Val popped her leg over into the driver’s side and pressed the brake, forcing the car to a hard stop.
“If we don’t and the place becomes a crime scene, they’ll find your prints and then come looking for you,” Val explained.
“And I’ll explain what happened. We didn’t do anything,” Kerry said.
“Are you fucking out of your mind?” Val pleaded. “You just got out of jail for murdering your husband and this is the GBI agent who was assigned to his case. They’ll put you right back in jail so fast. You want to go back to jail?”
Kerry thought for a second on the quiet road where no other cars had passed and then started turning the car around. “You’re right,” she agreed finally. “We have to go back.”
In an excruciatingly nerve-racking repeat appearance at the crime scene, Val and Kerry stood at the back of Val’s car arguing about why Val didn’t have any bleach in her trunk. There was body spray in a suitcase with overnight clothes, rim shiner, and Windex.
“The Windex will work fine,” Val said, rushing. “It probably has bleach in it. Just go in there and use it to wipe the light switch.”
“With what?” Kerry looked at the overnight bag and jumper cables in the trunk.
“Take these,” Val said, handing Kerry a brand-new pair of lime-green lace panties from the overnight bag.
Kerry took the lacey panties and Windex and looked up the driveway to be sure no one was coming.
“Come with me,” she said to Val.
“I need to stay out here and keep watch,” Val said.
“I am not going in there alone!” Kerry protested. “Just come with me.”
“The light switch is right inside the door! Just go in there and spray the Windex on the wall and wipe with the panties. I’ll be waiting for you out here.”
Kerry accepted her fate to clean up her own mess and tiptoed to the cabin like she was afraid to wake the dead. The entire time she kept looking back at Val, who reassured her by pointing toward the cabin and smiling, though she’d already decided there was no way she’d go into the house again herself.
Inside the house, Kerry sprayed the Windex on the light switch and wiped with one eye on the door and the other toward the hallways leading to the doorway to the basement. Her little bit of intuition visualized a man in all black creeping up from behind and choking her: Something dramatic like that. Her heart raced as she sprayed and sprayed to make something invisible like a fingerprint disappear.
“Come on!” Val rushed Kerry from outside. She heard what sounded like a helicopter in the distance.
Kerry looked at the switch again like she could see anything and stuffed the wet panties into her pocket. “Okay!” She looked in the path that led to the dead bodies and repeated, “Okay!” before running out.
“I’ll drive,” Val said, back to her wits.
Kerry was the one who was nearly out of it then, so she agreed without a word and walked toward the passenger’s seat. She wasn’t in shock with fear as Val had been the first time they left. Kerry was thinking of something, thinking of what could’ve led to what she was seeing. All of this. This death. What was going on? Her head was spinning with inquiry.
The ticking from the sky was closer. Val heard it more prominently and she looked up at the clouds, expecting to see something before she got into the car.
Val got in and turned the car out of the drive again. She kept looking up toward the sky to find the source of the noise.
“You hear that?” she asked quiet Kerry, who didn’t reply. “I think it’s coming from the sky. Sounds like a helicopter.”
She pulled out of the driveway.
“You okay?” She looked at Kerry.
Kerry blinked. “I’m not sure. Someone killed Leaf.”
“I know. I was there,” Val said, searching for the source of the sound that was closer still.
“Somebody killed him.” Kerry looked at Val. “He was trying to help us and someone killed him.” She looked ahead, but not at the road or anything, just ahead. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” she said as she added things up. “It’s true. It’s all true. They killed him. They killed him because he was helping me. It’s all true. They tried to kill Jamison. They killed Ras. Charles Brown. They killed Leaf.” She paused and said eerily, “And they’re probably going to try to kill me too.”
“Please don’t start with that shit again,” Val said, distracted from her helicopter watch.
“It’s not shit. It’s true,” Kerry defended herself. She’d actually been exchanging e-mails with Baba Seti from the Fihankra Center. He’d assured her that Jamison was indeed alive and if she wanted to see him again, all she had to do was come to the center. He, and only he, could connect her to him. “How else can you explain this? How else? Who else could have known that we were coming to meet with Leaf today?”