Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
She looks right at Jake.
Softly, he says, “ ‘And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side.’ ”
Her nose flares. Tears fill her eyes. “ ‘Of my darling…’ ”
“ ‘My darling,’ ” Jake breathes, the words echoing around us. “ ‘My life and my bride.’ ”
Silent tears cascade down her scratched cheeks. “ ‘In her sepulchre there by the sea.’ ”
“ ‘In her tomb by the sounding sea,’ ” Jake finishes the poem. I recognize it. “Annabel Lee” by Poe. It’s the poem Hailey loves. It’s why a line from it is our SOS call.
Her face fractures, like she’s more cognizant of her real surroundings. “I saw Oliver…I know what I saw.” She rubs at her eyes furiously. Then her chin trembles as she looks between all of us, and her gaze plants on me. “Phoebe,” she says my name like we’re seven years old again. “I haven’t been sleeping.”
My heart shatters. “I know,” I tell her, my hand to the back of her head. She brings her forehead to mine. It’s just us for a moment. Cocooned in our lifelong friendship.
Tears are rivers on her cheeks, tracking through the dirt. “No, you don’t know,” she whispers shakily, clinging tighter to my hand in hers. “I close my eyes, but I don’t sleep.”
I blink back the onslaught of tears. I failed her somewhere. I failed her. “It’s okay,” I whisper back. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you help.”
“I tried so hard,” Hailey says. “I tried so hard to find answers, but I can’t do it. It’s all I’m good for and—”
“Hailey, stop,” I cry. “You’re beautiful—”
“You’re gorgeous,” Hailey professes from her core, tears streaming down her face again.
I clutch her cheeks with two hands. “You’re brilliant, more brilliant than I could ever be.”
She chokes on a sob. “So brilliant that I’m a useless mess here. I’m nothing. I’m no one.”
“You’re my best friend,” I say from deep within. “If you’re no one then so am I.”
“You’re counting on me to find answers.”
My body caves. “You don’t need to.”
She’s shaking her head.
“Hailey, you don’t.” I blink, and hot tears wet my cheeks. “You don’t have to know everything. You could know nothing, and I’d still love you.” We’re both crying now.
She clutches my cheeks, too, holding on to me. Her chin quakes, and she squeaks out, “I’m not as smart as everyone needed me to be.”
“That’s okay.” I rub at her cheeks. “Because I don’t love you just because you’re smart. You could be dumb as dirt, and I’d still love my dumb-as-dirt best friend.”
She sobs harder and crumples into my body like a wounded bird. I wrap my arms around her, hugging her.
Oliver makes soothing circles on her back.
Jake is gripping the flashlight now. So tightly, the veins in his arms bulge out. Then there’s Rocky…my Rocky.
His eyes are full of violent fury that I can’t make sense of. “This ends here.” He comes forward. “Give me my phone, Phebs.”
I’m confused, but I don’t prod. I wrestle it out of my back pocket and toss it to him.
“Who are you calling?” Jake asks.
Oliver’s bloodshot gaze stays on the girl he loves. “He’s calling the godmothers.”
“Oliver Graves, right on the money,” Rocky says tightly, then stops dialing and glances over at Nova. “Still no Trevor?”
“No.”
Rocky’s concern mounts.
Oliver whispers melodically, “Hailstorm. You found me.”
“I found you.” She peers out of my hug, and an ugly sob contorts her face again. “Oliver, it’s so bad. It’s so much worse than what I-I thought.”
“What is?” I ask.
She has her hands to her ears. She pulls back from me.
Oh no, no, no, no. “Hailey,” I choke out.
Rocky lowers his phone, not calling anyone yet.
“They lied, they lied, they lied…” She nods dazedly. “Prudie said, Prudie said…”
“Prudie,” Jake says the name in recognition. “That’s one of our oldest housekeepers. She’s been with us for over forty years.”
Rocky frowns. “Hailey must’ve talked to her tonight.”
“Prudie said.” Hailey licks her cracked lips, trying to spell it out. “Sh-she said there were three. There were three.”
“Three what?” Oliver asks.
“Three children.”
Oh my God. The Tinrocks. She found this information through a housekeeper at the Koning estate? I glance between Jake and Rocky. Are they really…could they be?
“No.” Rocky shakes his head at me. “No.”
“Christian, Brent, Daphne,” Hailey lists out. “Christian, Brent, Daphne.”
Jake comes closer. “Those are the Wolfe children.” He bends down on my other side. “The ones who died in ’86.”
Hailey’s face is anguished as she stares off. “Christian married Josephine.” So the oldest son did have a wife. “Christian m-married Josephine.”
I take a sharp breath. “What happened to her?”
“Sh-she was in the car…when it ran off the bridge…and crashed into the river.” Her breathing shallows. “There were three. There were three children in the backseat.”
Hairs rise on my arms, on the back of my neck. Silence strains the storm shelter, and we all wait for her to catch her breath to tell us.