Dirty Secrets

Part 3

Plunk!

Lyla opened her eyes when a hard object struck her cheek.

Above her, the long, crooked branches of a towering oak tree oscillated in the wind against a milky gray sky. The naked shoots at the tips of the boughs curled like cupped skeletal hands.

Plunk! Plunk!

Acorns hit the leaf-covered ground nearby, bounced and rolled to a stop, gathering in the crook of a tree root.

Lyla sat up and squinted into the wind while detangling brittle leaves from her hair.

At the crest of the hill, she could see a figure rising then disappearing from view. She got to her feet and cautiously climbed the last stretch of the hillside, fighting the powerful wind.

Kneeling on the ground between the moss-covered gravestones was Jack furiously raking through the turf with his hands. A wind-driven parade of leaves snaked around the grave markers, whirling and piling against his denim legs.

"Jack!" she called, her voice drowned out by the clattering of acorns, leaves, and debris.

She drew closer and raised her voice. "Jack!"

He looked up at her, not with a joyful expression on his handsome face, but rather with the familiar look of anguish and panic she'd seen while retrieving Keenan's body.

"I need to find it before they come to dig him up." He gestured toward the mound of dirt behind him.

Lyla knelt beside Jack. His alluring chestnut eyes had gone dark and cold.

"We need to get out of here. Jack! Let's go."

"I gotta find it before the police get here." He rummaged through the leaves and clumps of weeds. His stained and soiled shirt saturated with perspiration stretched tightly across his wide back.

"What are you looking for?"

"My class ring. My name's engraved. I know it's here."

"Your ring?" Lyla screwed up her face. "Your class ring?"

RING.

A distant ringing cut through the roaring wind.

"Jack! We need to get out of here before the police find us."

He would not be dissuaded. He dug furiously, his fingertips raw and bleeding. He wiped his forehead with his thick forearm.

The hollow RINGING grew louder.

"Jack, stop it!"

"I'm not going to prison for this." He looked up at her, his face twisted with anger, his eyes burning with rage. "I'm not gonna rot in jail! Not for you. Not for anybody!"

Abruptly, the wind stopped. The leaves fell silent. The scene went still, their eyes locked.

Once again, the distant RINGING.

"Answer it." He snarled. "It's for you." He returned to his frantic search.

RING.

Lyla's eyes popped open. Thank God she was no longer on that cursed hill. She was in her room. Beside her, sound asleep was Shaniece. Illuminated by the shafts of streetlight cutting through the mini-blinds, she could see Clover in her bed near the window, snoring loudly.

RING.

The distant ringing.

Instinctively, Lyla's hand went to the nightstand for her phone. Of course, it wasn't there. Nobody in the psych ward had a phone.

RING.

It sounded like the public phone at the end of the hallway.

RING.

Why wasn't anyone answering?

"Shanience?" Lyla whispered.

The medication had escorted Shaniece into deep sleep. Her thin abdomen rose and fell with each deep breath.

RING.

Lyla slipped out of bed, her bare feet making contact with the cold tile floor before her toes found their way into her slippers. She shuffled out of the room into the hall, a dark tunnel punctuated by the soft light spilling from the Nurses' Station.

RING. The tone echoed against the marble floor.

Why is no one answering the damn phone?

She tucked a ribbon of greasy hair behind her ear and, with her eyes on the public wall phone at the end of the hallway, tromped in its direction.

The night nurse, a young woman with thin eyebrows, looked up startled as Lyla jogged past.

"Where are you going?" she asked, rising from her chair.

"Why aren't you answering the phone?" Lyla shouted over her shoulder as she closed in on her destination.

As she reached for the receiver, Lyla could hear the pit-pat of the nurse's soft-soled shoes behind her.

Lyla yanked the phone off its cradle and brought it to her ear.

At first, there was quiet, the quiet of someone on the other end of the line who had chosen to not speak. And then the sound of a zipper, the zipper on the familiar green bomber jacket, Keenan's nervous tic. Up and down. Up and down.

The phone fell from Lyla's hand and dangled by its heavy metal cord swinging back and forth.

Lyla collapsed into the arms of the nurse, trembling uncontrollably. She folded like an old ironing board and crumpled to the floor, her head buried beneath her twisted arms.