Sharp Objects(94)

The girls putt-putted in Adora’s golf cart to the back side of Main Street at four in the morning. The aperture between the hardware store and beauty parlor was just wide enough to allow Amma and Kelsey to carry Natalie by hands and feet, single file, to the other side, where they propped her up, waited for the discovery. Again Jodes cried. The girls later discussed killing her, worried she might crumble. The idea was almost in action when my mother was arrested.

Amma killed Lily all by herself, hit her on the back of the head with a stone, then strangled her with bare hands, plucked the six teeth, and cut her hair. All down an alley, behind that Dumpster where she’d left the body. She’d brought the rock, pliers, and scissors to school in the hot pink backpack I’d bought for her.

Lily Burke’s chocolate-colored hair Amma braided into a rug for my room in her dollhouse.