Twisted (14 page)

Bex knew what he was going to say: before he kills again. He had to say it, had to pin her with it because all she wanted to do was tuck her head in the sand and fall into a dreamless sleep that would last until the whole ordeal was over. But saying no was as good as becoming a monster herself.

“Let me think about it,” she whispered.

Bex stayed after school to make up the geography test she’d missed when Michael and Denise let her sleep in. When she finished, she slipped the paper into her teacher’s wire basket, said good-bye, and stepped out into the hallway. It was completely deserted. The floors looked like they had just been cleaned, and the smell of chlorine and industrial cleaning products stung Bex’s nose.

Her footsteps echoed throughout the hall, as did the footsteps of the person behind her. Bex casually glanced over her shoulder, then stopped.

It was the girl from the funeral, the girl who had waved to her.

Tension pulled Bex’s shoulders up to her earlobes. “Can I help you with something?”

Clearly startled, the girl blinked her deep-brown eyes.

“I-I…” The girl swallowed and blinked again. She straightened. “I’m the girl whose mother was killed by your father.”

Someone had sucked all the air out of the room and Bex couldn’t move, her mouth open, eyes wide. In her mind’s eye, she doubled over herself, oofing from the sucker punch to the gut.

“Wh-what did you say?”

“I’m Lauren.” The girl looked as uncomfortable as Bex felt, taking a step and then stepping back, offering a hand, then pulling it away. “I just…”

“Oh. Oh,” was all Bex could say as a million things crashed over her: Apology. Grief. Guilt. Blame.

Blame?

Your mother shouldn’t have made my father kill her.

The thought—a fleeting one that was in as quickly as it was out—made Bex sick to her stomach.

“I just wanted to…see you…I guess,” Lauren was saying, the fabric of her skirt swooshing into a colorless blur.

“My father… He never… It was alleged…”

But Lauren just stared at her, eyes wide, intent, curious.

Bex took a step back. “I can’t… I’ve got… Excuse me.” She turned and pushed in the door to the girl’s bathroom, making it to the first stall just as she started to wretch. She was sweating, a burning stripe going from the back of her neck all the way down her spine as she vomited. Each time her stomach convulsed, a new wave of images shot through her mind—gruesome, haunting, slasher-movie scenes that made her sick all over again.

When there was nothing left to throw up, she grabbed a handful of toilet paper and blotted her eyes and nose as she cried a silent, body-racking sob for this strange girl Lauren and the mother that Bex’s father had snatched away. She cried for Lauren and for herself, and begged for forgiveness for thinking that the woman’s murder could be anything but her father’s fault.

You don’t know that!
that inner voice told her.

He’s your flesh and blood,
another one countered.
Like father, like daughter.

Bex wasn’t sure how much time had passed but she’d cried everything out, her entire body feeling hollow and light. She splashed water on her face and pulled her hair over her eyes and cheeks, trying her best to hide the red splotches and smeared makeup. When she pushed back out into the hallway, it was blessedly silent.

“It’s Bex now, isn’t it?”

Lauren was still there, and Bex felt herself start to tremble.

“How did you know who I am?”

Lauren shrugged her thin shoulders. “I…know people. I went to the same juvenile detention center you did. I guess I kind of kept tabs…”

“I’m sorry,” Bex said.

“Me too,” Lauren said.

Bex started. “What are you sorry for?”

Lauren crossed in front of her. “I shouldn’t have just… I wasn’t even going to talk to you.” She looked at her shoes. “I really just wanted to see you, see what you looked like.”

Bex sucked in a slow breath. “Did you want to see if I looked like him?”

Lauren glanced at Bex, then stared at her shoes. “You do, kind of. I mean, the pictures.”

Bex nodded, unsure what to say. She really didn’t know what her father looked like, other than the pictures, and in them, she couldn’t see much more than a slight and passing resemblance: same hair color, similar expression.

“Do you mind if we sit down?” Lauren asked.

Bex wanted to say no, but something drew her. Whether she thought she owed Lauren something or not she wasn’t sure, but she pushed open the double doors and led her to a bench in the quad.

“Is it true that he gave you things—things that belonged to—”

“Yes.” Bex couldn’t bear to hear Lauren say the words. “I didn’t know…”

“Did he ever give you earrings?”

“No, but I never had pierced ears.”

Lauren pulled the sleeve of her cardigan up revealing a thin chain that looped around her wrist. On it was a five-petaled gold flower with a tiny pearl at the center. “This?”

Bex shook her head. “It’s really pretty though.”

“It was my mother’s. Her earrings. They only found the one. He took the other one.”

They were silent for a long while. Bex noticed that Lauren wouldn’t look at her. She stared straight ahead while they sat shoulder to shoulder, barely blinking, talking without a breath, but focused like there was something in front of her to see.

“I think I came here… I wanted to see if maybe you knew.”

Bex was walloped. Surprise, shame, anger, pain. She snapped her head to Lauren. “Knew what?”

Lauren swallowed and her voice was barely a whisper. “Why he did it.”

Bex knew she should argue. Set this girl straight. It was alleged that her father was a murderer, but it had never been proven. A sob lodged hard in her chest. She shook her head slowly, her breathing shallow and painful.

“My mom had one of those giant personalities. And your dad…” Lauren went to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “He’s just a man, you know?”

Bex nodded again, although she didn’t really know. Her father was a distant memory. Her father was a two-dimensional picture in the newspaper, a man with a dark beard and a shaggy haircut. He was a gray man and a legend with a made-up name. He was the Wife Collector. Her father died a long time ago.

“I’d look at his pictures. I was obsessed with them.” She let out something between a snarl and a laugh. “I couldn’t believe it was him. I wanted him to be bigger. A monster maybe, with claws. Someone—something that couldn’t help what it was, so a real person wasn’t responsible for seeing my mother—hearing the way she would laugh out one high-pitched squeak before giggling without making a sound. The fact that she was a mother who read
Horton Hears a Who!
with a crazy voice and her arm in front of her nose like a trunk just because it made me laugh.

“I wanted your dad to be a monster who couldn’t understand that my mom was a woman and a person with an awesome chocolate-chip cookie recipe and a daughter because really, how could a
person
do that to another person?”

Bex didn’t have to look at Lauren to know that tears were pouring over her cheeks. That they were the kind of tears that took with them a tiny bit of Lauren’s hope and joy and heart.

“I think I came here hoping that he would be here with you.”

“He’s not.” Bex didn’t mean for it to come out a whisper. “I don’t know where he is either.”

Now Lauren shook her head and used the palms of her hands to wipe at her tears. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t… You don’t…” She paused, and a fresh torrent of tears started. “I guess I thought maybe you owed me something but”—she sniffed—“you’re out a parent too.”

Bex wanted to apologize for her father. She wanted to tell Lauren that even at home he was shy and mostly kept to himself, but she didn’t know the man that Lauren talked about.

• • •

Bex spent the rest of her week avoiding Detective Schuster and trying not to think about Lauren, about her wide, flat brown eyes. But by Saturday, the thoughts consumed her as she sat in front of her laptop.

“Hey, Bex. You okay? You’ve been up here all day.”

Bex blinked at Denise as she stood in the doorway. Her head was cocked, her voice soft. “It’s Saturday. I think by law we’re supposed to make sure you get at least one hour of sunlight each day.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, coming up behind Denise. “Don’t let anyone say that we’re raising veal.”

Bex rubbed her eyes. “Um, I was thinking of going to a movie with Laney and Chelsea.”

“Sunlight! Fresh air! Stretch your legs! Stop watching that little screen and go watch the big screen. In the dark. While sitting down.” He looked at Denise. “Pretty sure we’re nailing this parent thing.”

Denise shot him a high five and Bex smiled. “You guys are so weird.”

They left the room and Bex glanced back at her computer, hoping Denise and Michael hadn’t noticed the way she’d blanched when they came in the door. She was still on the Wife Collector fan site, still trying to avoid the photos that popped up. She had already seen most of them, but they never ceased to make Bex’s stomach drop into her shoes. She was going to close the laptop when a chat bubble popped up.

DETECTIVE LT. SCHUSTER is requesting a chat.

Bex clicked Accept and a tiny, smiling picture of the detective appeared in one corner of the gray box, his typing scrolling across the screen.

LT SCHUSTER: How is it going?

B*AND: Not gr8

LT SCHUSTER: Be patient. He’s going to be cautious.

Bex felt slimy talking to Detective Schuster about trying to trick her father.

B*AND: Maybe he’s just not on there.

LT SCHUSTER: What sites have you tried? Our link to your computer isn’t up yet.

B*AND: Tried them all. Nothing. Maybe UR just wrong.

Anger and annoyance simmered low in Bex’s gut. Anger, annoyance, and…joy?
If he wasn’t on the site, maybe that proved that he wasn’t guilty…

LT SCHUSTER: Just—

SCREEN NAME B*AND has left this discussion.

She dialed Laney.

“Bex! Still up for a movie?”

Bex rubbed her eyes, yawning. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Is that why you yawned? To demonstrate your interest in the exciting social lives of Kill Devil Hills’ finest?”

“Aren’t a town’s finest supposed to be the police?”

“I don’t know. Anyway, you coming with?”

“You’d better be coming with!” Chelsea chorused in the background. “Unless you’re throwing us off for Trevor, but you’d better not be!”

Bex laughed. “Yeah, I’m coming with, and I would never throw you guys off for a guy.”

“That’s good,” Laney said, “because we’re outside your house.”

“Woooo! The call is coming from outside the house!” Chelsea burst into hysterical laughter. Bex wished all spooky stories could end the same way.

“What were you going to do if I
had
decided to ditch you guys and go out with Trevor?” she asked, opening the front door.

“We knew you would never do that,” Laney said, following her into the house and hanging up the phone.

“We have intimate faith in you,” Chelsea said.

“Imminent, Chels. The word is imminent.”

“Whatever. Don’t take this the wrong way, Bex, but you look awful.”

Bex was dumbstruck for a half second. Her friends were in her bedroom, less than three feet from her open laptop and the heinous pictures and the throbbing forum of weirdos craving blood. Her two lives were about to crash into each other.

She slammed the laptop shut.

She didn’t hear the ping of a new message alert from the fan site.

She didn’t see the single line in the subject box from GAMECREATOR.

Is it really you, Bethy?

“Okay, the movie sucked. Capital S. U. C. K,” Chelsea said as she, Bex, and Laney shuffled out of the Cineplex late that night. “I’m almost sorry I gave you that makeover.”

Bex blinked her heavily made-up eyes and smacked her lips together, tasting the waxy residue Chelsea’s borrowed Bombastic lip color had left. “It may have been a lousy movie, but I looked great watching it.”

“That’s what counts!”

“I bet he liked it.” Laney jutted her chin toward a crowd of kids in front of them, Zach taking up the rear. He turned and looked just as Bex did, their eyes locking, then falling away immediately.

“He left the theater, like, three times,” Laney said.

“Probably to go run and film himself saying that he loved the movie because it was ‘based on actual events.’”

“‘Inspired by,’” Bex corrected. “And I didn’t think it was that bad.”

A sly smile spread across Laney’s face. “Like you even saw the movie! Your eyes were glazed over the whole time in Trevor-loves-me-land.”

“Oh, let her be in love. We all could be serial-killer fodder in five minutes.”

The jovial conversation immediately died. Bex wondered if Laney and Chelsea were thinking about Darla. All she could think about was her father, the screaming headlines, the talking heads on the news.

“Um, we should get to the car,” Bex mumbled.

“Ladies…” A beat-up convertible BMW nearly ran over the girls’ feet as the driver slowed to leer.

“Screw you!” Laney yelled to his taillights.

“Do guys think that actually works?” Bex asked, thankful for the subject change. “Like, how many girls climb into a complete stranger’s car?”

“I don’t know,” Chelsea said, squinting in the direction the car had gone. “If he was cute…”

“Chels! That guy was, like, a hundred.”

“And he doesn’t seem all that picky.” Bex pointed to where the BMW had pulled to the curb, another group of high school girls drifting toward the passenger-side door and giggling.

“I didn’t mean that guy. And besides, if those girls get in that car, they deserve whatever they get. Herpes, scabies, whatever.”

Bex looked away, briefly wondering if the women who had gotten into her father’s car deserved what they got. The thought immediately made her blood run cold.
No one deserves that kind of death!
she screamed in her head. But then, that horrible voice:
They deserved it. You know they did. You think like he does. His blood is yours…

Bex tried to shake the voices from her head.

Chelsea touched her arm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just spaced for a minute there.”

“Guys?” Laney had stopped in front of them, pointing at her car. It was the only one left on that side of the lot, and it was covered in paper.

“Lane! Someone left you, like, a thousand love letters!” Chelsea started toward the car, but Bex hung back, certain the pages weren’t left for Laney.

“What is this?” Chelsea asked, peeling a paper from the windshield.

Bex pulled one out as well. They were slighter bigger than standard size, and when she leaned into the light to read one, her heart stopped. She held her breath as she stared at the others, hoping they weren’t the same—but each one bore the same headline, the same inch-high, bold, red letters: MISSING. Under each heading there was a full-color picture.

“Oh my God.” Laney pulled one from the windshield, squinting at the photo. “Who is this? Bex, do you know who Melanie Harris is?”

“Or”—Chelsea snatched a poster from the roof—“Amanda Perkins?” She pulled another one. “Kelly Hughes? Who are these people? Why did someone plaster these all over your car?”

Chelsea and Laney were plucking off the sheets, uncovering new photos—Amy Eickler, Katrina Wendt, Isabel Doctoro.

Bex knew them all.

They were all her father’s victims.

“Oh no,” Chelsea said, her voice shaking. “This one is just a little girl.” She plucked off more of the pages to show a new smattering of posters below. They were all the same picture, all the same girl.

“Who is she? What’s her name?” Laney asked.

“Beth Anne Reimer,” Bex said, her voice a choked whisper.

• • •

Chelsea and Laney removed most of the posters. Bex tried to help, but her hands were shaking and her brain couldn’t seem to command her arms to do anything but flail around uselessly.

“Jeez, Bex, you’re white as a ghost. It’s okay. It’s probably just some stupid prank,” Chelsea said, rubbing her palms over Bex’s arms.

Laney frowned at the last of the fliers. “Some kind of disgustingly morbid prank. Get in, the car is mostly clear.”

Bex nodded, unable to pick the proper words from the ones that drove through her head.
Who? And why?
When her cell phone chirped, she dropped it twice before swiping to answer.

“Hey, Trevor.”

“So? Did you get it?”

Bex pressed her palm to her forehead, liking the cool feel against her hot skin. “Did I get what?”

“I left you something outside the theater. You couldn’t have missed it.”

Bex frowned. She felt her throat as it closed tighter and tighter. It was hard to breathe. She felt like she was already crying, but her eyes stayed dry and she was statue still.

“You did this?” Her voice was a faint whisper.

“You did this?” Beth Anne couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice. “I can’t believe you did this.”

Gran swelled with all the pride her ninety-eight-pound body could muster and dangled a key ring, two keys jangling together at the end. “You’re sixteen, Beth Anne. Did you think I’d forgotten?”

“No.” Beth Anne shook her head. “I didn’t think you’d forget but I-I… We can’t afford this, Gran.”

Gran scoffed. “It’s not exactly a Rolls Royce, dear.”

It was a Ford Escort and it was at least twenty years old. The paint was chipped off the roof but what remained had been lovingly shined up. The seats were covered by a funky leopard-print blanket that had been carefully folded and cut to fit. “The original interior was not in the best of shape but—”

“It’s beautiful, Gran. Thank you.”

Gran folded the keys into Beth Anne’s palm. “Well, go ahead. Take it for a spin.”

There were exactly three places that Beth Anne knew to drive to, the only three places in town she ever went: the library, the grocery store, and, when she could see from the street that it was blessedly empty, Deja Brew coffeehouse on Falls of Neuse Road. She’d tuck her feet underneath herself in one of their half-hidden wingback chairs and spend hours reading and sipping the bitter brew. It was one of those places where she thought she could blend in. She was wrong.

She remembered walking out to the parking lot just before closing. There must have been people in and out of the coffeehouse, but she had been so engrossed in her book that she had never noticed. Now, when she saw her car, Beth Anne wished she could crack open the book’s hard spine and climb in. Hers was the lone car in the lot. The one that Gran had scrimped and saved for, even though it was “not exactly a Rolls Royce.”

Someone had spray-painted the side.

The letters were huge, glaring red, and crudely written. Now the car bore the same stain that she did: MURDERER.

She had abandoned it then and there.

There was a rush of cold air over Bex’s cheeks as Laney swiped the phone from her. “Hello? Who is this?”

“It’s Trevor, Laney. Put Bex back on.”

“Did you say you did this? You did this to my car?”

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

Bex turned to Laney and clawed for the phone. She wanted to smash it, to step on it, and then do the same with this life—smash it into a thousand obliterated pieces. She had thought Trevor liked her. She thought that he…

“I left flowers on your car for Bex. What are
you
talking about?”

Bex could see Laney’s jaw drop open just slightly. “So you didn’t plaster my car with Missing posters?”

“What? Who the hell would do that? Let me talk to Bex.”

Laney tried to hand the phone to Bex but she waved it away, numbly walking to the passenger’s side of the car and settling herself in. The sound of the seat belt clicking was reassuring, but for a second Bex thought about unbuckling it, sliding into the driver’s seat, and driving away. She wouldn’t go anywhere. She wouldn’t stop anywhere. She would drive into the surf, a tree—anything that would stop the pain that was coursing through her body, stinging with every beat of her heart.

Everywhere she went, she brought death and destruction. Even when she tried to get away, it found her, making its presence known. That was who she was. That was who she’d always be. Bex couldn’t end Beth Anne, but Beth Anne could end Bex. She pressed her index finger to the seat belt button and heard it click. She started to slide toward the driver’s seat…but Laney beat her there. She was shaking a slim bouquet of cellophane-wrapped flowers in front of Bex’s nose.

“Trevor left these, Bex. These flowers. There were no posters here when he left these. They were under all the paper on the windshield. It wasn’t Trevor.”

Chelsea slid into the backseat and Laney started the car, the purr of the engine sending a warm shimmy through Bex. They drove in static silence for blocks before Chelsea cleared her throat and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

“How did you know the name of the little girl in the poster?”

Bex didn’t answer and Chelsea fell silent for a beat. Then, “I know who it was.” Chelsea snapped her fingers. “Zach.”

“Zach?” Laney asked.

“Yeah. Isn’t it obvious? He was at the movie, so he had the opportunity.”

Bex felt her breathing slightly regulate. “Zach? Why would he do something like this?”

“Because he’s Zach,” Chelsea exploded, eyes rolling. “He wants a story. He was probably behind us filming the whole thing. Like one of those hidden-camera pervy things. He probably just googled ‘kidnapping,’ found pictures on some creepy-assed ‘people who love weird crime shit’ sites, and slapped together a whole bunch of Missing posters. He knew we were going to the movies…”

“And there is only one Cineplex in this shoe-box town. It’s not like he’d have to drive around looking for us,” Laney reasoned.

Bex chewed her bottom lip. “I guess he’d know your car.”

“Asshole,” Laney fumed.

“Jerk,” Chelsea added.

But Bex just sank back in her seat. She wanted Zach to be the culprit and this whole stupid stunt to be a prank. But how did he know about the Wife Collector? How did he know to choose all his victims? And how did he get the picture of Beth Anne Reimer?