Girl
Gone Home
Twisted
Crime Book 3
by
Kathleen O' Donnell
Genre:
Psychological Thriller
The
Best Book I've Read This Year! I
just finished it and I loved it! It has more twists and turns than a
roller coaster. This
book would make an amazing movie, but
the book will always be better. I can't wait to see what she writes
next! – Rena, five-star review on Amazon.
From
two-time Book of the Year finalist and Thriller of the Year Award
winner Kathleen O’Donnell comes a gripping psychological thriller
filled with quirky, unexpected twists.
A
girl in serious trouble
Delilah
Diamond had it all, the popular cooking show, a dream house, and a
great romance with her producer, until the producer’s wife gets
wind of it all. Delilah loses her show, her job, and her house. She’s
forced to go back to her hometown where everyone has skeletons in
their closet—or worse.
A
home not like any other
She
arrives just in time for the unfortunate death of her high school
crush, but senses something's wrong with the story of his demise.
Before she realizes it, she's knee-deep in a past that almost crushed
her years before, and could very well crush her now, for good.
A
mother who keeps sordid secrets
Local
law enforcement is a homegrown drunk, and useless, so someone higher
up the food chain sends a big city detective who starts sniffing
around her classmate's suspicious death and her mother’s past.
Delilah’s protective hackles are raised. She knows her mother has
shameful secrets, but the more she learns, the more she realizes she
doesn’t know the whole story.
A
hometown that comes together, even in crime
In
small towns, you protect your family and your neighbors come what
may, but will Delilah be able to protect her mother without exposing
her own sins? The ones she worked so hard to cover up? Will she be
able to deter the detective away from the truth?
You
can't go home again. Or can you? Should you? How safe is home when
you know where the bodies are buried?
Girl
Gone Home is
ultimately a story about love, family, loyalty and circling the
wagons no matter what terrible crime's been committed. It’s quirky,
heartfelt, and reminiscent of Dolores Claiborne and the works of Kate
Atkinson, Jane Hamilton, and Janet Evanovich.
CHAPTER ONE
“Willy
Wally came to a bad end,” Fran said. “Just like I predicted.”
“Only
you’d gloat over the dead at a funeral.” I’d just walked in, looked at my
watch. My mother irritated me in less than sixty seconds. A record.
“We
don’t do funerals, Delilah. The stiff puts a real damper on the festivities.”
“Right.
Memorials after the fact only.”
“Who
even knows where the nearest funeral home is?” Fran said, unimpeded by the
Marlboro in her mouth, long ash miraculously still intact. “Okay, I know where
it is, but who gives a highfalutin crap? Potluck and booze give whoever croaked
a fine send off—this is a bar for Chrissake. You’re
back on the Highway. Better forget those fancy city ways.”
From
my spot bellied up to the bar I watched the sea of cowboy hats attached to
heads full of rampage and Coors from the tap. They went whole hog at these
things. The only commercial enterprise for as far as the crow flies, Vi’s Place
teemed with quasi-mourners spilling through both front and back doors to the
overflow outside. The middle of nowhere meant good business for anyone with
stuff to sell.
“No
idea why I let you drag me to this thing,” I said. “I’m still knee-deep in
unpacked boxes.”
“Still?
You move in geologic time. It’s the food. That’s why you came. You’ve always
been a sucker for the highway potlucks. Besides, won’t kill you to show some
respect for a guy you went to school with. Dead just like that.” She’d have
snapped her fingers if they weren’t already occupied with the whole
cigarette/ashtray/coffee cup situation.
“Nothing
says respect like eating beanie-weenies while drunks heckle the bereaved,” I
said. “Good times.”
“Good
turnout.”
“I
should hope so. Willy Wally wasn’t even forty.” I stopped when I noticed Fran
paid a lot of attention to my words. “Never mind.”
She
flicked her ash into the ashtray. “Doc Bates won’t show. Accident or no, tough
to look your daughter in the eye after you shoot her husband.”
“Isn’t
Doc in jail?”
“You
know he’s not. Investigation’s still on. Doubt it’ll turn up anything criminal.
Shit happens out here.”
“Like
there’s gonna be a real investigation.” I rearranged my butt on the hard stool,
scooted it closer to hear Fran over the hootin’-and-a-hollerin’. “Unbelievable.
What a fiasco. Whole thing’s terrible.”
“What
do you care? You didn’t even want to come.”
“I
don’t and I didn’t. Well, that’s not altogether true. Of course, I care. It’s
sad isn’t it? A young man killed?”
“Culling
out the herd. You see Wally’s widow, Wanda? Jesus, Mary and Joseph try to say
that three times fast.”
“I
don’t know. Probably wouldn’t know her if I did.”
Fran
slipped her cigarette into the slot on the ashtray on the bar. “You’d know her
all right—still two-bagger ugly. Wanda and Willy Wally Watkins. Why on earth
poor Willy Wally didn’t strangle himself with his own umbilical cord, I’ll
never know, with that dumbass name.”
Nothing
sordid happened that Fran didn’t know about in great detail. Whatever the
backstory, and there was always a backstory, she knew
it and loved to tell me about the whole mess. I got zippo this time. Fishy.
“What
do you know about this, Fran? You know something. I can tell.”
“You
obviously can’t, since I know zilch, other than Willy Wally and Doc went
hunting like always. Doc accidentally shot him. Makes sense to me. Willy
Wally’s schnoz made him look like a moose or some such.”
“You’re
talking a mile a minute. Like you do when you’re dancing around the truth.”
“Shit
happens around here.”
“I’m
aware. Fran, you—”
“Dee,
aren’t you a sight.” Vi amputated my interrogation with a voice that sounded
like someone dragged a cheese grater over her vocal cords. Her familiar
shortening of my name gave me a warm fuzzy. “Been trying to get over to this
end to say hey, but this crowd, no patience.”
“Not
much changes on the Fifty-Three,” I said.
Including
Vi who still looked like a jack-o-lantern left too long on the porch.
“If
it did, I’d know it. Been behind this bar fifty years if you can believe that.
But look at you. You’re fresh as peach pie. Damn shame your TV show got
cancelled,” Vi said.
“Yeah,
well thanks. TV shows come and go.”
“She
can still cook like the dickens though. What with that cooking class.”
“Cordon
Bleu is hardly a cooking class, Fran. I—”
“Now
you’re back home where you belong.” Vi wiped down the bar with a snake-tattooed
hand, pulled a frothy topped beer. “Where in Jesus’s name are those
good-for-nothin’ bums I hired to help me out today?
Goddamn-lazy-bastard-shit-for-brains . . . ” She carried the mug to the other
end, insults trailing.
“Is
she wearing the necklace I gave you for your birthday?” I said.
Fran
brushed crumbs off the front of her “Smooth Move Ex-Lax” t-shirt.
“Oh,
that little bauble? Well, yes. Vi went on and on about how much she wanted it.
I didn’t—”
“Do
you know how much that little bauble cost?”
Fran
gave zero fucks about the cost.
“Never
mind.” I put a sock in it.
“Lord
a mercy, Delilah.” Margene Cox made a beeline, heaped plate in hand. “I liked
to fell out when I heard you’d come home. Wondered when we’d finally lay eyes
on you.”
“Only
been back a couple weeks,” I said. “Still settling in.”
Margene
draped the silk sweater around her shoulders that I’d bought Fran last
Christmas.
“Nice
sweater,” I said.
The
sharp stab of Fran’s elbow to my ribs shut my mouth.
“Fran
give it to me. She’s generous as always. Only fits if I don’t wear it. So hot
out here the devil up and left, but still cools down like the dickens at
night.” Margene stuffed a whole jalapeno popper into her mouth. I felt mildly
surprised most of her teeth looked intact. “You out at the old Winston pig
farm?”
“Mm
hmm. No pigs anymore.”
“You
missed Jefferson Davis.” Margene licked her greasy fingers. “Dadgum it. He’s
dyin’ to bend your ear about that farm.”
“My
loss.”
“You
know Willy Wally passing the way he did near tore my heart in two.” Margene
wiped a nonexistent tear. “You dated him didn’t you, Dee?”
“Mercy
no,” Fran said.
“Well,
I swanee,” Margene said. “Dee nursed a crush on Willy Wally ya’ll could see
from space back in the day.”
“Emily
dated Willy Wally,” Fran said.
For
once I didn’t mind Fran’s poking in.
“Oh,
right. Emily. Land’s sake.” Margene pushed her plastic fork through the turkey
tetrazzini on her paper plate.
“Where’s
Arthur?” I looked around for Margene’s husband.
“Oh,
honey, had his memorial right here a couple years back.”
“Lots
of memorials the last few years,” Fran said. “I told you about Arthur’s.”
She
probably did but I hadn’t been listening.
“Not
the same without Blanche and Edith, is it?” Margene squeezed in closer, set her
plate on the bar. “Blanche dyin’ of the cirrhosis after Earl died in that car
wreck, drunk. Too many memories. And Edith with the Alzheimer’s over to her
sister’s in Portland.”
Before
she could run on any more, Willy Wally’s father hushed the gathered to thank
everyone for coming. I wandered away from my lunch, Fran, and Margene’s census
update. A drunk blocking the exit got a free swat from me. Heat plus the pissy
sour outhouse smells slapped me hard. Came as no revelation Vi still resisted
indoor plumbing.
“You
look just like you do on TV,” a man said two seconds after I got out.
“Huh?”
The
sun glittering off the rows of cars lined up on both sides of the highway made
me squinty. I got closer. Strange man held out a too elegant hand, flashed a
badge with the other.
“I’m
Billy Dale,” he said. “You’re Delilah Diamond from Fork in
the Road. Am I right?”
“Billy
Dale what?”
Name
like that usually preceded a Jim Bob or Buck Dee.
“Just
Billy Dale.”
“You’re
not from around here then,” I said.
“Nope.”
He withdrew his unshaken hand.
Billy
Dale’s kick-my-ass-why-don’t-you ensemble cheered me somewhat. His
slicked-backed hair, GQ chin stubble, casual Friday
Brooks Brothers khakis and pink polo made me want to open the bar door, throw
him in to see how he fared. The small crowd milling around outside to avoid the
teary farewells inside dispersed as if they smelled an unfamiliar no good cop.
Nothing like stranger danger to speed folks along their way. Billy Dale peered
over the top of his sunglasses, looked past me at the open vista, dirt, and sagebrush.
“Jesus,”
he said. “You could seriously get off the grid out here.”
“What
do you want?”
“Just
making inquiries about the shooting incident.”
“At
a memorial? Willy Wally’s barely cold.”
“When
I drove up didn’t realize this, whatever this is, was going on.” He gestured
toward the food covered picnic tables.
I
kicked up a puff of dirt with the toe of my Converse, shifted my weight from
one foot to the other. Billy Dale studied the fly-infested open jar of mayo on
a nearby table, waiting, silent, doing that let-them-talk-to-see-what-spills
cop thing. He flicked an imaginary something off his shirtsleeve. His blank
face and open-too-wide eyes gave him a real dimwitted appearance—the kind of
guy who moved his lips when he read.
“Where’s
Rusty?” I said. “He’s been the law out here forever.”
“On
a bender probably.”
“No
doubt.”
“Mind
if I do some asking now?” he said.
I
let that hang like a corpse from a noose.
“You
know,” I finally said after the silence got too awkward even for me. “I just
came back here. Moved away eons ago.”
“So
I heard.” Billy Dale leaned against a clean sedan that must’ve been his. “Some
say they’re surprised to see you back.”
“None
more than me.”
“You
came back for the—this—potluck thingy?”
“No.
Coincidence.”
“Coincidences
give me cramps,” Billy Dale said serious as all get out.
Like
I cared about his bowels.
“Willy
Wally your old high school boyfriend?” He went on.
“Christ,
no. He dated my friend. Emily. She—”
“You
all right?” Billy Dale said.
I’d
swayed to one side. The beer I’d chased lunch with gurgled its way up the back
of my throat. I beat it back, steadied myself.
“I’m
fine. This heat, outhouse smell, I’m not used to it anymore.” I pulled away
from the hand he’d gripped my arm with, snooty-like. He probably did it to
help, but too bad so sad.
“Right.
Well, Jefferson Davis told me you—”
“Oh
you’re already on a first name basis? Jefferson Davis and I haven’t so much as
cast shadows near each other in twenty years.” Droplets popped up above my top
lip.
“Right.
Well, speaking of names. You call your mother by her first name?”
“Always
have,” I said halfway lying. “Fran is her name.”
I’d
replaced Mom with Fran when
we moved to the highway, when she went full wacko, to distance myself from her
in the only way I could then, to get under her skin. Joke was on me since her
skin proved unyielding, but it stuck.
“Fran
knows Doctor Bates well?” Billy Dale said.
“Everybody
here knows everyone else well.”
“Willy
Wally too?”
“Yes,
but they didn’t exactly run in the same circles since Fran’s old enough to be
his mother.”
We
stared each other down. I wondered if he could see me sweat.
He
blinked first. “Can you think of any reason Fran would’ve called Willy Wally
the day before he got shot and the day of?”
“Who
knows? It is a small town,” I said. “Why don’t you ask
Fran?”
“Did.
Said she doesn’t recall.”
“She’s
no spring chicken. Memory’s going.” I twirled one finger near my ear.
“Fran
called Willy Wally four times the day before he died, twice the next.”
“She’s
a talker,” I said.
There
it was.
Fran
did know more than she’d admitted. I crossed my arms over my chest, shoved both
hands under my dripping armpits, worked hard to keep my face from going funky.
“Not
to mention six calls to Doctor Bates.” He’d taken out a notepad, which I guess
meant business.
“I’m
sure for harmless reasons.”
I
turned on my heel. Eat my dust sucker.
Billy
Dale hollered at my back, “I’m sure I’ll find out.”
Kathleen
O’Donnell is a wife, mom, grandmother and a recovering blogger.
She currently lives in Nevada with her husband. She is a two time
Book of the Year finalist for her debut novel The Last Day for Rob
Rhino. You can find short stories and blog posts on her website.
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