by Hannah Jayne
“It’s beautiful, Gran. Thank you.”
Gran folded the keys into Beth Anne’s palm. “Well, go ahead. Take it for a spin.”
There were exactly three places that Beth Anne knew to drive to, the only three places in town she ever went: the library, the grocery store, and, when she could see from the street that it was blessedly empty, Deja Brew coffeehouse on Falls of Neuse Road. She’d tuck her feet underneath herself in one of their half-hidden wingback chairs and spend hours reading and sipping the bitter brew. It was one of those places where she thought she could blend in. She was wrong.
She remembered walking out to the parking lot just before closing. There must have been people in and out of the coffeehouse, but she had been so engrossed in her book that she had never noticed. Now, when she saw her car, Beth Anne wished she could crack open the book’s hard spine and climb in. Hers was the lone car in the lot. The one that Gran had scrimped and saved for, even though it was “not exactly a Rolls Royce.”
Someone had spray-painted the side.
The letters were huge, glaring red, and crudely written. Now the car bore the same stain that she did: MURDERER.
She had abandoned it then and there.
There was a rush of cold air over Bex’s cheeks as Laney swiped the phone from her. “Hello? Who is this?”
“It’s Trevor, Laney. Put Bex back on.”
“Did you say you did this? You did this to my car?”
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
Bex turned to Laney and clawed for the phone. She wanted to smash it, to step on it, and then do the same with this life—smash it into a thousand obliterated pieces. She had thought Trevor liked her. She thought that he…
“I left flowers on your car for Bex. What are you talking about?”
Bex could see Laney’s jaw drop open just slightly. “So you didn’t plaster my car with Missing posters?”
“What? Who the hell would do that? Let me talk to Bex.”
Laney tried to hand the phone to Bex but she waved it away, numbly walking to the passenger’s side of the car and settling herself in. The sound of the seat belt clicking was reassuring, but for a second Bex thought about unbuckling it, sliding into the driver’s seat, and driving away. She wouldn’t go anywhere. She wouldn’t stop anywhere. She would drive into the surf, a tree—anything that would stop the pain that was coursing through her body, stinging with every beat of her heart.
Everywhere she went, she brought death and destruction. Even when she tried to get away, it found her, making its presence known. That was who she was. That was who she’d always be. Bex couldn’t end Beth Anne, but Beth Anne could end Bex. She pressed her index finger to the seat belt button and heard it click. She started to slide toward the driver’s seat…but Laney beat her there. She was shaking a slim bouquet of cellophane-wrapped flowers in front of Bex’s nose.
“Trevor left these, Bex. These flowers. There were no posters here when he left these. They were under all the paper on the windshield. It wasn’t Trevor.”
Chelsea slid into the backseat and Laney started the car, the purr of the engine sending a warm shimmy through Bex. They drove in static silence for blocks before Chelsea cleared her throat and spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“How did you know the name of the little girl in the poster?”
Bex didn’t answer and Chelsea fell silent for a beat. Then, “I know who it was.” Chelsea snapped her fingers. “Zach.”
“Zach?” Laney asked.
“Yeah. Isn’t it obvious? He was at the movie, so he had the opportunity.”
Bex felt her breathing slightly regulate. “Zach? Why would he do something like this?”
“Because he’s Zach,” Chelsea exploded, eyes rolling. “He wants a story. He was probably behind us filming the whole thing. Like one of those hidden-camera pervy things. He probably just googled ‘kidnapping,’ found pictures on some creepy-assed ‘people who love weird crime shit’ sites, and slapped together a whole bunch of Missing posters. He knew we were going to the movies…”
“And there is only one Cineplex in this shoe-box town. It’s not like he’d have to drive around looking for us,” Laney reasoned.
Bex chewed her bottom lip. “I guess he’d know your car.”
“Asshole,” Laney fumed.
“Jerk,” Chelsea added.
But Bex just sank back in her seat. She wanted Zach to be the culprit and this whole stupid stunt to be a prank. But how did he know about the Wife Collector? How did he know to choose all his victims? And how did he get the picture of Beth Anne Reimer?
Twenty-Seven
“Are you going to be okay?” Laney asked when she pulled into Bex’s driveway.
“Yeah,” Bex said, waving at the air. “You’re probably right. It was probably just some dumb prank.”
“We can stay here if you want us to,” Chelsea said as they got out of the car.
But Bex wanted them to leave. She’d wanted them to leave the second she saw Beth Anne Reimer’s Missing photo. It wasn’t a coincidence. Someone wasn’t just playing around. Beth Anne Reimer had never gone missing. Whoever had stuck the posters on Bex’s car knew who she was and had spent the time creating Beth Anne’s poster. The thought burned a hole low in Bex’s gut and she chewed the inside of her lip, going through a mental contacts list.
Had Zach found out who she was, and the posters were his reality-show way of making her admit it? Did Detective Schuster think she needed an extra nudge to cooperate? Had someone on the Forum figured out who she was and where she lived? Bex shivered, the last possibility driving a knife-sharp icicle into the center of her heart. Was it her father, playing some kind of sick game?
“You guys should go,” Bex said quickly. “I mean before it gets super late.”
She wanted them to get in Laney’s car and drive for as long and as far as they possibly could. She wanted them to drive out of Kill Devil Hills, out of the last weeks of her life. She wanted her friends to be out of danger. Again, the image of Darla on the beach floated back to her, and Bex shuddered.
“Only if you’re sure,” Laney said carefully.
“She’s fine, Lane. It was a bunch of stupid posters. Paper can’t hurt her. Unless it’s a paper cut, and those things can hurt like—”
Laney grabbed Chelsea by the arm. “We’ll go.”
Bex let herself into the house, slowly creaking the door open and looking around like a criminal. She felt as though she were a trespasser in her own home. No, that horrible voice whispered, your home is with your father.
Once she was in her bedroom, Bex glanced at her laptop, pinching her upper lip.
“I tried,” she whispered to herself. “He’s not looking for me.”
Or maybe Detective Schuster had been wrong all along about her father, and he didn’t really kill all those women. Maybe her father fled because he was innocent. Maybe Zach had discovered who she was and just wanted a great story. Bex was nodding her head as hope swelled inside her. Maybe everything had just gotten turned around, and Bex—Beth Anne, rather—could have a real and regular life with a father and a mother and a home and without the need to lie. Maybe…
“Phone,” she said while rummaging through her purse. “Phone, phone, phone…” The readout on the face said 12:41. Too late to call Detective Schuster.
“Laptop.”
Bex opened it, running her fingertips over the track pad to wake up the screen. When she did, she saw the message.
GAMECREATOR: Is it really you, Bethy?
That hope that had swelled from a flicker to a flame in a few short seconds was snuffed out just as quickly.
No one else called her Bethy. Not when she was Beth Anne Reimer, not ever.
There was no joy. There was only terror, tinged with anger and hate.
Once again her father had turned her life upsi
de down. He was on the site just like Detective Schuster had said he would be—because serial killers crave praise.
But-but-but… that little voice started. He was looking for me! He made the connection!
“No.” Bex licked her lips. “So he knows a pet name. He’s not real. He’s another imposter.”
She clicked the message icon and a single meager line toppled out.
What do you put on your pancakes?
Bex didn’t think. She typed.
Powdered sugar. By the bucketful.
She hit Send before she second-guessed herself. She waited for a response.
She waited all night.
• • •
Bex was poking at the soggy remains of her cereal when Denise came in the front door. Michael fixed a mug of coffee for each of them while Denise popped out her earbuds and sat down across from Bex.
“I’m telling you, Bex. A morning run feels amazing. You should come with me sometime.” She glanced at her husband and smiled. “Unless you’re like Michael here, who prefers to get his exercise by osmosis.”
Michael feigned offense. “I’ll have you know that whenever I go to the grocery store, I park very far from the front door!”
“That’s actually a great way to get extra steps in. Do you do that at work too?”
Michael globbed a knifeful of butter onto his bagel. “I’m not trying to be a hero.”
“What about you, Bex? Join me sometime? We could make it a girl thing.”
“Yeah.” Bex nodded. “That might be fun.”
“Oh, hey. How come you aren’t wearing your new necklace?”
Bex’s hands went to her throat but she didn’t answer.
“The silver heart,” Denise clarified. “That Trevor gave you.”
Bex felt her cheeks warm. “Trevor said he didn’t leave it.”
Michael crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Do you have another admirer? Am I going to have to buy a shotgun?”
“I actually don’t know who would have sent it. It’s weird.”
Denise snaked Michael’s bagel and took a bite, licking the butter from her fingers. “It was probably one of the girls then. You should wear it to school today.”
“I don’t know. It just seems—”
“If it’s not Trevor, it’s got to be Laney or Chelsea. Wear it. Show it off. It looks great on you.”
Bex shrugged but climbed the stairs and slipped the necklace on anyway. It did look nice on her, the silver a pretty contrast against her skin. Bex smiled at her reflection and slid her backpack over her shoulders, bounding down the stairs when Michael called for her.
• • •
Bex expected the same circus of reporters, news vans, and cop cars when Michael dropped her off in front of the school, but they were gone. Nearly two weeks and it was as if Darla’s murder had never happened.
“That was quick,” Bex muttered.
“For the best, don’t you think?”
Bex nodded, hoping her intense relief wasn’t so obvious. “Yeah, definitely.”
“Now you guys can try to get back to normal.”
“Whatever that is,” Bex said, kicking open the car door.
She walked across campus, slowing at the quad. One of the trees had been taken over and was now a makeshift memorial. Purple ribbons were tied around the trunk, with “RIP Darla” written in puffy silver paint on the tails. Bex’s eyes burned as the ribbons caught the wind, blowing across a smiling picture of Darla in her cheerleading uniform. There were letters and notes surrounding the picture, prayers and missives to her. Stuffed animals, flowers, and candles in tall glass vials were gathered at the base of the tree.
“Pretty intense, isn’t it?”
Bex glanced at Zach, his GoPro camera slung around his neck.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s terrible.”
“A tragedy,” he said, his eyes holding hers.
Bex blinked several times, trying to ignore the cold sweat that had started at her hairline. “A tragedy. A real tragedy.” That word was used in the newspaper every time another one of her father’s victims was found. No matter the circumstances or the woman, the event was always classified as “a tragedy.” Bex realized now how empty that word was, being used to describe everything from a poor fashion choice to the end of someone’s life. Darla’s murder was more than a tragedy; it shouldn’t have happened.
“Yeah,” she said, stammering. She glanced down at the camera, remembering the intense burning of the red light that night on the beach. “So, did you get some good footage?”
Zach followed her eyes to his camera. “Of this? I mean, I got a few pictures but—”
“No, at the beach that night.”
Zach’s eyebrows went up. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t there.”
She pointed to his GoPro. “Yeah you were. I saw you. Or I saw that. The red light. You were filming from across the street when the cops came.”
“Look, I don’t know what you thought you saw or anything, but”—he grasped his camera protectively—“it wasn’t me. I’m not the only guy with a camera.” Zach walked away, and Bex stared after him.
“That dude is weird.”
Now it was Laney at Bex’s other shoulder.
“Zach?”
“Yeah.” Laney’s lip curled up in something like disgust. “I don’t know what it is, but something about him gives me the creeps. And he’s always staring through that stupid camera. Can’t be normal to live your life staring at other people, right?”
“I guess not.”
“By the way”—Laney thumbed over her shoulder toward the tree—“Darla would have hated this.”
“Too much?”
Laney chuckled. “Not enough.”
“Hey.” Chelsea approached them, staring down at her phone.
“You’re going to walk into a Mack truck staring at that thing, you know.”
Chelsea shrugged and slid her phone in her pocket. “I am perfectly aware of my surroundings at all times, thank you very much. Hey, Bex.” She took a step closer, squinted her eyes, then picked up the silver chain. “Ooh, something sweet from mi amour?”
“Ton amour,” Laney corrected.
Chelsea stopped when she got to the bauble. She held it up, and they all watched the silver heart slowly spin on the chain.
“Where did you get this?” Suddenly, there was a cold edge in Chelsea’s voice.
Bex slid the necklace from Chelsea’s fingertips and laid it flat against her chest. “It’s not a big deal.”
“I’m serious, Bex. Where did you get that necklace?”
“I don’t know. I figured one of you left it for me.”
“What do you mean ‘left it for’ you?”
“Someone left it on my doorstep. I thought it was Trevor at first, but he said it wasn’t him so I thought maybe one of you…”
Laney put her hand on Chelsea’s arm and the two shared a look.
Bex’s saliva soured in her mouth. Her breakfast sat like a cold rock at the pit of her gut. Images of television mean girls flashed in her mind, and she thought back to that first moment she’d met Chelsea and Laney, when she thought they would be horrible and mean to her. Maybe they weren’t her friends. Maybe they had been playing a part. Maybe they knew who she was all along.
She swallowed even though her throat was bone dry. “It’s not from you guys? It was wrapped up in a box, and there was no note or anything.” She could feel the tears starting and tried to steel herself, to will herself not to cry.
“That necklace was Darla’s. She wore it every day. She never took it off.”
Bex was reeling. Chelsea, Laney, the tree, the school—everything blurred out of focus and became fish-eyed. Bex took off running, clawing at the bauble around her neck. With every step the thin chain
seemed to tighten, the once-delicate links like barbed wire digging into her skin. She lost her breath and felt the pressure on her chest, against her windpipe. She coughed, gagged.
She pushed the bathroom door open and made it to a stall just in time to vomit. She was crying, her shoulders shaking, her lips bitter and trembling. When she turned around, she saw her reflection in the mirror: eyes wet and blackened by dripping mascara. Cheeks hollow and pale. A hair color she didn’t recognize. And around her neck the heart sat, now edged in blood from the scratches from her own clawing fingernails.
She thought of her father, the way he must have looked down at his prey, at their milky, sightless eyes, their lips, the pinkness of life giving way to deathly blue. He must have looked at them and thought of her. She imagined his fingertips brushing aside Darla’s blond hair, his rough fingers working the delicate clasp on the necklace.
Bex gripped the pendant and broke the chain.
Twenty-Eight
Bex avoided her laptop all night. She unplugged it and tucked it under her bed as if those extra precautions could somehow cut her off from any response GAMECREATOR could have left or any more references to her “celebrity” father.
The next morning, she was poking at the peanut butter sandwich on her plate when Denise walked into the kitchen, her face half-obscured by the cardboard box she was carrying. She dropped it on the table with a slight thud and a puff of dust.
“Okay, Bexy, red or black?”
Bex blinked, half her sandwich in her hand. “What?”
“Red”—Denise peered over the box, shaking a red pom-pom that looked like it had seen better days—“or black?” She shook a similarly shabby black pom-pom in the other hand.
“What is all this stuff?” Bex stood, peering into the recesses of the box. “Is this a boa?”
“Ah!” Denise curled the feathery thing around Bex’s shoulders. “This was from the senior talent show!”
“Senior? Like college senior?”
“High school.” She shook the poms. “Rah, rah, rah! Kill Devil Hills!”