Ruin Me, Daddy novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: Her Own Name

I called her from the pallet with the still hissing behind me.

"Forty thousand people," I said.

"Forty-one now. I'm watching it tick." Marlee was chewing something crunchy. "Jess, nobody's searching for Honey Vale. They're searching for the girl in the red sweater who walked into the shot."

"So what do I give them?"

"Anything. Your voice, your name, on something Lyman doesn't own."

"He owns my voice in anything romantic. Section whatever."

"Then don't make it romantic." She crunched again. "Make it scary."

That night I sat on the cottage porch with a legal pad and the rickhouses black against the stars.

Lettie came down with two coffees and read over my shoulder.

"What's that?"

"A ghost story. Maybe."

"About what?"

I pointed at Rickhouse C with my pen.

"A girl who worked the night shift in there in the fifties. Counting barrels with a lantern. One winter she walked in and never walked out."

Lettie took her glasses off her chain and put them on.

"My granddaddy used to say the night girl turned the barrels when nobody was looking."

I stared at her. "Is that real?"

"It's Kentucky, sugar. Everything's real if you say it slow." She tapped the pad. "Does she have a sister?"

"She does now."

"Good. I want to play her."

I laughed. "You don't act."

"I've been acting like I like the distributor for twenty years." She handed me a coffee. "Write me something mean to say."

I wrote all night.

Marlee came out on Wednesday with her whole rig in the Civic and a box of Lucky Charms for emergencies.

We recorded in Rickhouse C after the crew went home, with the lights off and one work lamp on the floor.

The barrels ticked as the night cooled them.

Marlee put a microphone right on a rack and caught it.

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