The owner knew who she was, just like everybody else in town. He delivered a cutting remark about this only being a hick small-town garage, then launched into a rambling story extolling the way saintly Ted Beaudine had single-handedly saved the county food pantry from closing. When he wound down, he demanded twenty dollars in advance to replace the original tire with the balding spare.
"I've got nineteen."
"Hand it over."
She emptied her wallet and stomped inside the service station while he changed the tire. The coins that had collected in the bottom of her purse were all she had left. As she stared at the snack dispensers filled with goodies she could no longer afford, Ted Beaudine's old powder blue Ford pickup pulled to a pump. She'd seen him drive the truck through town, and she remembered Lucy mentioning that he'd modified it with some of his inventions, but it still looked like an old beater to her.
A woman with long brunette hair sat in the passenger seat. As Ted got out, she lifted her arm and pushed her hair away from her face with a gesture as graceful as a ballerina's. Meg recalled seeing her at the rehearsal dinner, but there had been so many people, and they hadn't been introduced.
Ted slipped back inside the car as the tank filled. The woman curled her hand around his neck. He tilted his face toward her, and they kissed. Meg watched with disgust. So much for Lucy's guilt over breaking Ted's heart.
The truck didn't seem to take much gas-maybe the hydrogen fuel cell Lucy had mentioned. Ordinarily Meg would have been interested in something like that, but now all she cared about was counting the change in the bottom of her purse. One dollar and six cents.
As she drove away from the service station, she finally accepted the fact she least wanted to face. She'd hit bottom. She was famished, filthy, and the only home she had was nearly out of gas. Of all her friends, Georgie York Shepard was the softest touch. Indefatigable Georgie, who'd been supporting herself since she was a child.
Georgie, it's me. I'm aimless and undisciplined, and I need you to take care of me because I can't take care of myself.
An rv chugged past, heading into town. She couldn't face driving back to the gravel pit and spending another night trying to convince herself this was simply a new travel adventure. Sure, she'd slept in dark, scary places before, but only for a few days and always with a friendly guide nearby and a four-star hotel waiting at the end of the trip. This, on the other hand, was homelessness. One step away from pushing a shopping cart down the street.
She wanted her father. She wanted him to hug her close and tell her everything would be all right. She wanted her mother to stroke her hair and promise that no monsters lurked in the closet. She wanted to curl up in her old bedroom in the house where she'd always felt so restless.
But as much as her parents loved her, they'd never respected her. Neither had Dylan, Clay, or her uncle Michel. And once she hit Georgie up for money, her friend would join the list.
She started to cry. Big, drippy tears of self-disgust for hungry, homeless Meg Koranda, who'd been born with every advantage and still couldn't make anything of herself. She pulled off the road onto the crumbling parking lot of a shuttered roadhouse. She needed to call Georgie now, before her father remembered he was still paying her phone bill and he cut that off, too.
She ran her thumb over the buttons and tried to figure out how Lucy was managing. Lucy hadn't gone home, either. What was she doing to get by that Meg hadn't figured out how to do for herself?
A church bell tolled six o'clock, reminding her of the church Ted had given Lucy as a wedding present. A pickup rattled by with a dog in the back, and the phone slipped from Meg's fingers. Lucy's church! Sitting empty.
She remembered passing the country club when they'd driven there because Lucy had pointed it out. She recalled lots of twists and turns, but Wynette had so many back roads. Which ones had Lucy taken?
Two hours later, just as Meg was about to give up, she found what she was looking for.
Chapter Six
T he old wooden church sat on a rise at the end of a gravel lane. Meg's headlights picked out the squat white steeple just above the central doors. In the dark, she couldn't see the overgrown graveyard off to the right, but she remembered it was there. She also remembered Lucy retrieving a hidden key from somewhere near the base of the steps. She shone her headlights on the front of the building and began fumbling around among the stones and shrubbery. The gravel ground into her knees, and she scraped her knuckles, but she couldn't find any evidence of a key. Breaking a window seemed sacrilegious, but she had to get in.