Her body was a live wire of sensation. Her skin felt open to the air. She’d pretended to Hailey that she was okay, that she was managing the pain. Hailey wouldn’t have left her alone otherwise. Then she would’ve been caught. Maybe it shouldn’t matter, now that Mason was dead. But it felt like it mattered even more, like Hailey was the last reason to hang on to this world.
One of the sirens stopped in front of the house with a sudden whoop. Lights reflected on the wall. The door burst open. Vaughn appeared with his gun drawn. “Police!”
Beth shrank against the cupboard, tried to lift her sore hands. “I’m alone.”
Vaughn was looking around, gun drawn, his legs braced. “Where is he?”
“Dead,” she rasped. “In the garage.” He moved farther into the house, speaking into his radio. She didn’t understand the codes, the fast words. She thought he was going to check on her, provide first aid, but instead he was walking quickly down the hall toward the back of the house. She rested her head against the cupboard, confused and dizzy with the pain. More sirens were outside, but Vaughn was still in the other rooms. Noises at the door. Paramedics.
A man and a woman in uniform. They knelt beside her. Opened their medical kits. Speaking to her gently, they checked her pulse. She imagined it leaping in jagged lines. She watched the hall. Vaughn’s big shape was coming back now. His gaze skimmed over her. He conferred with another officer who’d come through the door.
The paramedics lowered her and put a mask over her face. She tried to breathe deeply, but her throat was closing, and she clawed at the mask. The female paramedic murmured soft words, telling her everything was going to be okay. She closed her eyes. More police. More voices. Thompson was here, kneeling by her side and talking to the paramedics. He held her hand.
Thompson helped them load her into the ambulance. They gave her something in an IV and the loud pain became a hum. Equipment swayed as they took the corners fast, a paramedic speaking into the radio. Words she didn’t understand. They rushed her into emergency, pushed her through swinging doors where doctors and nurses clustered around and called out instructions. She was sent for a scan, stitched up, bandaged, and soothed. She floated through it all. At some point she was wheeled into a room and she must have fallen asleep, because when she woke up, Vaughn was sitting in the chair beside her bed while a nurse checked her vitals.
The nurse looked at Vaughn. “Don’t tire her out. She needs to rest her throat.” She squeezed Beth’s hand. “Hit the call button if you need me.” Beth wanted to stop her, wanted to beg her to stay, but she was out the door with a swish of her scrubs.
“You’re a brave young woman,” Vaughn said. “Looks like you had a hell of a fight.”
She squeezed her eyes tight. She was hanging, spinning around and around. Mason was coming at her with that metal rod. “I don’t want to talk.” She never wanted to think about it again. She was going to ask the nurse for more drugs. She would live the rest of her life high.
“I just have a few questions.”
“Why isn’t Thompson here?” Her body felt so light, like she was drifting away from herself. The nurse. She must have given her more pain medication.
“Where’s Mason’s cell phone?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t see it.”
“Did he talk about any of the other victims?” Vaughn sounded distant, but he was sitting so close. How did he make his voice move around the room?
“Amber.” She could barely get her name out, like every damaged tissue in her throat had swelled at once, locking her sister’s name into her body, holding her close.
“Anyone else?”
She had a plan. She had to remember. “Hailey. He said he killed her.”
“Did he say what he did with her body?”
She shook her head. He let his breath out in a sigh, then rested his hand on top of hers. She hated the warm weight of it. She wanted to slide her hand away, but it was pinned down.
“I hope we have more answers after we finish the search of his property. Did you look into any of the other rooms? After you made it from the garage to the house?”
She shook her head again. Her eyelids were so heavy. Don’t say anything else. He’ll trick you. Tricky, tricky. She pulled her hand away, fumbled for the call switch. “I need water.”
“One more question. Why did he cut you down without securing your wrists and feet?”
“I was pretending. To be unconscious.”
“You slit his throat. Sliced his jugular. He bled out in seconds. That takes a lot of strength.” He was staring at her, trying to shock, looking for the lie.
She pressed at the call switch, but her strength was fading. It took two times for her to find the right spot. To make it buzz. He didn’t help. “Go away. I’m tired.”
“I’m going.” He stood and walked toward the end of the bed. Then he rested his hand on her ankle, where Mason had tied her up, and squeezed the bandages. She gasped, and the sudden spasm of pain in her throat forced her into choking coughs. “We’ll talk another time.”
He walked out as the nurse came in.
* * *
Light shone through her eyelids, a soft glow, then the scent of antiseptic, plastic, and sickness. Beeping noises and movements. A warm hand skimmed across her knuckles and held her fingers. She lifted her eyelids, blinked a few times to clear away the dancing white lights. Her mom’s face came into view, blond bob untidy, some strands tucked behind her ear, some falling forward onto her face. The lines around her mouth were deep, her blue eyes watery.
“Beth.” She cupped her face. “Thank God.”
Beth lifted her hand to the bandages at her throat, wincing as the IV tugged in her arm. Her tongue felt thick and there was a strange ringing in her ear. Hospital. She was in the hospital. Vaughn had been in her room. She remembered crying. Doctors and nurses touching her. How many days had it been? One? Two? Night blurred into day. She’d woken up over and over again.
“Don’t move.” Her mom adjusted the pillow. “Are you thirsty?” Beth nodded, and her mom lifted the straw to her mouth. She held the cup with her other hand. It was shaking slightly. Beth stared, fascinated by the soft tremor. Butterfly wings. The painkillers ran through her body and gave her a floaty feeling. Later there would be a headache and nausea. But for now it was good.
“I told them not to call you.” The words tumbled out of Beth’s dry mouth, hung suspended in the air. Her mom flinched and took a few steps closer to her dad at the end of the bed. So tall. Like an oak tree. Gallant and strong. Except today he just looked tired.
“Sorry.” Beth grabbed at her thoughts, sandwiched them together. “I didn’t want to scare you. I wanted to tell you myself.”
“Constable Thompson called.” Her mother stared at Beth’s IV as though she were worried eye contact might set her off. Or maybe it was just painful to look at her face. Beth hadn’t seen the bruises yet, but her eyes and lips felt puffy, her cheekbones ached, and it hurt to speak. Even her teeth throbbed. Beth eased up on the pillow so she could sit straight.
Her mom lifted her gaze. “We don’t understand why you were here. The internship…”
“I lied, Mom. I dropped out of school. I was failing all my classes.”
Her mom’s mouth parted. Her dad blinked, then blinked again.
“You lied?” Her voice was hushed. The first stabs of guilt were stirring in Beth’s stomach, but she had pharmaceutical courage running through her veins.
“We don’t talk. We never talk about anything important.”
“You don’t tell us anything.” Her dad still looked stunned. One hand over his heart.
“You don’t ask.”
“We were giving you space.”
“Space? For what? I couldn’t go to class. I couldn’t do anything. I thought I was going to lose my mind.”
“My God.” Tears poured down her mother’s face in long rivulets, the mascara now inky streaks that bowed around her mouth. Beth watched, startled.
Her mom’s chest was rising and falling in quick gasps, but she was still holding her emotions in tight, her arms wrapped around her body. Beth wanted to shake her loose.
Her dad moved closer. “Beth, you’ve always been so independent, pushing us away, wanting to do things on your own. We love you, honey. We’ve always loved you. If you don’t want to go to university anymore, we will deal with it. You can move back home.”
“You’re not angry?”
Her mom pulled tissues out of her pocket and blew her nose. “I am furious with you for coming to this awful town. I hate that you lied to us. I hate that you have been living at a campsite. You risked your life, and for what? Were you trying to punish us? You don’t think we suffered enough?” Beth had never heard her mother speak with so much force. Her teeth were gritted, and her neck muscles corded. Mad Madeline was leaking through her mother’s carefully constructed facade.
“I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t pretend.”
“Pretend what?”
“That I was perfect. You always wanted everything to look so good. Our house had to be tidy. We had to wear those little dresses to church. We had to volunteer, and handwrite thank-you notes, and sing in the choir. You took our report cards to church and showed everyone.”
“I was proud of you!”
“Stop it, Beth. Stop all of this.” Her dad let out a big sigh, ran his hand through his thick hair, almost fully gray now. “Maybe we should have been open about a few more things, but we go to church because it helps. Believing is a choice, Beth. You fault us for trying to find peace?”
“I just don’t understand how you can.”
“We wake up each day missing her. We go over everything we could have done differently. We count the years until our own deaths when we will see her again. We go through photo albums, and we sit in her room. We cry at night. Is that what you need to hear?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I need to hear all of that.”
“We can only step through a door if you open it.” Memories tangled with feelings and Beth didn’t know what was true anymore. Had she shut them out? Was she the one who closed people off?
“I should’ve tried harder with Amber,” her mom said. “But she was always skipping school and running off with her friends. I was tired of fighting.”
“You should have brought her home.”
“She never returned our messages. We thought that she needed a couple of months to get it out of her system and then she’d see how hard it was on her own.” Her mom’s voice cracked.
Amber could have missed that party. She could have left with someone else at the lake. How many moments could her death have been avoided? There were a thousand scenarios.
“I can’t talk anymore.” Beth couldn’t stop the tears from filling her eyes, the horrible, sickening realization that Mason’s death had fixed nothing. The pain was still the same.
“The doctors say you will be in the hospital for a few days,” her dad said, “but after that, you still need to be watched closely. We’ll bring you back to Vancouver with us.”
“I’m not ready. I have a campsite, and things to deal with.”
“We can pack your site.”
“I said I’m not ready. Things aren’t magically fixed now that Mason is dead. I’ve made a mess of my life. I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore. I don’t know what I want.” Pressure was building in the room, coming loud and fast like a thousand voices all talking at once.
Leaving Cold Creek meant leaving Amber behind. It meant living. Beth wouldn’t see Jonny or Hailey again. She’d have to deal with things. She’d have to get a job and a future.
“You don’t have to decide today. We’ll stay in town.”
Beth’s vision blurred with fatigue as she looked up at the ceiling. She let her eyelids drift closed. Sleepiness settled over her like a weighted blanket.
“The car broke down,” she slurred to her dad, forcing her eyelids open so she could look at him. A nurse had come into the room. She was fussing with the bag, adding something to the IV. Warmth enveloped Beth’s hand. Her dad’s large palm closing over her fingers, a cocoon.
“I’ll have someone look at it.”
“Get some rest.” Her mom’s voice. Soft, but firm, like when she used to tuck her in at night. She’d always turn off the light, even though Beth hated the dark and would lie stiff under her blanket until Amber tiptoed into her room and turned the light back on. For a moment she could see her sister’s face hovering over the bed, eyes dark and serious. She was saying something about Hailey. Beth tried to speak, to ask if she was okay, but she couldn’t open her mouth. The last image that floated through her mind was Hailey running through the woods.
CHAPTER 37
Beth
Thompson arrived the next day with a quick knock on the door to alert her before he strode in, dressed in a navy suit, hair neat. “How are you feeling?” He sat in the chair near the window.
“Like a psychopath tried to kill me.” Beth’s throat felt better with the swelling going down, but she was still getting headaches and blurred vision. She wiggled upright.
“Well, I’m glad he didn’t succeed. Are you okay? I don’t just mean all this.” He pointed to her bandages and the IV. “I mean in here.” He tapped his head.
He was the first person to ask her that, and the sudden rush of tears to her eyes was embarrassing. Especially because his niceness was probably a trick so she would trust him.
“I haven’t been able to process it all.”
“There are some great counselors you can speak to through victim services.”
“What about victim rights? I didn’t appreciate Vaughn interrogating me.”
“Sergeant Vaughn?”
“Is there some other Vaughn?” Then she realized, from his confused expression, that he hadn’t known Vaughn had come to the hospital. “Guess your communication isn’t so good.”
“He probably hasn’t had a chance to brief me yet.”
“Sure.” She gave him a look that made it clear what she thought of his justification.
“I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“What’s the point of this? Mason’s dead.”
“We still have unsolved cases.”
“Did you find Amber’s bracelet?”
“Not yet. But we haven’t finished searching Mason’s property.”
They’d be looking for graves and bones. Personal belongings. Amber’s purse had never been found. Beth wondered what he’d done with hers. In the end, her gun hadn’t helped her. She tugged the blanket tighter around her body. “Did Vaughn find anything in the bedrooms?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before you got there, he searched the house.” She thought about how Vaughn had gone straight down the hall. Like he knew where to go. He’d asked those strange questions too, about whether she’d gone into the other rooms. Maybe she was remembering wrong.
“How long was he there alone?”
“I don’t know. It’s all hazy. He burst in and didn’t even stop to see if I was okay. Then he was sitting there when I woke up.” She pointed at the chair. “He was saying horrible things, asking about how I killed Mason, and about my sister. I don’t want to talk to him again.”
“You don’t have to. But I’m a good listener. Can you take me through everything?”
This time she had better answers prepared.
* * *
Beth blinked a few times, waking from a nap, and then let her eyelids drift closed again. She’d go back to sleep where no memories could chase her down. A noise, someone in the room on her right side. She jerked her eyes open, turned to look. Jonny standing by her window, his face pensive as he gazed out at the mountains. The purple b
ruises on his jaw had turned a soft yellow. She cleared her throat and his head snapped around. They met eyes, then his gaze drifted from the bandages around her throat to the cuts on her arms, then back up to her puffy eyes and lips. The nurses had washed the blood out of her hair, but the stitches were an ugly reminder.
“How did you get past the cops?”
“Thompson let me through. A lot of reporters are hanging around.”
“Guess I’m famous. Yay, me.” She pumped a fist in the air and regretted it when the IV tugged at her skin. She dropped her hand back down.
“You didn’t eat breakfast.”
Hadn’t she? What time was it? She glanced at her breakfast tray. The oatmeal had congealed, the brown sugar a murky puddle. It looked like she had managed a few sips of coffee, but she only remembered the exhaustion, the way her body sank backward into the pillow.
“You were right about the food. A burnt hot dog would be better.”
“I should’ve brought you something.”
“I’m just happy to see you.”
Their eyes held for a moment, then he moved to sit in the chair beside her bed, sliding it closer. He entwined his fingers with hers and rested his forehead against her arm. “When I heard what happened…” His lips grazed her skin as he spoke, a warm sensation that traveled up her body. “If you hadn’t killed him, I’d have hunted him down myself.”
She tensed, and he must have felt the motion, because he lifted his head and met her eyes, his blue ones almost black in the hospital lighting. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.”
She glanced at the door, then whispered, “Hailey,” and his mouth parted. She pressed her fingers to his soft lips so that he wouldn’t ask questions. “She saved my life.” She didn’t know who might be in the hall. She didn’t need a doctor or a gossipy nurse overhearing.
“She okay?”
“Think so. I made her leave before the cops came.” Beth reached up and touched the bandage around her throat. “When I get out, I’ll tell you more.”
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