Wicked Charm(29)

I smile. "You might have."

The courtyard is a pristine blanket of grass. Practically no one in the  school eats inside, despite the heat. Jorie and I stretch out on the  bench so no one gets the idea that they can join us. The earring settles  on my mind, and it's hard to erase … or keep to myself.

"We found an earring in the woods. Right after we spotted the hooded stranger there."

Surprise colors her face. "A dead girl's earring?"

"That's what I thought at first, too, but the police said they don't  have a match. As far as they know, it doesn't belong to one of the  victims, and there aren't any new bodies."

I shudder at the thought of the possibility of a new fatality, another gone girl.

"We found its match," I say. "In Charlotte's jewelry box."

Jorie stops eating. She stares at me like she's waiting for the catch. There isn't one.

"You don't think Charlotte … ?"

"I don't know what to think. Should I suspect her? Do you think it's crazy of me to?"

Jorie looks around the courtyard as though speaking of Charlotte will somehow conjure her up on the spot.

"I think the girl is strange, and I wouldn't rule her out," she replies.

Charlotte is nowhere in the crowd.

"Just be careful," Jorie warns. "I've seen the way she is. Mean.  Stubborn. She doesn't have friends. Don't you think that's strange?"

"Yes," I admit.

"She's smart, as far as I know," Jorie continues. "I sit behind her in  biology and she's always getting As on her papers and tests. She most  definitely shouldn't be confused with dumb. There's a difference between  book smart and street smart, of course, but she's both. There must be a  reason she keeps to herself."

I remain quiet.

"She's not in any extracurricular groups. She doesn't play sports. She's  hardly seen in town. No one knows a thing about her, except maybe that  brother and grandpa of hers."

"Doesn't make a person a killer, to want to be alone," I say.

"No, but finding an earring match in her house sure does seem odd."

I'll give her that.

"Where are her parents?" Jorie asks.

I offer a noncommittal shrug.

"No parents. No friends. No social life. Suspicious."

Beau seems to think his sister is innocent.

Jorie cups her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and shouts, "Find something to do, won't you?"

I realize she's talking to a group of people who have made it their  mission to stop and stare at me, passing quiet words among one another.

The girls scatter.

"They wouldn't quit staring," Jorie says.

Hell, they've been staring since Beau kissed me in the hall a few days ago. Different groups of them take turns watching me.

"Apparently Beau doesn't normally show affection?" I ask.

Jorie laughs. "Affection? Not even. More like claiming."

She adjusts the waist on her white skirt and pulls the hem of her shirt  down to cover her slightly showing stomach. My skirt is long, black, and  covering my sandaled feet. I fan my tight-fitting shirt in an attempt  to stanch the sweat that threatens to drown me.

"He claimed you, girl, and you know it," Jorie says. "And no, he's never  done that before. Why do you think all these damn people are staring  now? They need to know why. Why you? Why the girl who is every bit as  ordinary as them? No offense."

"None taken," I say.

She's right. I'm not model beautiful like Charlotte. I have absolutely  nothing particularly astonishing about me. I could be the girl walking  past us. Or the one laughing with her friends. Or the one reading,  spread out on her back under the sun. I'm no different than Jorie or the  next girl.         

     



 

"They want to know why," Jorie says. "But there is no ‘why,' and that  confuses them more than anything. They're sheep. One whispers, and so  the next one does, too. They begin their rumors as a herd. Then they add  fuel until eventually it burns out and they get bored."

I hope that happens to be soon.

"Except none of them, bless their hearts, ever seems to get bored of Beau."

"Some of them must have moved on," I say.

"Of course they have. I'm just speaking for the majority of his exes  here. I think it must have something to do with the way he ends things  so abruptly. Maybe they feel they never get closure? All of them swear  he's just fine one day and the next he's gone. You'd think they'd  learn."

She looks apologetically at me as she realizes her slip-up. I'm the one  with Beau now, and all I've realized is that he makes a good friend. And  that I love his lips on mine.

"They expect him to be rid of you soon. They've placed their bets on  when and where and how. They'd probably love to see it play out at  school, sorry to say."

He pretends not to care for a very good reason. I can't tell Jorie why I  sympathize with him, so she isn't necessarily wrong in her  observations, but she doesn't understand him on the inside.

"Let's not forget that he's involved in a murder investigation, either," she continues. "There's reason to worry."

"Do you think things are different for me?" I ask. "I mean, I know he's  been with other girls and that he doesn't stay with them for long. But  we were friends first, which he doesn't normally do. And I don't believe  he killed the girls. His alibis are airtight."

"Are you sure you're friends?" Jorie asks. "Because maybe he's using you  for a purpose. No offense, but he's Beau. This is what he does."

"I'm sure."

For the first time, I know Jorie is wrong. Beau is more than he appears to be.





28


Beau

The news of another dead girl isn't what shocks me the most. It's the  fact that they didn't find her body for two days. She was too deep in  the swamp, too far in the thick mangroves. Her body was bloated with  water and infested with decay brought forth by the relentless Georgia  sun. Word around is that her eyes were crawling with worms and her body  was heavy with mosquito bites, looking like chicken pox. Luckily, a  gator didn't get her. They tried, though. They colonized in the water  like a leathery, scaly tarp, waiting for a good rain to wash her into  the deeper waters where they could feed.

This time it was Jackie Wales, another girl from our high school who I'd known. We'd dated. A few times together, quickly over.

They say she was murdered late in the evening two nights ago. A shiver crawls up my spine.

"What's bothering you?" Grandpa asks.

He's on the couch, remote in hand, TV on, but watching me instead. Black circles rim his eyes.

"Nothing," I say as I take a seat at the window chair.

I stare at Willow's house.

"Don't lie to me," he says.

My lies are harder to tell when they're told to him. But I want to lie. I  don't need him thinking I'm in deep with Willow. Already, he and  Charlotte suspect I like her, as opposed to her filling a use for the  time being. But unlike Charlotte, Grandpa doesn't mind my dating the  next-door neighbor.

"Okay," I say, biting the bullet. "The murders aren't stopping. They  obviously have something to do with me. Do you think Willow's safe?"

"I knew you cared too much," Charlotte says, coming into the room.

The earring still bothers me. I still haven't questioned her about it.  Mostly because I don't believe Charlotte is the killer. Or maybe I don't  want to believe it. Either way, I haven't had time with her until now.

"I don't want her to die, Charlotte. Why is that so hard to understand?"

"Because you've never cared enough to let your thoughts wander this far."

"There's never been a murderer until now," I say, exasperated.

She grabs pots from the shelves and cooking utensils from nails in the  wall, then lays them on the counter along with a cutting board and  knife. She goes to the fridge for meat and butter. From a wicker basket  on our counter, she removes fresh vegetables. I join her in the kitchen  to help prepare dinner.

Grandpa pulls himself off the couch and takes a seat on a barstool at  the kitchen island, which is nothing more than a wooden table with  storage underneath that I made myself, wheels on the bottom to roll it  out of the way when we need more room.         

     



 

I slide past Charlotte and begin chopping vegetables.

"I think you'd better keep an eye on her just in case," Grandpa says.

Sometimes, it hurts to look at Grandpa. He and Dad are far too similar.  They have the same eyes, same slant of their cheekbones, equally strong  jaws.

"Do you think the killer will target her next?" I ask.

He scratches the scruff on his face, thinking over my question, long and deep as is his way with things.

"I think these girls all have something in common. You, to be exact. Did you have messy breakups with each of them?"

"No." Matter of fact, I can't find a common thread. "For as many rumors  as people spread about me, I didn't actually break all their hearts.  Sometimes the girls wanted to split from me. Or we both decided it was  time."