Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers by JeanNicole Rivers Read Free Book Online Page B

get by the Rusher’s house and make it home before it gets too late.” Regina ended the meeting and headed back toward the street, placing her half-empty coffee mug on the railing. She said farewell to Mrs. Landcaster with a quick good-bye and a wave.
    “Nice seeing you. You be careful. This town just isn’t the same anymore.” Mrs. Landcaster warned. “Hasn’t been for a while,” she added hesitantly as Regina galloped across her lawn. Regina turned back to the woman as a swell of wind blew through Black Water, shaking the trees. She heard a deep wailing that she swore came from inside the home that continued the shudder in her body that the gale wind had begun. Regina’s frightened expression fell on Mrs. Landcaster.
    “Just the wind,” the woman said, taking a long, relaxed puff on her cigarette. Regina turned back and scuffled into the street before she turned again for one last look. Mrs. Landcaster was gone.
    A somber cloud passed, blocking out the sun, making the sky abnormally stygian for early afternoon and Regina felt that Black Water was the only place in the world in that moment where the sun was not shining.
    She approached the country farmhouse-style home, where she had been to more sleepovers and pool parties than she could count. Despite the traditional style of the home, it was surprisingly modern; the house was a clean charcoal gray with bright red trimming. All of the lights were on inside of the several square windows that faced the street giving the home an inviting glow. Regina took a deep breath as she stood before the old rickety wooden gate that surrounded the property and whose depressed state did not match the clean lines and vibrant rejuvenation of the home that it enclosed.
    Her hand shook as she depressed the small circular button that initiated a series of dings and dongs that sang through the house. Behind the door footsteps shuffled across the floor; she sucked in as much air as possible and held her breath until the door drew open, letting the light spill out unto the gray porch.
    “Regina.” Mrs. Rusher said Regina’s name as if she had been expecting her all of this time, all of these years, just waiting for her to return.
    “Mrs. Rusher.” Regina responded, not sure whether she was making a statement, asking a question, or answering one. She could not sense, in her own voice, if she was sad, sorry, mad, or scared, but before she could make the final determination Mrs. Rusher’s entire body heaved high up before it came crashing down in an implosion of emotion.
    Mrs. Rusher had not cried once since Lola’s body had been discovered. When the news came she had been preparing an elaborate meal for her husband in order to celebrate nothing but the fact that they still loved each other after so many years when Sheriff Handow showed up with Pastor Reed to deliver the unimaginable news. Mrs. Rusher had intimate experience in the field of death and knew that when the Sheriff and the pastor showed up to the door that it could not be a good thing.
    Not again
, she thought.
    First, she assumed that they were coming to tell her that she had somehow lost her husband too. He had not yet made it home from work. Maybe a car accident or a mysterious shooting, but they assured her that her husband was fine. Next, her thoughts raced to her son Leo, to lose one child was hell, but to lose two would be unbearable. When they told her that Leo, too was fine the woman stood in the doorway with her eyebrows drawn in complete confusion with one oven mitted-hand holding the door and a spatula in the other.
    “Well, what is it? Tell me, for God’s sake before I have a damned heart attack, Joe,” Mrs. Rusher said to the Sheriff whom she had known her entire life.
    “It’s Lola, Gloria,” He told her.
    “What?” she asked. Gloria Rusher had no need to look down; she felt her heart drop out of her chest and she was sure that it was now laying next to her feet, with its blood splattered across her