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“Look Gale, as far as I’m concerned, he was just an outsider who got caught in some bad mess and ended up dead. People get unlucky sometimes, and sometimes the price is very high,” Ella finished.
“What kind of bad mess?”
Ella’s voice grew shrill and loud enough so that out in the yard Katie Pru turned to stare at them. “So you’re a detective now, too? I don’t know what kind of bad mess. But it was bad enough to get him and the others all killed, wasn’t it?” She stopped, her face flushed, her breathing strained.
Gale stood up and tried to guide her grandmother to a chair, but Ella shook her off. “Ella, there’s something you’re not telling me. I want you to tell me right now. What is bothering you so much?”
Ella’s mouth was a tight line; she stared hard at her granddaughter. “This is a very small town, Gale. I can count on one hand how many murders we’ve had since I’ve been alive. You think this was a random act? This was not an accident. And it damn sure wasn’t because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were in the middle of a patch of woods so remote that no one ever goes there, and they got shot. That was planned, Gale. And in a town this small, that means we’re all in danger …”