wall, staring at the gleam of light the lantern painted on its barrel.

The trembling was starting, finding my hands first. There was no doubt in my mind, when I looked at him, what he would have done. He would have killed that man right there on the road. He was ready to do it.

I blinked, forcing myself to turn back to the house. The contents of the room were toppled, drawers opened and papers littering the ground.

“What was he looking for?”

Eamon didn’t answer.

“Is there anything he could have found?” I said, warily. “Anything at all? Evidence?”

He leveled his gaze at me before he shook his head once.

My heart sank. Was this an unspoken confession?

“You’re sure?” I whispered.

“Everything’s gone.” His deep voice made the trembling in my hands deepen.

I pinched my eyes closed, my head splitting with pain. The smell of smoke was in the air again, but this time, it was different. I could see the lick of flames. Feel the heat of them. But the fireplace was cold. It was another memory, skimming the borders of my mind. It was too far away. Too fractured.

“I talked to Caleb at the Midsummer Faire.” I pressed a hand to my head. “I should have told you.”

“What?”

“He threatened me.”

“Threatened you how?” Eamon’s voice was even, but it had taken on a new tone. One that scared me.

“He said that we’re going to pay. That he’s going to find proof that we’re lying.” I pushed through the door to the bedroom, trying to breathe as I searched the room around me.

Everything was scattered. Clothes covered the floor, the wardrobe emptied. The pages of the books that had been on the shelf were torn from their spines. The wind poured through the open window, catching their edges, and they looked like the petals of a flower torn from the stem.

I went to the bed, using both hands to shift the mattress down before I reached behind it, searching for the burlap fold I’d hidden there. The newspaper clippings. The photograph. The page with the years I’d written down. But my hand found nothing.

They were gone.

I picked up the crumpled wedding dress, smoothing the white lace beneath my palm. The fabric looked like it was intact, but there was a smudge of dirt along the bodice, where it had been stepped on.

Eamon’s hammer echoed through the house as he drove a nail into the doorjamb. The loose hinge of the screen had come out when Caleb and Eamon barreled outside, leaving it hanging. We’d spent the day putting things back together to mimic some semblance of normality, though the disturbing feeling that someone had been in here still lingered in the air.