“Ben knows where we are.”
Josh stopped rubbing.
“He’s been following us all night. He has some kind of tracking device that works even after the GPS has been turned off.”
Josh blinked, then nodded his head a few times.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“Figures, I guess. I mean, this is a state-of-the-art car, right? Don’t they all come standard with state-of-the-art security these days?” Josh shrugged, then yawned. “Doesn’t matter. We’re still ahead of him.”
“Them. That’s the other thing. Ben’s with Roller Haughton.”
“The drug dealer?”
“That’s the one.”
I pictured him then—Roller Haughton—his frame skinny and tall, his stubble-shadowed face nothing but sharp angles, his eyes deep set and lifeless. He was the kind of guy who was always there in the background. I wondered how many times I’d passed him without realizing—in the doorway of Circle K, pulling into the gas station, leaving Edie’s Diner.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Josh said. “I can’t exactly picture Ben and Roller as business partners, though.”
“That bag of pills is all the proof I need. They’re partners, all right. And they’re coming after us. What if we’ve stopped more times than them? For longer? What if—”
“No way they’ve caught up. But you can’t keep running forever. You know you have to face this eventually.”
“I don’t want to face it,” I said. “Not Ben or the picture or the drugs.”
“What other choice do you have? Just try to think of the bright side.”
“There’s a bright side?”
“You’re not going to have to face them alone.” Josh smiled. “And since we’re ahead, we can pick the final destination and then get our bearings before they catch up.”
“We can’t stop until we hit a beach,” I said. “I need to see the ocean.”
“Deal,” Josh said. “But the first thing we’re going to do is eat. Then I’ll take the wheel so you can sleep until we find the right spot.”
“And then we just wait for them?”
Josh tipped his head toward me, his hair falling across his eyes. “If we do it this way, we’re in control. We’ll have the upper hand.”
I sighed. “I don’t like this.”
“Then don’t think about it. Not yet. For now, think about food.” Josh opened the passenger door.
“I need a minute.” My hands shook at the thought of pulling up those pictures. I had to see them to know what I was using against Ben, and I had to do it without Josh nearby. But I was afraid to face the worst parts of Ben’s birthday—the parts I couldn’t remember.
Josh sighed, running a hand through his messy hair, and turned to look at me. “I’ll go in and order. What do you want?”
“Hamburger. Fries. Coke.” I suddenly realized how hungry I was. “And maybe some cookies. They have chocolate chip, don’t they? Like, fresh baked.”
Josh rolled his eyes, but his lips curled up with the hint of a smile. “I’ll check.” He stepped out of the car and leaned down, meeting my eyes again. “Things are pretty messed up, Hadley, but for now, all you have to think about is food and sleep. They’re coming, but I promise we’ll be ready.”
“You think?”
Josh smiled then. For real. It was a beautiful thing.
“I promise. I won’t let you down.”
He closed the door, leaving me alone in Ben’s car, telling myself that Josh was right. He had to be right. That I was ready to pull up my email and face the night I couldn’t remember. But then something caught my eye—Josh’s phone, resting between the floor mat and a track of the passenger seat. I wondered if Sam had called or texted while Josh was asleep. I needed as much information as I could get before a face-off with Ben.
Looking out the rear window, I saw Josh through the big windows of the restaurant, three people standing in front of him in line. Then I grabbed his phone.
There were no text messages, so I looked at the incoming call log. That’s when I saw the last name I’d ever expect to find in Josh Lane’s phone, and I knew the identity of the mystery caller who had woken me up all the way back in Tennessee. But no matter how I twisted it, the information didn’t make sense.
And then there was a click-swoosh, a change in the air pressure cocooning me in the car.
“My wallet must have slipped out of my pock—What are you doing?”
I turned the phone around. “Why did Tyler Rawlins call you at five o’clock in the morning?”
Josh took the phone from my hand. “It’s complicated.”
“I gathered that much. Care to share?”
“I want to. But I can’t.”
“I told you everything, Josh. Everything.”
“This thing with Tyler, it’s not mine to tell.”
“I was actually starting to trust you again….” I shoved my way out of the car, slamming the door behind me before I walked across the parking lot.
I wanted to run. Away from Josh. Away from everything that had been following me since I’d left Oak Grove.
But I steadied myself and stood strong.
That was the only thing left for me to do.
27
THE RAWLINS’S BACKYARD – 2:39 AM
WE STOOD under the shelter of the sweet gum tree where Mrs. Rawlins had once taken a picture of the four of us hanging upside down, our knees hooked around the scratchy bark of the lowest limbs. We had been laughing, all of us, as if the joyful world we lived in would never cease to exist.
I read the text I’d sent to Josh nearly an hour ago.
“Nothing yet?” Brooklyn asked.
“Nada.”
“Of course,” Mia said. “I finally want him around to distract us from going inside that house, and he’s not available.”
“I haven’t stopped by since the day of the funeral,” Brooklyn said. “Being around all of her stuff was torture. I knew she was gone, but I still expected her to turn the corner and walk into the room.”
I ignored them, typing the only thing I could think of to get Josh’s attention.
Me: You are in danger. I have to see you. Please.
I hit SEND.
The ceramic frog was right where I always remembered it sitting—tucked next to the base of a weeping cherry tree, the umbrella of branches blooming with pink flowers.
“B and E is not the most productive pastime,” Mia said as I grabbed the frog and pulled the house key from inside his belly.
“We’re not breaking in,” I said, swinging the back door open and stepping into the kitchen, where I was assaulted by the familiar scent of lemon Pledge mixed with vanilla. “Tyler told us to come.”
“It smells exactly the same.” Mia stepped up behind me. “How is that possible?”
Memories flooded me as I made my way down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor: Penny making me a midnight batch of chocolate chip pancakes, dancing the entire time; bouncing on her brother’s bed, singing into a hairbrush microphone just to piss him off; smiling mischievously as she formulated a new plan for devious adventure. The way she walked with such confidence, the way she laughed with such ease, the way she lived every moment of her life with no fear or regret.
Stopping just outside the door to Penny’s room, I took a deep breath. I needed the truth, but that didn’t make me excited to search the bedroom of the girl I’d spent the last year mourning.
Brooklyn and Mia walked up behind me, so quiet I didn’t hear them so much as feel their presence. I reached out and grabbed the doorknob, twisting. The room was pitch-black, the curtains drawn tight in a way that Penny would have hated. I walked around the bed, one hand trailing the smooth lip of the footboard, and pulled the curtains open, letting a stream of moonlight wash through the room.
“It’s exactly the same,” Brooklyn said.
Mia let out a groan. “Her clothes are still out.” She pointed to a padded chair
in the corner where a T-shirt, hoodie, and jeans lay heaped across one arm. “She wore that the morning she died. We went for breakfast at Edie’s and … that’s what she was wearing.”
“I’m not going to be able to handle being here for very long,” Brooklyn said. “What are we looking for?”
“I don’t know.” I took a deep breath, hoping Penny would show me the way. “It would be easier if she’d kept some kind of journal.”
“One thing we all know for sure about Penny—she never journaled a day in her life.” Mia sighed.
“What about her phone?” Brooklyn asked. “We could try to find it. Check her texts or—”
“I’m sure her parents went through her phone,” I said. “Or the police. If they’d found anything off, we’d know by now. They would have asked questions.”
“So what’s the point?” Mia asked. “We don’t know what we’re looking for, and we don’t have a clue how to find it. What are we doing here?”
“I’m still figuring that out, so hush,” I said, turning in a slow circle. “Let me think.”
I took in Penny’s lavender bedspread, the starburst pattern she’d painted on the headboard, the silver tree she’d made out of twisted wire where her jewelry was still hanging, her bookshelf stuffed with sketch pads and paperbacks, the gaggle of bobblehead turtles she’d collected and arranged on the shelf just above her drafting table. It was her favorite thing, that drafting table, the only gift she’d asked for when she turned thirteen. My eyes settled on the table’s slanted surface, taking in a large sketch pad open to a charcoal picture of a girl wearing a white dress.
She was planted in the earth, the ground encasing her body from just below the line of her breasts. Her waist and legs were visible through a cross-section view of the world below ground, a tangle of roots, bare feet kicking for freedom. Her arms sheltered a face that was turned up to the sky, eyes closed, hair tossing in a wild wind.
“She may not have journaled, but her art always told a story.”
Brooklyn’s gaze found the picture, and her eyes went wide.
Mia stepped forward, one hand extended, fingers stopping just short of touching the page.
I moved before either of them could try to stop me, my fingers gripping the silver handle just below the drawing board, pulling the drawer out until the moonlight spilled across the contents.
“Isn’t this stuff off-limits?” Mia said. “She never let us see her art. Not until it was finished.”
“She would kill us,” Brooklyn said. “But I’m not sure that matters now.”
I had already dug in, my hands shuffling through the loose pieces of paper. I stopped, captivated by a girl standing in the middle of a downpour, a sheer dress clinging to her body. Her arms were spread wide, as if she was trying to reach out from the page. Her haunted eyes stared right at me, silver in the moonlight.
“There’s no mouth,” Mia said. “She drew raindrops and eyelashes and fingernails, but she forgot the mouth?”
“She didn’t forget.” I shuffled to the next image. “There’s another. And another. They’re all dated a few weeks before she died.”
I took in each image. A girl sitting at the base of a fence, legs pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes pleading. Another standing on a high-up tree branch, one arm slung around a thick trunk, the other tucked behind her body, her face turned away from the sky. And the worst, a girl standing at the top of the tower. Our tower. She’d drawn it perfectly, the bricks gleaming, giving the illusion of starlight. The pictures were intricate, detailed, complete. Except each and every girl was missing her mouth.
“She drew the tower,” Mia said. And then, “She drew the tower?”
“Forget the tower,” Brooklyn said. “It’s eerie, sure, but what about those missing mouths?”
It seemed obvious what those missing mouths represented, but when I flipped to the next image, I lost my train of thought.
“Oh my God,” Brooklyn said.
Mia didn’t make a sound. She just backed to the chair and fell onto the soft cushion.
“She knew,” I said, my heart pounding, my entire body tingling. We’d found proof: a girl, naked and curled on a patchwork of teal-colored tiles, a swirl of water encircling her body. “That’s one of Ben’s pictures. There’s no doubt she saw it. No doubt that she knew.”
My fingers grazed something on the back of the picture.
An envelope taped in place.
I yanked it free.
Penny’s handwriting, deep grooves pressed into the paper.
For After.
I didn’t stop to think what it meant. Setting the picture on the drawing board, I slipped a finger beneath the seal of the envelope, ripping it open. The words were blurry. I swiped at my eyes and found tears covering my lashes and cheeks. Walking to the window, I held the paper in a stream of silver moonlight, noticing that the note had been crinkled and flattened before being folded. And then I read:
Let the turtle be a reminder:
The things you think are safe are not.
If you talk, the pictures go public.
And then they’ll go after Tyler.
You’ll go down. He’ll go down, too.
But you will not take me with you.
“That’s Ben’s handwriting,” I said, finding it hard to breathe, leaning against the windowsill.
“What does it mean?” Mia asked.
“He threatened her. Ben taking that turtle, it was a threat.”
“It was a promise,” Brooklyn said. “She knew. And she was going to talk. But he couldn’t let her.”
“So he raided her room. Took something she loved. That empty space was a constant reminder of how close he was and that he was always watching.”
“He was always here,” Mia said. “He’s been Tyler’s best friend since, what, second grade?”
“He knew her well enough to play on her fears,” I said. “He used the only thing he could to keep her quiet. Tyler.”
I remembered the bathroom, my promise to Tyler. Josh.
I yanked Brooklyn’s phone out of my pocket, waking it and pulling up my one-sided text thread. If any part of the old Josh existed, I had just figured out the only way I could lure him to me:
Me: You’re not the only one in danger.
I am, too. I need you. We need each other.
I hit SEND and stared at the screen, willing him to respond.
The girls huddled around the letter, the envelope at their feet, Penny’s For After staring up through the window at the night sky. I wondered what it meant, those two words. After what? But then Brooklyn’s phone buzzed in my hand.
My finger shook as I swiped it across the screen.
Josh: Where are you?
I started to type and got through the first three letters before I realized I couldn’t very well have Josh meet us at the Rawlins’s house. Tyler might have told us to warn Josh, but that didn’t mean he wanted Josh in his home.
Brooklyn’s parents were out of town. It was a risk—Ben was still on the hunt, but if he was going to search there, he probably already had.
Me: I’ll be at Brooklyn’s in 10.
A minute passed. Then another. Just when I was starting to lose hope, the phone buzzed again.
Josh: I’ll see you there.
28
JUST SOUTH OF THE FLORIDA STATE LINE – 2:33 PM TRIP ODOMETER – 793 MILES
“HADLEY!”
The voice came to me through a foggy haze, as if I was underwater.
“Hadley!”
The pitch was familiar. I couldn’t place why, but I knew I liked the sound—the way the deep tone rolled across the two syllables of my name.
“You have to wake up.”
I felt a hand on my leg. Shaking. Shaking. I opened my eyes. Groaned at the light. Squeezing my eyes closed again, I tried to place myself, noticing only red starbursts popping on the insides of my eyelids. It took a minute—figuring out that the steady hum surrounding me was from
tires gripping the ground, that the rocking movement lulling me back to sleep was a car racing forward. And then I remembered.
Florida.
Josh Lane.
Ben Baden. Drugs. The stolen car.
The pictures. My burning shame.
“What time is it?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“It’s time for you to wake up and read this text,” Josh said. “It’s from Sam. We have an ID on the pills.”
The words snapped me upright. I shielded my eyes with one hand as I studied the phone. I’d looked at Ben’s pictures back at McDonald’s, locked in a stall in the bathroom so Josh wouldn’t see them or my reaction. I hoped, more than anything, that the pills would explain not only how Ben had been able to photograph all of us, but why no one seemed to remember. Maybe we did all remember, on one level or another, but were too ashamed to do anything about it.
“OxyContin and Vicodin.” I squinted Josh. “You nailed those on the first try.”
“The accident gave me a crash course in the wonders of pharmaceuticals.”
“What’s Kadian?”
“A brand of morphine.”
“Morphine? Why would Ben need morphine?”
“With a supply like that, he’s gotta be trying to sell it, right?”
“It’s not like Ben needs the cash.”
Josh shrugged. “Some people just like the rush that comes with breaking rules.”
My eyes tripped to the last two drugs listed in the text. “Percocet and Xanax? What do those do?”
“Those are downers. They’ll make you feel slow, like you’re floating through life. Like nothing really matters because it’s all just kind of happening around you. You’re watching but not really participating.”
Josh’s words barely registered. I felt a strange mixture of relief and horror as I read the four short sentences that followed Sam’s list.
Sam: Whoever you snagged these pills from is a twisted fuck. In the wrong hands they could do major damage. The term “rape culture” comes to mind. Be careful.
I read the text over and over and over again. My hands began to shake.
“Hadley. Are you okay?”
A Million Times Goodnight Page 15