The crack was shockingly loud and echoed through the woods.
She could see the pain radiate in his eyes.
Good job! Keep going.
She was on her knees now, scrambling after him as he tried to retreat, tried to wipe the blood now spurting down his face and reach for the knife at his belt. She knew that if he got to it, it would be all over. She wanted to beg him, plead with him to tell her where her mother was, but she didn’t have time. He would kill her instead. She had to save herself.
She swung the rock again and again as the blood ran in crazy directions over his face. There was zero hesitation in her.
He fell to his knees on the forest floor, among the dead, silent cicadas, and put his hands instinctively, helplessly, over his eyes, and she knew that the last image she would have of her father would be this one, as she killed him for taking her mother away.
The rock, slippery and useless with his blood, fell from her hand. She dropped to her knees, breathing hard. She felt dizzy and disoriented. She felt the back of her head, and winced at the bloody wound.
“I have to save him now,” Ruby mumbled.
She felt the blood drip on the forest floor.
Yes. Save your brother.
The bone sang all the way to the prison. It sang name after name, woman after woman—all the women he had taken from Georgia and Oregon. Were any still alive, like he had said? The exonerator would have to find out.
Frances McCabe.
Kelly Ruth Carroll.
Elizabeth Cochrane.
Lynn Andrews-Banks.
Natalie Gray.
Desirée Spencer.
Anna Bender.
Charise Brown.
Rosanna Higginbottom.
Lashonda Grimes.
Malorie Gilbert.
The bone sang, more and more names. There would be dozens by the end.
Gratitude Barnett.
Lisa Sharp.
Meadow Coolidge.
On and on, a litany of names.
Betty Dubois.
Avery Porter.
The names became a song, and every flag on that map stood at attention. Then the voice slowly faded, and the flags laid down, and Ruby knew she would not hear from Charise again.
