No You Didn't

Prologue

The whole town shut down on the day they buried the Montgomery children.

None of the Montgomerys had been old enough to die, so nobody thought to purchase a plot or make a will ahead of time, which made the dreary scene particularly desolate. Unnatural, even.

Everybody of Ida Creek stood at the gravesite. Half of them were in mourning while the other half lingered like curious buzzards, waiting to see if something sinister would happen as the coffins made their way through.

There were eight pallbearers in total, though they only needed four to carry each box. I suppose that's why they say that the smallest caskets are the heaviest, after all.

There was no headstone to list the names of the deceased, only flowers that probably wouldn't last through the stormy day and four unfeeling holes in the ground.

The preacher could have been reading a sermon. Could have been talking about the weather. He might not have been saying anything at all because nobody was listening anyway. What comfort was there to be had when a mother knelt beside her children's graves?

Everyone had scoffed in disbelief when they'd heard the charges against the father of the four Montgomery children. Clay Montgomery would never harm anyone, would he?

But when the police found poison in the shed that aligned with the autopsies, well...

nobody needed much convincing after that. No matter what anyone had previously thought about Clay, gossip was always more eagerly consumed than the truth.

Thunder crackled in the distance, startling everyone at the graveyard. It reverberated through the atmosphere–the death knell of the gods.

That was when I saw her.

If you were there for the funeral, you wouldn't have glanced twice with everything else going on, but to me, she stuck out like a poppy in a dark sea.

I've been to my fair share of graveside services. Been the cause of a few.

The usual profiles are these:

-The ones who knew the deceased and are utterly bereft at their departure.

-The ones who knew the deceased and are utterly elated at the prospect of a will written in their favor.

-The ones who feel obligated to attend, though they barely knew the departed.

-The ones who simply enjoy a good funeral.

Viv Montgomery was none of these. Bereft, certainly. Shattered, obviously.

But I am never wrong about people.

The first thing I noticed was her fist.

While everyone else's hands were covering trembling lips or pressed together in prayer, Viv's was clenched at her side, her knuckles white.

That brought me to the second thing: she was angry. Unlike the folks around her, her eyes weren't filled with tears or hauntedly staring into the graves' black depths. Her eyes were sharp. Alert. Looking for something or, perhaps, someone to blame. She shed no tears because she hadn't yet accepted defeat.

I smiled at her, but she didn't see.

Viv Montgomery had just lost all four of her nieces and nephews and her brother was in jail as the suspect. Yet, even through the pain, she was determined to see justice exacted.

I knew she'd do whatever it took to make sure that happened.

And I knew I would do what it took to be there when she did.