by Lily Sparks
“So what, you never suspected Rose’s boyfriend?” Erik pushes.
“Yes, but not Mike. The other one.”
“Ha!” Erik laughs, eyebrows leaping, teeth flashing. “I knew you didn’t kill anyone.”
The air goes sour around us. My stomach fills with an acid tang.
I’ve just handed Erik my most damning secret.
Chapter Seven
Dog Mask
“Is that what you wanted?” I choke the words out. “To get me to admit that?”
I can’t believe I thought for even a moment that Erik understood me. He understands me the way a kid with a magnifying glass understands an anthill. I push past him, unable to bear his triumphant smile.
“Signal! Come on!” Erik calls after me. “I didn’t need you to tell me. I knew the moment I saw you, I told you as much! That’s why I want to help!”
No, he doesn’t. He thinks Rose is just some weak spot in my head he can punch through. The trees blur into green and gold around me as I gain speed, the sound of water straight ahead.
“Signal, stop—” Erik’s footsteps are heavy behind me before I’m pulled back from the edge of ravine, above a stream that slips and merges into a creek a few feet away. His hot hand clings to my shoulder, his voice just by my ear: “The perimeter of camp is the other side of that creek. You almost crossed the fence.”
There’s a feverish chill at the nape of my neck where his fingers brushed me.
“So what, was that part of your master plan?” I say when I find my voice again. “Get me out here, then push me over the creek once you were done chipping away at me, Michelangelo?”
“Very clever wordplay, Signal, very library of you,” Erik sneers. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy cooking up clever verbal jabs you could process the fact I have no reason to kill you. You’re the first interesting thing that’s happened at camp since I got here. All I want is to help solve your case.”
“After you get done telling everybody else how innocent I am?” I turn to face him.
“I won’t tell anyone you’re innocent.” His hand is on his heart like we’re kids, but he looks completely serious. “I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Part of me wants to give him the silent treatment for as long as we both shall live, but another part is deeply tempted. He can’t exactly use the facts of my case to hurt me, the worst outcome has already happened.
“I don’t know how you could help,” I admit. “We’re shut up in a camp hundreds of miles from where it happened. It’s not like we can investigate for clues.”
“Clues are the slow route,” Erik says with utter conviction. “The fastest way to find a killer is to find the motive. Look at the crime. Look at the suspects. Make the connection.”
I kneel down and dip the faded bucket in the creek, considering. “If you followed my case, then you know I don’t remember what happened the night Rose died.”
“I know,” Erik says. “But you’re still the best witness. Because you knew Rose, you know the suspects, and I promise you, deep down, you already know who the killer is.”
I stare up at him as the statement hangs between us.
He wants this so badly. Why? He could just be bored. A guy as smart as Erik cut off from the world could just want a puzzle. Even one missing a lot of pieces.
I stand, hoisting up the full bucket, which he snatches away from me.
“Oh, so I’m too weak to carry a bucket now?”
“No, I’m too lazy to go back and fill it up again when you drop it.”
“Ha ha ha,” I say, but make no effort to take it back—it was ridiculously heavy. Instead, I walk by his side back up the trail.
“Why don’t I tell you what I remember about the case, and you fill in what I’ve forgotten,” Erik begins. “Rose was a popular junior with a senior boyfriend, Mike. There was a party in the woods the night she died. Her body was found the next morning, in a nearby shed. Correct?”
“Sort of. Ledmonton was a small town next to a big wilderness. The seniors would park by Lockwood Park, and walk through till they got to a wild part of the woods. Or you could cut into the wild part from the trailer park. But the wild part was big. The shed was almost a mile from where the party happened.”
“Do you remember why you wanted to go to the shed?”
“I didn’t,” I tell him. “Rose did.”
I always hated that old shed. The roof was rotted and went down at an angle; if it were an animal, you’d think someone had broken its back. Park kids used to make up stories about it. Claim they’d seen some bogeyman looking out its broken window. But no one ever went inside. Until that night.
“Rose called me and said she needed to get a picture there for her art project,” I tell him. “I said it was late, but she said I would finally get to meet Mr. Moody, he was going to come and help too.” I swallow. “She was alone when I got there, and her eyes were puffy, like she’d been crying. But she had all this makeup on, so I believed her when she said he was on his way.”
“So she was depressed?”
“No. More like … she was jumpy. Talked a little fast, acted too cheerful. It was dark when I met her, and the shed was black inside. But she walked right in. So I followed.”
“And then?”
“And then I don’t know. My memory just jumps, like some kind of video glitch,” I sigh. “The next thing I remember is waking up.”
“What was this art project?”
“Her ‘My Life’ photo collage. It was this huge poster of cut-up photos of all her friends. Like, paper photos, the kind you have to get developed. I was flattered she wanted to include me. I mean, she wouldn’t even talk to me at school.” It’s embarrassing to admit, but it’s the truth. And if he’s going to help me, I have to give him the facts, however ugly.
“Alright.” Erik frowns. “So this Mr. Moody. What was his deal?”
“I don’t know.” I swallow. “That’s the whole problem. She never told me his name.”
“Why tell you about him at all?”
There it is, the familiar itch of guilt. “Because I covered for them.”
After pointedly ignoring me for almost three years, Rose had come up to me one day and said, “I like your hair.” It had been blue for months, but I was touched. A couple of days later she happened to be near where I caught my bus at the end of the day. We talked, and things felt almost normal, and then she offered me a ride home. When she dropped me off by the park, she asked if my number had changed, and I’d almost teared up when she texted me about sleeping over that weekend.
It was surreal being in Rose’s room again. She still had the four-poster, but the shadow boxes of concert tickets and spent glow sticks were new. As was the slide bolt on the inside of her door, the kind of thing you install with six screws. I had plenty of time to look around, since Rose was busy frantically trying on different outfits.
“So here’s the thing,” Rose said, head emerging from a tight red sweater. “This guy is coming by and I’m going to like, go out and say hi for a little bit? I shouldn’t be more than an hour. If my parents check in, could you just tell them I went to get like, my textbook from the car or something?”
“… Oh, okay … Is it Mike?”
“Mike? No. You know the rules at Tom’s church. You can’t see someone you’re dating alone. Only in a group.”
“But Mike’s okay with you seeing this guy?”
“Mike doesn’t know. And it’s going to stay that way,” Rose said significantly. “That’s why I asked you here. Because I can trust you to keep a secret.”
She was right. Who did I have to tell?
She tiptoed out of her room at nine PM and left me watching Netflix with a knot in my stomach until midnight, when she came back starry-eyed and smelling like smoke.
“So what now?” I’d asked as Rose sat in front of her vanity and traced her poreless face with a makeover wipe. “Are you going to break up with Mike?”
“I can’t break
up with Mike. He’d kill himself.”
“What?!” Then in a lower voice as she frantically shushed me: “Did he actually say that to you?! He can’t threaten you like that!”
“It’s not a threat. He just … needs me right now. But he’s graduating in a year and then he’ll be off at college. So why go through all the drama of a breakup and miss senior prom? It’s not like my parents would let me see another guy anyway.” She widened her eyes meaningfully. “You know how they are.”
I nodded, getting it.
“So please, please come sleep over once in a while, please? Or else …” She held up my hand by the littlest finger. “I’m pretty sure I get to cut off your pinky.”
* * *
“I slept over twice, three times a week after that,” I tell Erik.
He absorbs it for a moment, then: “But there was no evidence anyone else had been in the shed the night she was killed. I remember the prosecution really hammering that home.”
“Yes. However—” and this is the point I’ve been trying to make for the last year, “I’ve never lost time like that in my life. And I know this guy had serious drugs, because he started giving them to Rose. I think he gave me something that knocked me out. And something else happened. Something terrible.” I take a deep breath to steady myself. “And afterwards, he staged the shed to frame me.”
Erik bites his thumbnail thoughtfully. “This theory never came up during the trial.”
“Because the police didn’t find drugs in my bloodstream.” I push my hair behind my ear. “But what if he used something they couldn’t trace? He was so careful. He had all these rules for Rose: no emails, no texts, no phone calls. She could only Snapchat him to plan a meetup, and they would only meet up when I was covering. So I’m the only evidence he exists. That’s why he framed me.”
“Can I see your hand?”
A little surprised, I hold it up. Erik holds his own up to it, our palms almost but not quite touching. His fingers pass mine by a good inch.
“Tiny and weak, surprise surprise,” he murmurs. “She was strangled, if I remember, that was the official cause of death. Yes?”
“… Yes.”
“So if Mr. Moody wanted to frame you, he’d have to hide the markings made by his own, almost certainly larger, hands. Which would explain the mutilation.”
I feel queasy as he goes on excitedly. “And if he decided to frame you after he’d just murdered someone, and then executed that plan so perfectly he actually got away with it, well, we’re talking about a pure psychopath.” His tone reminds me of guys from my high school talking about star football players. “The kind who can completely compartmentalize his kills from his personality. I call this type the ‘Nice Guy’ psychopath, like Ted Bundy. He’s the last guy you’d suspect, a fine upstanding citizen, cool and calculating enough to present a perfect façade.” He tilts his head and looks at me. “Almost the polar opposite of you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you’re obviously pretending to be someone you’re not.” Erik shrugs. “The whole tough girl act you do, when you’re the softest Class A in existence.” He shakes his head as we return to the forgotten playground. “I told you last night I was worried about your odds here, and that was before you fell off the obstacle course and then fainted.”
“Actually,” I bristle, “when you’re wrongfully convicted, it takes a certain inner strength—”
“Inner strength?” Erik laughs. “Okay, cool, but I’m talking about the kind that matters. Like when you’re trying to survive camp. Or carry a bucket from point A to point B—”
“Wow, okay!” I snap. “You want proof I can be a hard ass? Keep threatening me!” I grab the bucket and splash the water into the burn barrel for emphasis. A wild, crackling hiss erupts as steam shoots up between us. Erik’s too close—he catches it all in his face and folds over like he’s been punched.
“Erik?! Are you okay?!”
He can’t answer, he’s coughing so hard, the cords of his muscular neck straining. I hurry to pat his back and offer the bucket, which still has a little water in it.
“I know its stream water, but it’s better than nothing. Erik? Say something?”
He gives me a huge bleary smile, eyes streaming from his coughing fit.
“You can’t help it, can you?” he laughs hoarsely, regaining his full height. “You’re way too sweet to be here.”
“I’m not sweet.”
“You’re sugar, cubed.” He pulls the cuff of his sleeve over his palm and rubs at his eyes, clears his throat, then demands: “Also, when did I threaten you? I didn’t threaten you.”
“What you said last night! And again, just now! That I wouldn’t survive here!”
“I’m not—I wasn’t trying to threaten you, okay? It’s just true. You shouldn’t be here, because you’re innocent.” His eyes are shot through with red veins, making their sea-glass green color even more vivid. “Maybe last night I hoped to startle you into confessing, because it’s, uh … not an easy thing to admit in this group.”
It’s such a candid statement I don’t know what to say, other than “Whatever.” And then, in as tough a voice as I can manage, “Sorry about the steam though.”
“No big deal,” he says, though there’s a little rasp to his voice. And then we both gather the limbs of my mannequin and throw them in the burn barrel, the birds overhead filling the silence.
“So if Mr. Moody killed Rose”—Erik grabs the edge of the barrel—“we just have to figure out who he was.”
I get the other end. “I feel like I’m talking your ear off about all this.”
“I’m riveted,” he promises. “And I want to go back to what you said before, that Mr. Moody had serious drugs. Where would he get heavy stuff in a small town like Ledmonton?”
There’s only one answer to that. “Jaw Itznicki.”
“What was he like?”
“Horny burn-out who smelled like he ate cigarettes?”
Erik’s short, sharp laugh surprises me; I think it surprises him as well. “That’s a vivid portrait,” he says, grinning. “How would you sum up Dave?”
“Hmm.” I tilt my head, “Quantico reject starts little league team?”
Erik almost drops the barrel, and that sets me off.
“Okay, okay,” Erik smiles. “Back on track: tell me every detail you can think of.”
“Let’s see … Jaw was in our grade at school until he got expelled for hot boxing in the high school parking lot. He wore all black and bleached his hair white. He lived in the same trailer park I did—” I gaze directly into Erik’s eyes when I say trailer park. He holds my gaze, unembarrassed: I guess he’s a looker too. “But he did a lot of landscaping around Rose’s neighborhood. And picked up money on the side, dealing drugs to the rich kids that lived around there.”
“Did he strike you as mercurial in nature?” The side of Erik’s mouth twitches. “Moody, even?”
“There’s no way he was Mr. Moody.” I shake my head. “Jaw sold drugs, but why would he want to keep Rose a secret? She would’ve been the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“Maybe Rose was the one who wanted secrecy, if her parents were so strict.”
“Well, yeah, Rose’s stepdad would have freaked, but no one would have gone to jail. You have to understand, the way she guarded him … Like, it was a matter of life or death.”
“Well, apparently it was,” Erik says, then abruptly swings himself up the sheer face of the boulder Javier had carefully negotiated before. His agility is sort of unnerving. He’s so normal, until he isn’t.
“Hand me the barrel?” Erik looks down from the top of the boulder, through a cloud of shimmering green leaves. It takes all my strength to hoist the barrel high enough for him to reach. He pulls it up one-handed, the metal scraping against the rock before he throws it down with an almost musical clang.
“How would Mike have felt, I wonder,” Erik says, “if he found out Rose had
been cheating on him with Jaw?”
I fight not to look impressed as he skids gracefully down the sheer side of the rock and lands at my side.
“Mike certainly fits your ‘Nice Guy’ profile,” I concede. “Finding out about Rose would’ve given him a motive. And he was in the woods that night. Do you remember who backed up his second alibi?”
“I want to say Van Gogh?”
“Vaughn!” Of course. I should’ve known.
I try to describe to Erik a fire drill at the start of our junior year. Everyone circled up in their friend molecules on the lawn, with those three at the center of our high school chemical structure: Mike in his varsity jacket, Rose’s dark hair gilded by sunlight, dark and handsome Vaughn with an unlit cigarette behind his ear.
“My mom is such a psycho bitch. Truly,” Rose sighed as Mike’s arms wound around her and pulled her in against his chest. “Tom grounded me for a week because she snooped through my room and found her Chanel perfume in my drawer.”
“You don’t need perfume,” Mike said, his face half-buried in her hair. “You smell good just the way you are.”
“Vomit,” Vaughn said.
“Awww.We need to find Vaughn a girlfriend.” Rose tilted her head back, peering at Vaughn as Mike nuzzled her ear. “Who should we set him up with? What’s his type? Blondes?”
“Brunettes,” Mike said quickly.
“Brunettes! Really?” Rose burst out laughing. And then Vaughn reached out a long arm and flicked her forehead, hard.
“OW!” Rose yelped, hand flying up.
“Hey, not cool!” Mike was immediately out from behind Rose and throwing his best friend in a headlock. “Say ‘I’m sorry, Rose!’”
A bright red, angry notch was blooming at the center of her forehead, but she laughed and pulled Mike off, and they helped Vaughn up, and the rest of us watched, wishing we could be one of those three.
“So,” Erik says, “you think she was banging Vaughn too?”
“Whoa whoa whoa!” My face burns. “Rose wasn’t—being intimate with anybody!”
“Sweet, innocent Signal,” Erik sighs. “All those late-night Moody meet-ups. What do you think they were doing? Making daisy chains?”