"Charlotte. What evidence was left behind? Did the police mention it to you?"
I stand up quickly, abandoning my meal.
"I don't know, something with DNA. They didn't say exactly what."
I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, glancing at the card the officer left behind. I quickly dial. Outside, the sky fills with clouds.
"Officer Brown here."
"It's Beau." I speak quickly, cell to my ear, suspicion surging through me like an avalanche. "I meant to ask what type of evidence you found at the scene of the crime."
I hold my breath as my suspicions are confirmed.
"A wad of gum."
"I think I know who did it." I race out the door and to the boat, the phone to my ear, my heart pounding wildly. I accidentally drop the card on the dirt ground. Charlotte is on my heels, pulling at the ties and pushing us into the water. "It's Jorie, Willow's friend. She's always around. She was always staying the night at Willow's when the killings took place. And she's always chewing gum."
"Shit." The officer's curses begin to break apart, static turning the line fuzzy. "Hang on a minute. I'm placing a call to dispatch."
"I don't have a minute," I say. "I'm in the boat, in the swamp, going after Willow. She's with Jorie now. Follow the water to the bend and take a left. Willow and Jorie are at the hill there. Hurry."
39
Willow
"Can you believe I finished this damn book?"
Jorie is holding up the romance as though she's holding a dead snake. Above us, the sun begins to dim, a wide band of clouds taking over.
"How you got me to read a whole book without my brains falling out from boredom is beyond me," she says.
"You liked it and you know it," I tease. "I have another one if you didn't get your fill."
"Nah. We need to get in soon anyway. You're looking like a roasted tomato. Ever heard of sunscreen?"
I take out my phone and check the time. Has it really been three hours?
"You think your grandma will still give us lunch?"
"Probably, but we're late," I reply. "Though knowing Gran and her hurt feelings when people don't eat her meals on time, she may make us eat it cold as punishment, since we didn't get there when she made it good and hot."
Jorie rolls up her tan towel, dirt and twigs pinned to it like notes on a corkboard.
"Fine by me. I'll eat it cold, as long as she cooked it. Bound to still be good."
There's truth to her words. Many nights I've opened the fridge, found Gran's leftovers, and eaten them cold so as to not wake the house by cooking with clanging pots and pans.
I roll my towel up, too, and place all our belongings in the bag, aside from our clothes, which we throw back on over our suits. Jorie carries it to the boat and loads everything up. Just then, I remember my phone.
"I'll be right back," I say. "Forgot my cell."
"Oh, I got it," Jorie says. "Saw it lying on the ground. Don't want to leave that behind. Never know what could happen with the murderer still at large."
Her voice drops a few notches, and she looks around as though he might just pop out at us from the trees. But there is nothing. Only leaves and swamp and the memory of a day well spent. Even still, Jorie's look says that she doesn't trust the bog as much as she once did, and that's a shame.
"I think we're safe," I say as we head toward the boat. "We can't let him take the swamp from us, Jorie. We can't."
Her look changes. "You're right. So what if he's dangerous? We have a gun."
She steels herself, standing taller, though I can see traces of fear still in her eyes.
"So what if he tried to terrorize our town? We can't let him win."
"That's the spirit," I reply.
She nods. "He left bits of his evil here, right? But we can choose to not see them. We don't have to think about the girls or the fear or the amber earring or the bruises."
It's like she's giving herself a pep talk.
"Right, we really don't have to … "
I trail off.
"What's wrong?" Jorie asks.
My eyes settle on a spot over her shoulder. Fear leaks into my veins.
"What is it?" Jorie looks over her shoulder, but there's nothing there. "Talk to me."
The clouds thicken, and shadows crowd the trees.
I never told her that the earring was amber.
I don't know which direction to move. I need to get to the boat, to wherever Jorie put my phone, to my shotgun, but Jorie's blocking me.
I rack my brain, trying to remember what I'd said. I mentioned the earring to her, but I never told her what type of earring.
Jorie steps closer to the boat. My mind spins around little details. Jorie lives in the swamp. Jorie is always around. Jorie spoke with the police officers-eating breakfast just fine while the rest of us could hardly stomach it-claiming to know nothing. She spent the night with me several times. I found her at the window one evening. A bad dream, she'd claimed, but she looked wide awake. The next morning, a dead girl was found. Dead girls kept being found, and Jorie was always there in the aftermath.
"It was you," I say.
I take a backward step, unsure where to go.
"What?" she says. "Me? I- No. It can't have been me."
Her laugh is shaky and unconvincing.
"Don't you lie to me," I say.
"I'm not lying."
She is, too. And this time I see it-a flash of coldness in her eyes. How could she have hidden it from me for so long?
She hates Beau. She knows the swamp. She knew all the victims, too. Suddenly, the answer is frighteningly clear.
"You killed the girls." I have never been surer of anything in my life.
Jorie's face transforms. Gone is the shy fear, replaced by a look I've never seen her wear. One of menace and cunning threat.
"You really should not have said that," she replies. "Damn you, Willow. Now look what you've done."
I don't give myself time to falter, I simply run toward the boat. I don't have much of a chance. I'm too far-several yards-and Jorie's between it and me. But I try anyway. I need my phone. I need the shotgun.
Jorie slams into me like a brick wall. We both go down, a tangle of limbs. Something sharp bites its razor teeth into my side, and I wince. Jorie is strong. I push and pull and kick to no avail. I claw at the dirt, searching for anything I can use. And then I feel a rock the size of my palm. I grab it and bring it down on her head.
She grunts and loses momentum, allowing just enough slack for me to break free and run. It's too late for the boat, I realize. Somewhere between me recognizing Jorie as the killer and my abundance of shock, she untied it. The boat now floats down the swamp unattended.
"Damn it," I say.
Jorie is standing now. But I am fueled by adrenaline and instinct. I run toward the swampy waters. Gators or not, I throw myself in. But Jorie is impossibly fast, and she pulls me from the water by my hair.
"Let me go!" I yell. "Help! Somebody help!"
I scratch her arms. It's a futile attempt. There is no one else here.
"How could you?" I say.
Jorie laughs, something dark and deadly, knocking me to the ground, faceup. She binds my hands to the tree with ties that she pulls from a pocket of her shorts. I never would have suspected her of being prepared for a thing like this.
"Funny thing." She tightens the zip ties to the point of pain. "I never leave the house without these. Or this." She pulls out a pocketknife. "I haven't had to use the knife until now, but maybe that's because none of the other girls saw my attack coming. I didn't want to have to use any of this on you, of course."
She laughs darkly, raising the hairs on my arms. There is something inherently evil about the way her eyes focus on me but seem to be looking at nothing at all. Her features shift, as though she's just now letting her hair down after months of wearing it up. She's relaxed.
And it's terrifying.
"I tried to be your friend, Willow," she says. "I really did. Well, not at first, of course. At first, I was using you. You see, I needed more details about Beau. Things I might be able to use against him."
She bends closer to me, her breath smelling of the bubble gum she constantly chews. I back up against the tree, which is difficult to do with my hands bound, but I need to get away from the small blade in her hand. My only chance is to talk her down.
"You never caught on, Willow. You never suspected me. And what's more is that Beau's sister didn't, either. She almost caught me. I snuck in their house, trying to frame Beau, to plant some of the drugs, solid evidence, in Beau's bedroom. I was in the bathroom, where I planned to take hairs from his brush to leave at the next crime scene, when I got distracted by Charlotte's jewelry. I was holding one of her earrings when she and Beau suddenly came home. Heard her outside telling him she had a funny feeling. She's got a sixth sense, that one. I barely got out and didn't realize until later that I was still clutching the earring. Stupid mistake. It's cost me now."