Page 115 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
Mrs. Withers was weeping, holding on to Jacqueline tightly as the girl struggled to free herself from her mother’s desperate grip.
Perliett ran through the corn, the leaves scratching her face. Never again. She would never set foot in a cornfield ever again.
Her ankle twisted on a rut in the ground, but she righted herself and kept fleeing. She could hear the corn busting behind her as the behemoth of a handyman chased her. Scattered thoughts raced through her mind.
Alden the handyman? A secret affair with Mrs. Withers must have resulted in a child. Jacqueline. But how did no one know except—?
Perliett batted away a spiderweb that stretched over her mouth and wrapped around her cheek.
She recalled almost a decade earlier when it was said Mrs. Withers had lost a baby. She had been almost full term. George had been out of town at the time. Perliett hadn’tbeen attempting to practice any of her own medicine then, far from it. There had been a midwife. A baby’s funeral.
Had the casket been empty all along?
Had Mrs. Withers faked her infant’s death and secreted her away to be with her father, Alden?
It was altogether possible. Exceptional but possible.
Perliett burst from the cornfield, racing onto the road, where the horse still stood hitched to the carriage. She clambered onto the seat and slapped the reins against the horse’s back.
“Hyah!”
Alden broke into the clearing. A deadly expression on his face.
Perliett whimpered as the horse startled forward, whinnying its surprise and shock at Perliett’s unorthodox treatment. The carriage surged, Perliett barely holding on. She looked over her shoulder. Alden was running after her. She saw another carriage in the distance. Gaining on them.
If God had ever looked down and decided that she was His to protect, now would be a wonderful moment to do so! It was an abstract plea, but one Perliett found herself clinging to.
She managed another glance behind her.
Alden had collapsed onto the road. Mrs. Withers was screaming, rushing toward him as the big man rolled onto his side, clutching his arm. The young girl stood off to the side, yet her attention was fixed on Perliett.
Everything in Perliett told her to keep going. She could tell something had happened. Alden’s heart perhaps? How timely for her and how awful for him! The caregiver in Perliett entertained the briefest moment of obligation to turn around and offer aid. But the survivor in her told her if she did so, she would be saving the Cornfield Ripper.
Perliett wasn’t in the business of saving killers. Besides, George said her practice was all quackery anyway, and she was thrilled at the moment to believe him.
Molly
“Maynard.” Molly held out her hands, reasoning with the man as if he were a child. “Let’s go and talk about this in the sunlight.”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” He rubbed the side of his nose with his thumb. His agitation was growing, and he kept glancing at the barrel behind her.
Molly pushed down her fear, willing herself to be calm. Panicking now would be worthless.
“I didn’t want to sell the farm. My cousins—they wanted to off-load it.” Maynard leaned his back against the wall of the crawl space, sliding down until he sat in front of her, trapping Molly in. He ran his palms over his balding head, groaning. “All these years, it was vacant. I couldsleepwhen it was vacant. Butsellit?”
“W-why didn’t you want to sell Jacqueline’s farm?” Molly waited. Maynard didn’t answer. “Was it because it has something to do with the Cornfield Ripper?”
Maynard’s head jerked up, his eyes wild. “What? That old story? What does that have to do with anything today?”
“I don’t know!” Molly’s frustration and fear were growing palpable. Her outburst made Maynard’s jaw clench. “I’m sorry.” She held up her hand again. “I just—there’s been a lot about the Cornfield Ripper and the Withers sisters coming into play of late.” She wasn’t sure she should mention January’s name. Wasn’t sure what he might do if Maynard truly had been the one who killed her.
Maynard snorted, shook his hands in fists in front of him, and stared at the opposite wall of the crawl space. “That stupid girl. Itstartedwith her researching the Cornfield Ripper. Researching theWasziaks. Fine! Research it! What do I care? But then she had to get nosy about crime in Kilbourn.” He scowled at Molly, and she shrank against the barrel. “Crimein Kilbourn? What, teenage vandalism? Oh yes, and what is that?” His voice rose in a mocking pitch. “A disappearance? The only other questionable occurrence in the Kilbourn history books. And your cousin Januaryhadto look into it.”
“Tamera Nichols.” Molly said the name before she could bite her tongue.
Maynard’s eyes darkened. He leaned toward her conspiratorially, as if telling her a secret. “Your cousin figured out that Jacqueline Withers was my grandmother. That Jacqueline Withers was a Clapton, and that Clapton Bros. Farms owned the property you were buying. She nosed around and figured out that Tamera Nichols had a boyfriend.”
“You,” Molly stated. There was no reason not to now. It was obvious. January had inadvertently pieced together crimes spanning decades that were linked only by ancestry.
