So this is kissing, I think.
When he finally pulls away, he smiles in a way that should make my heart skip.
I stare at him, a little dazed, and I wait. My heart is still racing, but I wait for the skip. I wait for the skip and for the pain in my head to come roaring back.
The pain comes, but the skip? The skip is strangely absent.
I don’t get it. My body wants him—it really, really wants him—but although my heart is racing, it’s a purely physical response. I’m so confused it feels like I might cry.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,” Aidan murmurs. There’s heat in his gaze. The kind of heat that I’m not at all used to seeing directed at me. He reaches out and catches one of my curls, giving it a tiny tug and twisting it briefly around his finger.
The gesture reminds me of Noah. Of Noah brushing the hair back from my face and asking me to be careful.
The memory makes the urge to cry that much stronger, but Aidan, thankfully, doesn’t seem to notice.
Kissing Aidan was everything the first kiss should have been.
And the second.
So why am I thinking of someone else?
“I’ve only been in town for a little while,” I say, trying to cover my confusion. “You couldn’t have wanted to do that for ages.”
A beam of light slashes through the trees past Aidan’s shoulder. I hold a finger to my lips and point toward the glow. Then, catching the hem of Aidan’s shirt between my fingers, I tug him toward the open trailer door.
We clamber inside and kneel on the floor. I can feel grit under my palms, and a damp, musky smell floods my nostrils when I inhale. We watch through the open door as the light sweeps toward us and then swings back in the other direction.
We don’t move for a long while.
Finally, when the light is no longer visible, Aidan climbs to his feet and pulls out his phone.
“Think it’s safe?” he asks.
I have no idea, but being in an unknown enclosed space in the dark is starting to freak me out. “Yeah.”
Aidan thumbs on the light, and I wince as my eyes struggle to adjust.
The trailer is tiny—not much bigger than a good walk-in closet. A low bed at the end of the single room takes up almost half the space.
I climb to my feet as Aidan turns in a slow circle. He illuminates each wall in turn. All four have been covered in photographs. Dozens, probably hundreds, of photographs.
“Holy shit,” he says.
Me? I can’t find my voice at all.
Rachel Larsen stares at me. Over and over. There are yearbook photos and snapshots and pictures that have been blown up so large that they’re the size of small posters. There are pictures of other girls, too. Girls around my age. Lots and lots of them—although three or four faces are repeated over and over.
There are also pictures of other women. Half-naked figures ripped from magazines, their eyes scratched out with a ballpoint pen. Paintings that I recognize from art class and school trips to the Met. Etchings of angels and demons. A reproduction of Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment.
And then there are the monsters. The Wolfman. Bela Lugosi as Dracula. Frankenstein with bolts in his neck and stitches across his temples. The classic monsters Skylar wears on the pins on her uniform, but newer monsters, too.
Aidan turns toward the corner where a small desk sits piled high with papers. “Cat . . .”
I rip myself away from the spectacle on the walls. There, on the desk, on top of hundreds of sheets of loose paper, is a bundle of pages that have been hole-punched and woven together with red ribbon. A ribbon that’s the same shade of red as the one Skylar was wearing in her hair the first time I hung out with Aidan and his friends.
The first page has just a title, all in caps: NIGHT OF THE SHADOW STALKER.
“That’s the name of the script Joey’s been working on.” Aidan hands me his phone and lifts the booklet. He opens it to a random page and reads, “‘They found the girl at the river’s edge. A game of tic-tac-toe was carved on her arm.’”
“Rachel.” Hands shaking, I set the phone down and take the script from Aidan. “Have you read this?”
Aidan laughs. Not his real laugh. The kind of laugh you give when what you’re thinking is so horrible that it makes you light-headed. “No. He never lets anyone see it. Not me or Chase. Not even Skylar. Maybe he wrote this afterward? Maybe the whole Rachel thing gave him the idea and he changed the script?”
I flip to the beginning, looking for any mention of Riley. Halfway down page five, I spot it: a line about a boy in a varsity jacket. The rest of the page is missing. Ripped out. The three pages that follow are also gone. “We have to get Jensen. Jensen has to see this.”
“You can’t be serious.” Aidan takes the script from my hands and sets it back down on the desk. He wipes his palms against his jeans. “Joey is one of my best friends. Whatever this looks like . . . it’s not.”
“Well, that’s a relief because I was just about to say it looks like one of your best friends is a serial killer.”
“You don’t know that.” But there’s a distinct lack of fight to the words; it’s like Aidan is trying to convince himself more than me.
Something underneath the desk catches my eye, and I crouch down. My stomach does slow flips at the sight of thick strands of rope. Yards and yards of rope, all twisted and knotted.
A black leather square is caught in the middle of the tangle.
I tug it free, thinking too late about fingerprints and evidence, and open it. Riley’s face stares up at me from his driver’s license. Across from the license is one of those slots people slide credit cards into. It should be a flat rectangle, but there’s a raised circle in the middle. A circle about the size of the Saint Anthony medal, as though Riley kept it there for a long, long time. Enough time for the leather to mold itself around the shape.
Aidan. I try to say his name, but my voice doesn’t want to work. Around me, the trailer goes dark at the edges, and I have to use my other hand to steady myself against the filthy floor.
“Cat . . . You have to see this.”
I shake my head. Whatever he’s found can’t be as important as what I have in my hand, but I still can’t seem to find my voice.
Aidan tugs me to my feet. I sway, almost falling. I’m still holding the wallet. I can’t let it go.
“Cat, look.” He turns me to face a section of wall that I had missed and shines the light over another collage of photographs.
With a jolt, I see my own face. I’m at the end of the driveway at Montgomery House, hauling the trash barrels out to the curb. “That was last week.”
My eyes drift down to another photograph.
A night shot taken near the river’s edge. Two shapes are barely discernible in the picture, but I know one of them is me and one of them is Rachel. I don’t know how I know; I just do.
The picture was taken from somewhere in the trees. After Chase and Skylar left to get help but before the police and paramedics arrived.
But as terrifying as that photo is, it’s the ones underneath that make it impossible to breathe.
Four photos.
Each taken through my bedroom window.
Each taken when I thought I was alone and safe.
Twenty-Six
THERE’S THIS THING THAT HAPPENS IN BOOKS—I THINK there’s a word for it, but I can’t remember what it is—when the weather mirrors a character’s internal state. It was a dark and stormy night type stuff.
There have been maybe three days in my life when I’ve truly felt like I’ve earned a dark and stormy sky to reflect my mood, and the day after finding out that a teenage serial killer wannabe has some sort of sick and twisted fixation on me is definitely on that list.
The universe, however, does not seem to agree: when I push myself out of bed and peek past the edge of the curtains, the day outside is all sunshine and blue sky.
I let the fabric fall back into place. Even with the
window covered, though, I feel exposed. My eyes fall on the plastic bear—Skylar’s plastic bear—on the nightstand. For a minute, I think throwing up might be a solid way to start the day.
Ten hours ago, I kissed the boy down the hall and found myself standing in a rusted trailer that looked like an illustration from the official Serial Killer Training Guide.
Seven hours ago, the police burst into Joey’s house. Joey was nowhere to be found.
Five hours ago, I passed Skylar in the hallway of the Montgomery Falls Police Department. She wouldn’t even look at me.
I dress in the windowless bathroom, rushing through the act with my back to the door.
Only after I’ve stepped out into the hall do I realize my T-shirt is on inside out and my socks don’t match. It’s not like it matters. Aunt Jet has put me on house arrest for the remainder of my time in Montgomery Falls—which won’t be long. Dad is wrapping up his meetings and getting things in order as quickly as he can. He’ll be here in three days, tops, to take me away. He wanted Jet to drive me down to Saint John and put me on the first plane out, but I’m not allowed to leave town for a few days.
I’m a witness in a major criminal investigation.
Yeah: throwing up definitely feels like an option.
Aidan’s bedroom door is closed. I knock, softly in case he’s sleeping, but there’s no answer.
The police questioned us both last night—separately, in different interview rooms, like we were two suspects who might conspire to make our stories sync up. Because Aidan is over eighteen, it turns out they didn’t have to call his parents.
He was quiet on the ride back to the house, barely speaking.
I wasn’t exactly talkative, either.
As I head down to the main floor, I glance out one of the windows that overlooks the street.
A patrol car sits at the far end of the driveway. Jensen told Aunt Jet that it will be there twenty-four hours a day, watching the house, making sure Joey doesn’t get anywhere near me.
Morbidly, I wonder if this is the best plan. Wouldn’t an unmarked car be better? Wouldn’t they want Joey to try to get close to me so they can grab him?
Maybe I’ve just watched too many movies.
Jet’s voice drifts down the hallway as I make my way to the kitchen. “Surely I’ve got vacation days left. Or sick days. Or someone could trade shifts.” She’s sitting at the table, a cup of coffee and the remains of a piece of toast next to her elbow. Her shoulders are hunched inside a voluminous black sweater. She listens for a moment, then stands and hangs up the phone.
“Is everything okay?”
“No.” She wraps her sweater more tightly around herself. “I have to go into work.”
I have zero appetite, but I grab an orange from the fruit bowl on the counter. I pass it from palm to palm, using it to keep my hands occupied in a futile attempt to calm my nerves. “I’ll be fine,” I say, voice filled with way more confidence than I feel. “I saw the patrol car out front. The cops will keep an eye on the house, and it’s not like I’ll be alone. Noah is coming back today. Besides, Sam and Marie are here. Aidan’s here.”
Aunt Jet carries her dishes to the sink. She throws out the remainder of the toast and then rinses out her coffee mug. “Aidan’s staying with Chase for a few days.”
Stung, I mentally race through everything that happened last night. Maybe he thinks I’m too dangerous to be around after seeing those photos in the trailer. Or maybe the kiss was so bad that he doesn’t want to deal with the awkwardness of being in the same house. It was only my third kiss, and I’m not sure the first two really count. It stands to reason that I might have been bad. That I might even have been awful. Oh, God. What if it was the worst kiss he’s ever had?
On some level, I suspect the fact that I’m worried about my kissing skills—or lack thereof—at this precise moment in time is deeply messed up.
Aunt Jet sets the now-clean mug in the drying rack and turns to face me. “I thought it would be best if he wasn’t here for a little while—at least until I figure out what to do.”
“What to do about what?”
“About whether or not to let him keep renting a room. Joey Paquet is one of Aidan’s friends. You never would have met him if it hadn’t been for Aidan.”
“Was,” I say, voice sharp. “Joey Paquet was one of Aidan’s friends. It’s not like Aidan knew.”
“He took you to that party. You were alone with him in the woods. Do you think I wasn’t your age once? Do you think I don’t know what kids do?”
I open my mouth to tell her that I wasn’t having sex with Aidan out in the woods, that I haven’t had sex with anyone, but catch myself. Even if something had happened, I wouldn’t have anything to apologize for or explain. “Aidan pays rent. You can’t just kick him out. You’re not being fair.”
“Being a parent isn’t always about being fair, Mary Catherine.”
“You’re not my parent.” I know it’s a low blow the second the words leave my mouth, but it’s too late to take them back.
“You’re right, but I’m trying.” Looking even more tired than when I first arrived, Jet walks past me and heads upstairs.
I feel like I’m upset at everyone. Me for being too hard on Jet. Jet for being too hard on Aidan. Aidan for not saying goodbye when he left, and Noah for being in Saint John—though I know that one’s not fair given the circumstances.
As soon as I hear Jet turn on the shower to get ready for work, I swipe her cell phone to check her contacts. I’m leaving anyway: At this point, what’s the worst that can happen if she catches me? Her passcode is embarrassingly easy to crack: 1149—the street address of Montgomery House. She has all of the tenants’ cell phone numbers saved. When I call Aidan, though, I go straight to voice mail. I google Chase and get his parents’ number just as I hear the shower turn off.
I try calling Chase after Jet leaves. Apparently, they don’t have call-waiting in Canada because each time I phone, the line is busy. Maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t get through. Maybe it’s some sort of cosmic sign that the conversation I need to have with Aidan—about the kiss, about the trailer, about the fact that he’s basically homeless because of me—is better face-to-face.
As far as I know, the order to stay inside for the remainder of my time in town comes from Jet and not the police, but just to be on the safe side, I use the back door and cut through the hedge to the Frasers’ yard. If Jet were a parent, she’d know better than to leave and trust me to stay inside. Then again, what normal person in my position would want to go out?
The sight of Noah’s empty house gives me a small pang, but I remind myself that he’ll be home today. Unlike the stuff going on with Aidan, I didn’t have to wonder whether or not it was better to wait and tell him about the trailer in person. Besides, I know he has to be there for his mom. If I had called him, he’d have been torn between staying with her and rushing back. I couldn’t be the one to put him in that position.
I think about the wallet and those missing screenplay pages and shiver. No: it’s definitely better to wait and tell Noah in person.
Given that every cop in town is out looking for Joey, I don’t think he’s stupid enough to come near me in broad daylight, but my stomach twists up into the mother of all knots as I step out onto the street.
Riverside Avenue is never exactly bustling, but it’s downright dead this morning. No cars. No people sipping coffee on massive porches or kids riding their bikes. I tell myself it’s my imagination, but the quiet makes me angsty and jittery as I walk down the block.
Because it’s so quiet, I have no trouble hearing a car roll up behind me. I tense and turn, but it’s just the police cruiser from the driveway.
Buddy—he of the red hair and hospital duty—pulls even with me and then leans out the driver-side window. “Are you trying to get me suspended?”
I guess maybe Aunt Jet and the police are on the same page regarding restriction of my movement after all.
Ac
ross the street, a woman lets her dog out and then keeps the door open, watching us with interest.
“Am I under house arrest?”
“Nope.”
“So just not allowed out on my own?”
“Right.”
I glance across the street. The dog finishes its business, but the woman continues to stare. Doesn’t anyone just watch TV anymore? I think. Sighing, I walk around the car and climb into the passenger side.
Three pine tree–shaped air fresheners hang from the rearview mirror, filling the car with the sickeningly overpowering scent of a fake forest.
Buddy looks at me, confused. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I have to go somewhere. You’re going to follow me anyway, right?”
He nods.
I reach out and flick one of the air fresheners with my thumb and index finger. It crashes against the others. Trying to channel the easy confidence that Aidan seems to wear so well, I say, “Well then, you might as well drive me. It’ll save time.”
Twenty-Seven
SAYING CHASE’S MOM DOES NOT LOOK HAPPY TO SEE ME IS an understatement. The last time I was over, she smiled at me warmly and offered me a freshly baked cookie. This time when she opens the door, her chin seems to shift several inches to the right with an audible pop as her gaze travels from my face to the police cruiser parked in her driveway.
“This is not a good time,” she says, moving to close the door before I can get a single word out.
“Who is it?” Chase’s voice comes from somewhere in the depths of the house.
“No one,” says his mother at the exact same moment I say, “It’s Cat.”
Chase appears behind her in the hallway. “Let her in, Mom.”
“Chase, honey,” she says, a pleading, desperate note in her voice, “think about the neighbors. Think about what they’ll say.”
“I want to talk to Cat.” His tone is respectful but firm.
“Honey . . .”
“Mom, I’m going to talk to my friend. If you won’t let her in, we’ll just go somewhere else.”
She hesitates, trying to gauge how serious he is, then sighs and retreats.
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