Summer Reading: A mother and daughter face sinister secrets in Buried Road

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Katie Tallo is an award-winning Ottawa screenwriter and director. Her debut novel, Dark August, was a bestseller, New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, Apple Book of the Month, and made the Globe 100 list. Since then, she has written two more novels in the Gus Monet trilogy, including Poison Lilies and Buried Road, from which the following is excerpted.

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Three years after the love of her life disappears on a camping trip, Gus Monet and her 12-year-old daughter return to Prince Edward County when new evidence emerges in the cold case. Narrated by young Bly and infused with vivid summer imagery, Buried Road is a heart-pounding thriller about a young girl led ever closer to danger by a mother who will stop at nothing to uncover a long-buried truth.

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I squint through the branches, searching for one of the torn strips of her T-shirt that we used to mark our path. I can’t see the sky. The dark woods close above me. The air is thick with dew. I gulp in heaping mouthfuls trying to steady my stuttering heart. If I’m lost, I might not ever find my way out. We were warned it would be rough trying to get through this twisted old forest. Warned there was some kind of dead zone right in the middle. But we didn’t care. Death has been chasing us for a while now. It doesn’t scare us anymore. We pulled on rubber boots and came anyway.

I felt pretty brave as we hopped the gate. But now fear claws at my throat because I didn’t think I’d have to do this all alone. Without Gus. We were supposed to be in this together to the end. Mother and daughter. Gus is my mom. Her real name is Augusta. Augusta Monet. I haven’t called her Mama since that awful day three years ago. And even though she wasn’t the one who disappeared that August morning, she sort of did. I remember it like it was yesterday.

*****

The sun felt warm on my skin that summer day. The water was cool and skimmed with seaweed. Kids bobbed in the waves and built sand forts on the foamy shore. A family ate hamburgers at a picnic table and some teenagers played volleyball over a sagging net. A dad chased a red beach umbrella that tumbled and flapped in the breeze like a warning flag. Everyone was where they were meant to be that morning.

All except Howard.

He got a text as we were lying our towels in a row on the sand. He said it was a lead for the article he was writing. Someone he had to go meet. He said he’d take the camper van into the county. He’d only be gone a couple of hours tops, he promised.

“Did you want me to get you anything on the way back?” he asked.

“Ice cream.” I smiled.

“Chocolate mint,” he said, nodding. He knew my favourite. Howard knew everything about me. Like a dad does, even though he wasn’t my real dad.

My real dad was an ex-convict. Gus doesn’t think it’s right to hide the truth from kids. Especially from her own kid. She never once pretended there was a Santa or an Easter Bunny. So when I was old enough to understand, Gus took me to see him. I was around five. He wouldn’t even look at me. We were strangers to each other. All he said to me was that he hoped I didn’t have too much of his bad blood in me. I could tell he didn’t want me. Howard wanted me from the day I was born. He told me so.

Howard headed up the beach. Gus didn’t say goodbye. When he got to the edge, he turned and waved. Gus was staring across the bay toward the horizon where Lake Ontario meets the sky. I waved to Howard for both of us. He smiled then walked away. He crossed the parking lot and headed down the road leading away from Outlet Beach. I watched as he rounded the corner to our campsite. Site 88. I watched until he was gone.

That was the last time I saw him.

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A branch snaps behind me and I spin around to find a chipmunk scurrying across the black forest floor. I move faster. It gets stickier and stickier. My boots squish through muck. There’s a break in the trees up ahead that I hope is the road. I lurch forward, splashing through puddles as I start to run for the clearing. Suddenly there’s water everywhere. It pools around the trees and the rotten stink of it makes my eyes water. It’s not a clearing. It’s the dead zone. I’m nowhere near the road or the car or help. I’ve gone the wrong way.

***

“I like your swimsuit,” I told the girl in the yellow bikini with orange polka dots. “It’s very summery.”

It felt nice to have an instant friend to play with on the beach that day. Together, we collected shells and played Marco Polo in the water and did handstands on the sand. The sun crawled across the sky toward the dunes at West Lake on the far side of the bay. Gus wanted to wait on the beach until Howard came back. But the sun started to set, and everyone packed up and headed back to their campsites. Even the girl in the summery bikini left with her family. Gus was being stubborn. She was mad that Howard was gone so much this trip. She was trying to make a point. I didn’t see it but when Gus was in a mood, I knew it was better just to go along with it.

It was weird having the beach all to ourselves. We were like two castaways. Like the world had ended and someone forgot to tell us. And in a way, it had. We just didn’t know it yet.

I was doing cartwheels across the beach when I found a blue-and-green string bracelet in the sand. Someone’s lost treasure that was now mine. I put it on my wrist and haven’t taken it off since.

Right after it happened, all I would dream about was that last camping trip. In some of my dreams, Howard kept his promise. He heads across the sand with a cone in each hand, the chocolate mint ice cream dripping down his knuckles.

I’d also dream about real things — like the sweet taste of the apple cider from Waupoos. Like the snap and crackle of the campfire. Like the sting of marram grass on my ankles as I climbed the dunes. Sometimes I’d dream about running on the beach with my kite or skipping along the boardwalk over the marsh at Cedar Sands Trail. Howard would be naming all the plants we saw along the way. Spike rush. Jack-in-the-pulpit. Sweet flag. Gus would be holding his hand. I would look back at the two of them just in time to see Howard lift her hand to kiss it. At the last second, he would kiss his own hand. It was one of his silly jokes. And even though she kept a lot of herself inside, Gus would burst out laughing. He knew how to get her to crack.

I’d wake up from those dreams with a full heart. And for a few seconds, I’d forget. But then I’d remember he was gone and my heart would empty and hurt all over again. I’ d twirl the woven strings of my bracelet, trying to go back to how I felt when I found it in the sand.

Before everything changed.

****

It’s been almost three years. I was just a kid back then. I’ll be a teenager in a few weeks. Practically a grown-up. It’s up to me now. I can’t believe it was only 11 days ago when Gus read that stupid obituary. That’s what brought us back to the county. And now that we’ve come all this way, I can’t give up and I can’t be lost. Not after all we’ve been through. I have to do this for Gus and Howard. Even if it means heading straight into a dead zone.

I keep moving. Suddenly I hear voices up ahead. I pull the knife from my back pocket and move into the low brush, inching closer. I spot them a few feet in front of me. I freeze. I can see their faces. If they look this way, they’ll see me too. I hold my breath and grip the knife. I steady myself. Ready to fight. Or even kill if I have to. I’ve changed in 11 days.

I am still Bly Monet. Augusta Monet’s daughter. Howard’s daughter.

But I can also feel some of that bad blood pumping through my veins.

I grip the knife and move slowly toward them.

— Excerpted from Buried Road, Harper paperbacks, 2024.

WHAT KATIE TALLO IS READING THIS SUMMER

I am currently reading two books, one fiction and one non-fiction: Linwood Barclay’s thriller, Take Your Breath Away, for when I need to escape reality and dive into a terrific mystery layered with secrets and lies; and Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, for when I need to try to make sense, if that’s even possible, of what’s happening in the world today.