by Harper Shaw
She needed to find him.
Chapter Forty
“It has to be Dennis,” Rebecca said, going over a small page of notes she’d just made for herself as she went over things. The possibility of Dennis being in cahoots with Bruce had been mulling over in her head since she left the hospital, but she knew she had to go to the motel first and get back to her evidence to make sure things matched up logically with her intuition.
Walking over to the desk where she had everything spread out, Rebecca knew she could at least focus now. She looked at her paper again. This couldn’t possibly be any other person besides Dennis. Jennifer and Chad were dead, so they couldn’t be working with him, and Monica’s parents probably hated the whole group enough to not want to work with any of them.
“How did they do it?” Rebecca wondered, taking a seat. “Maybe they decided Bruce would work on Jennifer since she trusted him more and Dennis would work on getting close to me…” She pulled out a sheet of paper and began writing on it. She drew Bruce and Dennis’s names in the middle of the paper and then drew lines from each of them to herself and Jennifer.
She later added Chad to the mix and put lines through those who were dead.
“What’s the final goal, though?” Clearly no one was going to tell but her, so what did they gain from this? She needed to find this out and more.
Then Rebecca began to rifle through her bags, opening and closing them a little madly as she searched for a recorder. She checked the duffel first, and then she moved on to go through the catch-all in which she had tossed random things when she had packed. In the end, she found it in the very bottom: a small black recorder. Little but powerful, she thought.
She would be able to get Dennis’s confession on this thing. After waving it in the air for a moment, Rebecca stuck her trophy into the pocket of her pants. Now to get Dennis.
Rebecca picked up the phone and dialed Dennis’s number. It seemed to take him longer to answer than other times. The call was on the brink of being missed when she heard Dennis finally pick up. There was breathing but no words.
“Dennis?” Rebecca asked, making sure this wasn’t Bruce stalking over the phone.
“Rebecca? What, are you calling to give me a two-minute warning that the police are on their way?”
“No, it’s not about that. We do need to finish our talk, though. You sort of stormed off.”
“Not really. I was done talking. What more do you need to hear?”
“Can we meet again?”
Dennis was silent.
“Please? We need to talk.”
“What about?”
“Listen, we can’t do this over the phone.” The recorder wouldn’t be able to catch it. “Meet me over at the beach house now.”
“The beach house where…”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” Dennis hung up before she could say anything more.
As she prepared herself to leave, Rebecca couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. She wished she had her Ruger or something. After all, once she got Dennis’s confession, she didn’t know how she was going to get out of there alive. They’d already killed Chad and Jennifer, so killing her outside of the plan wouldn’t be a big deal.
And that was only if they weren’t planning to kill her at this meeting right now. She had half a mind to call Faruq and tell him to be waiting, but she knew that wouldn’t work. So, she’d have to go in blindly.
She exited the motel room and started on her way to the beach house. Nowadays, every time Rebecca drove, she felt a rush of adrenaline paired with anxiety. The Shroud—Dennis, rather—hadn’t targeted her car yet, but for all she knew he was hidden in some vehicle she wouldn’t even think to notice, watching her every move.
When she got to the beach house, she saw Dennis’s car was already there. At least he didn’t follow me here, she thought as she got out of her car and entered the beach house. She made her steps as quiet as possible as she went up the stairs to the balcony.
Dennis was there. His hands had a death grip on the rail, and his head was downcast. His whole body was slumped over, not trembling but clearly not enjoying the time.
Moving the recorder to her jacket pocket, Rebecca hit record and cleared her throat.
He jumped and swung around to see her.
“What’re you doing?” she asked.
“What am I… You told me to come here. What do you mean, ‘What are you doing?’ Why don’t you tell me why we had to come here?”
“I needed to speak to you in person.”
“Why? You want to flip me over the balcony, too?” Rebecca’s face must’ve looked hurt, because Dennis apologized right after. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” He ran a hand down his face. “And about earlier, I shouldn’t have said those things. I am still upset that you told Faruq without getting our vote, though. That was wrong.”
“What else have you done that’s so wrong?”
“Maybe agreeing on a different story wasn’t the best idea, but we had good reasons at the time, and no one wanted a murder case. You didn’t either.”
“No, I guess not,” Rebecca admitted. “And what’s happening now isn’t right either.”
“Not sure what you’re getting at,” Dennis answered, his face now looking puzzled.
“I’ve been thinking back to the night Monica died, the conversations we had then. We had been in shock. Hadn’t we?”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” Dennis said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not important.” Ripping away from the balcony, he stalked over to the other side of the room and sat down on the couch.
“What we did was wrong, and we shouldn’t have done it in the first place. We all trusted each other, though. Didn’t we?”
“You keep focusing on back then. But nothing was even going wrong until you came back into town, Rebecca. Everyone was fine and successful and no one was spilling our secrets to the police. You had no right to tell him without my vote and Bruce’s vote. We all swore not to tell that night, and you can’t just decide to break some oath because life got a little hard.”
“It wasn’t just that life got a little hard.”
“You think I never wanted to tell someone? You think I would have agreed to do it in the first place if I hadn’t thought through the alternatives? And do you think I would have told you if I hadn’t already sworn that I wouldn’t?”
“You just don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. And don’t think that because I came down here to talk that means I’m changing my story. I’m not going down for this. You should figure out how to keep yourself afloat because Monica fell over that balcony drunk, and that’s the only true story.”
“The only true story?” she echoed. “You’re really that selfish, huh, Dennis?”
“No, you’re the selfish one. I put what we agreed to first, and I’ve kept my part. So did Chad and Jennifer before they died and so has Bruce—wherever he is right now. When are you going to get it through your head that this is all you? Only you. So, concerning that night? There’s nothing I have to say that the police don’t already know, that hasn’t already been worked out. Stop complicating things.”
“I know it must be hard for you to keep everything about this in, Dennis. It was hard for me, too.”
“Yet I’ve done it anyway. More than you can say.”
“You can’t keep ignoring this, Dennis. You need to face everything, just say what you’re thinking. When I just told Faruq everything, the feeling was freeing. You can tell me,” she encouraged. “You need to let things out.”
“Let things out? Rebecca, do whatever you want, but I’m not about to screw everyone over the way you did. You realize they’ll probably open the case back up. Right? They’ll indict what’s left of us for not just murdering Monica but Jennifer and Chad, too?”
“You’re not hearing me.” Rebecca walked over to Dennis. The moment she stopped a spear whizzed straight throug
h the air, barely missing Rebecca’s face before it stabbed into the wall.
Dennis cursed and shot up. His and Rebecca’s eyes met.
The Shroud.
Rebecca didn’t have time to question it as Dennis took her hand and started down the stairs. They broke out of the house and turned toward the beach.
They ran.
Chapter Forty-One
“C’mon,” Dennis urged, tugging at Rebecca harder as they broke out into a full run on the beach. They started side by side, but soon, Dennis purposely slowed down some until he was a step behind Rebecca. Their feet dug into the sand so deep they kept sinking.
Rebecca pumped her arms as hard as she could and looked straight into the darkness, knowing she would run into the ocean before she let the Shroud catch her and kill her like it did the others. She didn’t have time to glance over at Dennis, but she assumed he was thinking something along those same lines.
Out of nowhere, Rebecca’s foot landed on its side instead of the heel under the toe, and she face-planted into the sand. She had so much adrenaline coursing through her veins that she wasn’t even aware what had happened. She pushed against the ground and picked herself up to her knees. The sand obscured her vision, though.
Quickly Dennis grabbed her from under her arm and scooped her back up into the air, almost dragging her until she was able to gain her footing back. Then they continued. Rebecca was able to make out an outline of the docks to the right.
“Dennis, right!” she yelled, steering herself that direction. He followed right behind her. A whir sounded through the air, and Rebecca saw a spear land in the sand next to her. She passed it during her sprint. That meant the Shroud was close.
She told herself to go faster, but she wasn’t even so sure that was possible. She and Dennis got behind the docks and crouched under the wood. The stench of gasoline and damp wood filled her nostrils as she gasped for air.
She tried to do it as quietly as possible, but that proved quite hard with how fast her heart was beating and how much her burning lungs begged for air. She dug her fingers into the sand under her but eventually brought them up to her mouth in some attempt to keep even quieter.
Dennis did the same, clenching his chest with one hand and his mouth with the other as he peeked out and tried to put eyes on the Shroud. After ten seconds, he turned back to her and mutely shook his head. While still on their toes, they pressed their backs into the rock behind them, knowing now was the best time to catch their breaths and figure out some sort of game plan.
It was a minute before she could speak, but Rebecca’s cadence was still hindered by her racing heart. Her voice sounded as if it were shuttering between the whisper and the gasping.
“I thought it was you,” she said to Dennis. At first, she was been still half-scared he would turn on her in the middle of this, but by how he picked her up, she knew Dennis wasn’t a part of any of this after all. “I thought you and Bruce were in cahoots. It made sense.”
“That’s why you brought us out here?”
“To record a confession,” she admitted. “I didn’t think anything was going to happen—not to you, anyway.”
Sighing, Dennis shrugged and leaned forward to search for the Shroud again.
“I don’t see it anywhere,” Dennis told her, his hands resting on one of the wood buttresses. “You look, too.”
“Do you think it’s Bruce?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but does it really matter right now?” His voice was shaky, urgent. “I mean, we need to figure something out, get away. Any ideas?”
“The creative juices aren’t really flowing right now.” She rose to crouch next to him and look as well. “Where’d it go? Whoever-it-was was right behind us, and now we can’t find it at all.”
“Maybe he gave up. I mean, that’s happened before, right?”
“Or maybe he’s figuring a plan of his own out.”
“Fuck, Rebecca.” Dennis moved to hit the wood but thought better of it and just crumpled his fist silently against it. “I don’t think there’s anything this way. The only path back is the opposite direction.”
“Where the Shroud is probably waiting for us.”
“Yep.”
“Well, obviously he’s not that fast. And this isn’t the first time I’ve outrun him. If we make a clear break, maybe we could make it.”
“I don’t know if that’s a risk I want to take, especially when he’s got a spear gun in tow.”
Rebecca went through her own thoughts in search of an alternative, but she didn’t find any that seemed as if they would work any better. They may as well be clear targets in the night at this point. Still, they needed a game plan. And they needed one now.
As she saw the Shroud’s dark figure approaching the docks, Rebecca inwardly cursed. It didn’t seem like whoever it was could see them yet, but it wouldn’t be long before they did. She turned to Dennis and noticed he was standing.
Running it is, then, she thought. She inched over to his side of the dock as well and prepared herself to shoot up and run. The Shroud passed by them and kept walking down the dock, but she knew if they stayed there, it would only be a matter of time before he thought to look down. Rather, under.
She winced as she listened to the footsteps and creaking of the wood. Wait, she thought. Rebecca turned to signal something to Dennis, but all she saw was empty air. She watched him run out and deeper into the dead end.
“Hey, over here!” he yelled, running down the pier. He waved his hands in the air and jumped up and down to get the Shroud’s attention. Of course Dennis chose the heroically stupid thing. It seemed he was trying to lead the Shroud off so that she could escape.
Biting down hard on her bottom lip, Rebecca ducked down deeper and thought through her options as the Shroud and Dennis ran off. They probably could’ve come up with a better plan had he waited. Hell, Dennis probably thought his gesture was romantic or something. Idiot.
Finally, Rebecca shot up and broke off into another sprint in the direction Dennis and the Shroud had run. She had no intention of being the damsel in distress, and, contrary to what Dennis’s thought process seemed to believe, there had to be a situation where they could both make it out of this thing alive.
As she ran, she couldn’t hear anything at first, just the pounding of her own feet into the boardwalk. Then she slowed down to silence her steps in case the Shroud was close and surveyed the area with each step she took. The sea smell was stronger, and she could feel the salt in the moist air irritating her nostrils and throat.
She held back a cough as she continued through, almost spinning while she walked so she could make sure no one was sneaking up behind her. She had her arms up and ready, too, knowing she may end up having to swing tonight.
Then she heard grunts and followed them through the darkness to see Dennis and the Shroud. Dennis pushed the Shroud into a net and ran further down toward the edge. After a few seconds, the Shroud popped back up. He stared at Rebecca for a moment before going back after Dennis, whose back was to them both.
Rebecca continued after them, but she knew she wasn’t going to be able to say anything in time. She kept running and eventually stopped herself some yards short. Seconds later, the Shroud pointed its spear gun toward Dennis. Then she cupped her mouth.
“Dennis, watch out!” she yelled.
Dennis turned around and froze when he saw Rebecca.
“Rebecca, go!” Dennis yelled back. At that same moment, a spear shot right into Dennis’s calf. His eyes widened, and he plunged into the water.
Rebecca bolted toward the scene and immediately came against the Shroud. The Shroud tried to run away, but Rebecca caught it by the arm and pulled it back. They began fighting for the spear gun. Back and forth, she struggled with the Shroud. Eventually, she wrestled the gun away and threw the gun to the side.
The Shroud then tried to scurry away and run the other direction. Thinking of Dennis, Rebecca decided not to pursue and ran toward the dock. Sh
e tried to pull him up and out of the water, but the twine was wrapped around the dock, and the tide was rising.
Muttering to herself, she struggled to free Dennis. She tried to untangle everything and haul him out of the water, but her hands were shaky, and she couldn’t go fast enough. He had been struggling at first, trying to get pulled up. But then the tide fully came in, and Dennis went limp.
Rebecca screamed.
Chapter Forty-Two
At the stillness of the water, Rebecca felt herself shaking, her trembles so strong she wondered if the ground under her was collapsing. Her knees knocked together twice before she fell to them. Then she recoiled from the water, from the edge.
She scratched the wood of the pier and gathered splinters under her fingernails and in her palms as she distanced herself from Dennis. Swallowing, she felt how raw and dry her throat was. She wondered if a sip of water would make all of this go away. She wondered if a sip of water would put her back in her apartment in El Paso, buttoning up her shirt and ringing the beads of her detective badge around her neck before heading off to work in the morning.
In this dream, there would be no mention or nightmares of Monica, and the rest of her high school crew would be fossilized in the past where they belonged, not dead and not down under in the tide and drowned because of her own incompetence. Tears pooled in her eyes. Dennis wasn’t a villain, and Dennis wasn’t supposed to die—two things she’d managed to screw up in the matter of an hour.
Stumbling to her feet, she walked down the boardwalk until she got to the payphone all the way across at the other end. Her watch had gotten cracked somewhere during the chase, and she couldn’t find a clock, but she was sure the trip had taken her at least half an hour if not longer, her feet lugging along and limbs not cooperating in a sort of sluggish haze.