The Bakersville Dozen

by Kristina McBride

  “This is for you.” He dropped the envelope, then turned and started walking away.

  “Wait!” Hannah and Tripp called at exactly the same time. Hannah shot up from her seat and grabbed Hoodie Guy by the shoulder.

  “Hey!” Hoodie Guy said, jerking himself out of her grasp. “Watch it!”

  She held her hands up in the air and took a small step back. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just . . . we need to know how you got that. Who gave it to you?”

  Hoodie Guy shrugged. “Some guy. Said he’d pay me to sit here and wait for you.”

  “Some guy?” Wes asked, his jaw clenched tight. “Can you give us a clearer description?”

  “He was older, you know, kinda balding on top. And he smelled pretty bad.”

  “Smelled like what?” Hannah asked. “Like he just worked out or like he’d been dumpster diving for meals?”

  “Neither. He smelled like a freaking distillery. Anyway, that big dude behind the counter was kicking him out when I got here a few hours ago. Guy could hardly stand up, so they wouldn’t serve him. That’s when he said he’d pay me to sit here and wait for you.”

  “He knows me?” I asked, my words catching in my throat.

  “Nah, I don’t think so.” Hoodie Guy glanced out the window that looked out onto the parking lot in front of The Flying Pizza. “He had a picture of you, though. A printout from that, uh, video. He said all I had to do was sit and wait for you to get here and order. Once your pizza arrived, I was supposed to give you the envelope, and then my job was done. So I’m going.”

  “No way, man,” Tripp said. “You’re going to tell us every single detail you can remember. You hear me?”

  “Dude,” Hoodie Guy said, leaning in, “I don’t know what this is, but I am not about to get sucked into it.”

  “Wait. Just wait,” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Hoodie Guy sighed and lifted his face to the ceiling for a moment before he looked at me. “I’m not stupid. I know who you are. What you’re mixed up in. Two girls are dead. I don’t want any part of this besides the cash I earned for sitting in a booth and waiting for you.”

  “Fine,” Tripp said. “One last thing—where’d he go after he gave you the envelope?”

  “I don’t know,” Hoodie Guy said. “Look, this guy was pathetic, boozed up and desperate. I just wanted to get away from him, so I promised I’d do what he asked, took the money, and walked inside. I didn’t watch him leave.”

  “You’re Chris, right?” I asked, the name that I’d struggled to find coming to me in a flash.

  Hoodie Guy nodded. “Chris Beekman. We had pre-calc together.”

  “I remember,” I said.

  “I swear,” Chris said. “I told you everything I know.”

  “Are you stupid or something?” Tripp hissed, his face turning a deep shade of red. “With five girls missing, you just took this guy’s money and didn’t think to call the cops?”

  “No, I’m not stupid.” Chris narrowed his eyes at my brother. “I’m a fan of self-preservation. Whatever this is, I have no intention of getting involved. I only took the envelope because the guy was begging me, okay?”

  “Fine,” I said, shrugging, like the whole thing was over. “We get it. No big deal.”

  “Look, I’m sorry.” Chris pulled the hoodie from his head and ran a hand through his dull brown hair. “Maybe I should have paid more attention. But the guy was making a full-on scene and all I could think about was getting away.”

  “Right,” Wes said. “We get it. You can go now. Preserve yourself, why don’t you?”

  Chris grunted, turned, and walked away.

  “You think he knows more than he’s saying?” Hannah asked, watching him slip out the front door and walk to a black SUV parked in the front of the lot.

  “I don’t know,” Wes said. “It sounds like our killer spooked the town drunk into bringing the clue here, and when he couldn’t get a table he pulled Chris into the mix.”

  “That’d be my guess,” Tripp said.

  Wes pointed at the envelope. “Open that and see what it says.”

  I leaned over the table, my body shielding the words on the cream-colored cardstock as I quietly read them the clue.

  TO FIND

  THE NEXT TREASURE,

  YOU WON’T HAVE TO GO FAR.

  HEAD TO SYDNEY VILLAGE,

  AND TWIST

  ’ROUND THE BEND

  ’TIL YOU FIND

  THE ROAD’S

  SHADOWED DEAD END.

  FROM THERE

  TAKE THE TRAIL

  ’TIL YOU HIT A SMALL CAVE.

  DUCK THROUGH THE ARCHWAY

  AND WAIT

  FOR THE SHOW TO BEGIN.

  HAPPY HUNTING!

  “I don’t like the sound of this one,” I said.

  “I don’t like the sound of any of them.” Hannah plucked the clue from my hand and read it over.

  “No time for feelings,” Wes said, pulling his wallet from his back pocket and throwing a twenty on the table. “We’re on.”

  “Let’s hit it,” Tripp said, pushing his chair back as he grabbed a slice of pizza.

  “You’ve got this, B.” Hannah looked at me, sliding my phone off the table and gripping it with both hands. “You are a force to be reckoned with, you hear me? This sucks, but you’ll get to the other side.”

  “Promise?” I asked. Because I felt positively forceless.

  Hannah crossed a finger over her heart. “I swear it.”

  I felt better having Hannah by my side as we walked out of the restaurant and slipped into Tripp’s Jeep. She’d said exactly what I needed to hear.

  My mind raced with one daring thought: Two might be dead, but there were three left to save. And maybe, just maybe, we could bring them home, and stop the killer.

  We pulled up to a red light just a few blocks from the pizzeria. Music from O’Leary’s Pub and Grub drifted in through the open window. My gaze shifted toward the front of the bar, resting on a man leaning against one of the pillars framing the front patio.

  He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and he simmered with anger.

  “Shit,” Hannah said. “There’s Roger Turley.”

  I sat there, refusing to look away, determination coursing through my body.

  Roger locked eyes with mine, then raised a glass full of amber-colored liquid, tipping it toward me before taking a long swig. Above him, the smoke from his cigarette curled toward the night sky like a ladder for the dead.

  CHAPTER 24

  10:57 PM

  “I swear,” Tripp said, “it’s right over here.” He was navigating the narrow trail I’d taken just that morning as people crowded around the police tape blocking off where Leena had been found.

  “You’re sure something’s out here?” Hannah asked, her arms spread wide, keeping branches from lashing her as we followed behind him.

  There was something quite surprising out here this morning, I wanted to say, but I kept it to myself. Owen leaning against the steep rock slope, Sylvie kneeling in front of him, the two oblivious as I watched until understanding swept in and I turned, slipping away.

  “You’re sure this is the right trail?” Wes asked from behind me.

  “Yeah,” Tripp said, his breath coming in huffs as he led us deeper into the woods.

  “It’s been about a million years since we’ve hiked to this cave, bro.”

  “I know.”

  Moonlight trickled through the leaves. My body was numb, shaky with fear of what was ahead.

  “Hey, Han. What’s that thing you always say about expectation?” I asked. “When you’re about to do something really horrible and all you want is to be through with it?”

  “Your expectation is always worse than the real thing, so it’s a waste to get all stressed out?”

  “Yeah, that. It usually makes me feel better.”

  “Well”—Hannah made a little grunting sound—“it only works for stuff like going to the de
ntist or having to give a speech in English class. What we’re about to do is going to be way worse than we expect.”

  “You usually know the right thing to say, but that right there was a pretty sucky attempt.”

  “Anything else would be a lie.” Hannah looked over her shoulder, her eyes flashing. “I would never lie to you.”

  But someone was lying to me. Someone close. Someone I thought I could trust.

  “Here!” Tripp said from just ahead, making me jump. “Right here. Just like I said.”

  Tripp veered off the trail a few feet away from where I’d been that morning. He reached out a hand, running his fingers across the stone face. Dirt and pebbles cascaded to the ground.

  He stopped walking. Hannah bumped into his side as he turned and faced the wall, staring at a bruised-looking space before us. I stared, too, squinting into the darkness, my eyes struggling to focus.

  “It’s smaller than I remember,” Tripp said, holding his phone in the air like a flashlight.

  “That’s the entrance?” I asked, feeling as if I was about to disappear like the rest of the girls.

  Wes stepped up behind me, the heat from his body radiating against my back. I needed to escape his orbit; I couldn’t risk being sucked in by whatever force had pulled me to him nearly all of my life. Wes might be dangerous to more than my relationship with Jude. He had secrets. He might be a danger to me.

  I walked through the archway, attempting to put even more space between us. Just inside, I heard trickling water as a wave of cool, dank air swept across my face. Before we were all the way in, light from Tripp’s phone dimmed and then died out.

  “My phone’s dead,” he whispered. “Someone, give us a little light.”

  The darkness felt solid. I shuffled my feet along the ground, afraid of falling. Suddenly, I felt pressure on the front of my ankles. I froze, throwing my arms out to keep anyone from walking past me. It didn’t work. I wasn’t fast enough. Hannah got tripped up by whatever was lying across the path. She fell with a loud grunt, her voice bouncing off the walls, echoing through a space that suddenly felt even smaller.

  And then the light started flashing—a bright white that set the entire cave ablaze for one moment before winking out again. The strobe effect flared through the cave again and again and again, in time with the echoing snap-click. At first, the light was blinding, and between flashes all I could see were stars. But then my vision adjusted to the pulsing beam.

  As I pulled a shaky Hannah from the ground, I noticed the wire, thin and clear, and totally out of place there in the middle of the woods. The line stretched across the cave’s entrance, like it had been set up just for us.

  We’d tripped it.

  That scared me more than the woods or the dark. Whoever had set this up had planned it as a trap, and we’d fallen right into it.

  The snap-click continued to echo.

  First, I saw Hannah, her eyes wide as she gripped my arms, her fingernails digging into my skin.

  Everything went black.

  When I saw her again, her face was turned toward the center of the cave, hair in her eyes, her mouth hanging open.

  Everything went black.

  I turned to see what she was staring at.

  The light flashed again, and I saw them.

  The girls—two of them—propped in portable beach chairs, facing each other with their legs stretched out, ankles crossed.

  They looked stiff, ashen, their heads hanging down, chins on their chests, hair falling across the once soft skin of their cheeks.

  In the span of a second, the scene was seared to my memory.

  “Jesus,” Tripp said from behind me, his voice a thin whisper. “Two?”

  “That’s Suze,” Hannah said, pointing. “See her bracelets? She made them last year and sold them at lunch. Remember?”

  I saw them in the next flash. The snap-clicks seemed to get louder, coming faster. Both of Suze’s forearms sparkled with the beadwork she’d spent hours on. I saw her fingers, too, curled into fists. Those hands would never design another accessory or piece of clothing again.

  “The other one’s Emily, right?” Wes asked. “She was the first girl to go missing?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice muffled by another jolting snap-click. I could not believe this was them—girls I had laughed with and cried with as we’d attempted to uncover the secrets behind The Bakersville Dozen—and that they were actually dead.

  Emily was wearing her volleyball jersey—the one that had been missing from the athletic bag the police had found sitting wide open on the passenger seat of her car the day she disappeared. The rust-colored stains that streaked the front of the jersey made my stomach churn. There was so much blood. Which meant that whatever she had been through had hurt.

  “What is this?” I asked, my stomach heaving as I fought the stream of images spiraling through my mind—all of the girls, facing and trying to fight off some attacker. An attacker who was now using them as bait.

  “I don’t know,” Wes said. “But we can’t just stand here and stare all night.”

  “He’s right,” Hannah said, her hand slipping from my arm. “We have to move. But stay away from the bodies, okay? And shuffle, so you don’t leave any footprints.”

  Eyes down, Hannah followed the white wire that stretched from the entrance of the cave, circling around Suze’s chair.

  “We’re supposed to have the chance to save them,” I said. “The only reason I’m doing this is because the clue said I could—”

  “Stop,” Hannah said. “This is not the time. Just look for the clue and we’ll deal with the rest later.”

  I scanned the scene, searching for the red envelope.

  “It’s a camera,” Hannah said when she’d reached the back of the cave. “It’s propped on a stepladder and hooked to some sort of device attached to that wire.”

  “It’s taking pictures?” Wes asked. “Of us?”

  “I think so,” Hannah replied. “This is bad, guys.”

  “So we take it,” Wes said. “Like you did with the tape recorder.”

  “We can’t keep this up,” Tripp said from the cave’s entrance, his voice echoing through the space. “We need to call the police and tell them everything.”

  “What if Tiny really is behind this whole thing?” Wes asked, his face hard, illuminated suddenly by another brilliant flash. “He was just at the scene where we found the latest clue.”

  “We already talked about turning him in,” Hannah said. “They’d never believe us over him. Even worse? If it is Tiny, he has evidence. He could plant it. He could set one or all of us up to take the fall. That would leave Bailey on her own.

  “You trust Tiny with your sister’s life?” Wes asked. “Because I sure as hell don’t. We have to finish this. We can’t risk it, Tripp.”

  “I’m unhooking this thing,” Hannah said. “We’ll need light, so get on it.”

  I listened to the pop-snap of wires being unhooked, unsure of the next best move.

  “Where’s the envelope?” Wes asked, light from his phone suddenly illuminating the scene before us. “Do you see it?”

  “Guys,” Tripp said from the mouth of the cave. “I think I hear something.”

  “Then help,” Hannah said, tucking the camera under her arm as she circled back to me. “Help us find the damn clue.”

  “Got it,” Wes said, scrambling across the dirt floor and ripping the envelope from the front pocket of one of Suze’s signature over-the-shoulder purses. The light from his phone bounced wildly off the rock walls surrounding us.

  “Do you hear that?” Tripp’s back was to us, his words so quiet they were nearly lost in the vacuum of the cave.

  “Jesus, Wes,” Hannah said. “Focus that light. I can’t see where I’m going.”

  “I’ve got you,” I said, stepping around Emily and holding my hand out to Hannah as Wes trained the light on the ground near our feet. “Grab my hand and we can—”

  “You guys, we�
��ve got to get the hell out of here.” Tripp swiveled, backlight from Wes’s phone highlighting the fear on his face in an eerie way.

  The next few seconds were a blur of motion and sound and intuition as Hannah and I made our way toward the mouth of the cave. I was leading, my hand gripping Hannah’s like my life depended on my connection to her, but I stumbled as my toe caught in a loop of the wire somewhere near Emily’s chair. Instead of hitting the ground, my hands landed squarely on Wes’s chest, the summery scent that had always surrounded him washing over me. He steadied me, drawing me forward until I stumbled from the black-hole darkness of the cave and into the glow of the moon.

  Tripp was there, waiting. When he saw me, he grabbed hold of my shoulders and looked me right in the eye. “Run. Straight home. Don’t stop for anything.”

  “Tripp, I can’t.” And I meant it. My legs felt like they were about to collapse beneath me.

  “I hear it now.” Wes gripped my hand and started walking through the trees, forcing me to work the numbing panic from my legs. “It’s definitely music. But where’s it coming from?”

  “The pond, I think.” Tripp was behind me, guiding Hannah. “But it’s getting closer.”

  Wes slowed his pace, stopping as we broke from the trees and stepped onto a narrow trail. “We’ve got to create a diversion.”

  “We could head to the pond,” Tripp said, everything about him taut and alert. “Just you and me. If we face this head on, we’ll make sure the girls have a chance to get out of here and, at the same time, maybe nail this bastard.”

  Hannah stepped to my side, the camera she’d taken pressing against my arm. Standing there, with everyone still, I finally heard what had the guys in a panic: the steady beat of drums, Adele’s smoky voice, and the words—Rumor has it!

  “You can’t go to the pond,” I said. “You’d be walking into a trap. There’s too much that could go wrong.”

  “There’s no time to argue,” Wes said. “We can’t just walk away. We have a chance to end this.”

  “He’s right,” Tripp said. “All you guys have to do is run through the trails until you get home.”

  The music was getting louder, pressing in from all sides.