by Hannah Jayne
I am Bex Andrews, she reminded herself. I am.
Behind her, Bex could hear the snapping of the crime scene photographer’s camera. Each flash, each snap of the shutter sickened her more, and she felt the bitter salivation that starts before being sick. She pinched her eyes shut, trying to block out any memories.
“Bex!”
Her head snapped toward the voice. It was Trevor. Every other sound melted away, and all she could hear were his sneakers pounding the pavement as he came toward her. Was he going to accuse her now, call her a murderer, tell her it ran in her blood?
Sick. Twisted. A monster. A demon. The devil’s spawn.
When she was Beth Anne Reimer, she had pretended the words didn’t bother her because she could see the way they tore at her grandmother, pricking her skin and leaving tiny scars well after they’d gone.
“They’re just angry, Beth Anne,” Gran would tell her, her hand tightening around Beth Anne’s. “They are blinded by their grief. ‘Bless those who curse you.’ They know not what they say.”
But Beth Anne had seen the hatred in their eyes—so Bex steeled herself for the barrage from Trevor.
“Hold it, miss.” Another officer stepped out from behind one of the parked cars, his hand splayed out, stop-sign fashion.
“This is a crime scene. You’re going to have to come around this way, please.”
It was then that Bex noticed the yellow “Crime Scene” tape strung around the perimeter. She was inside the tape and Trevor was outside. The barrier seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere, a physical reminder that she could only move so far away from her old life. Normalcy would always be just beyond her reach.
Trevor’s eyes shot from Bex to the officer. “But she’s my friend. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
The officer cut his eyes to Bex, who nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“I can take you home.”
Bex looked over her shoulder. Chelsea was talking to Officer Kelty, and Laney was leaning up against her car, her arms wrapped around herself, eyes glossy and unfocused as tears slid down her cheeks.
“Thanks, Trevor, but I think I’m going to stay here and ride back with Laney and Chelsea. They were good friends of Darla’s.” Her voice rose at the end of the sentence. She was assuming since she didn’t know much about Darla’s relationship with either Chelsea or Laney, except for the fact that she sat between them in ethics.
“Yeah.” Trevor cleared his throat. “They were best friends. Um, I guess I’ll just talk to you later.”
He hugged her over the “Crime Scene” tape, and Bex was stunned. No yelling. No accusations. No god-awful names.
Because you’re Bex Andrews now, the tiny voice inside chided.
Bex watched Trevor get back in his car and turn it around, his headlights casting a glow over the whole horrible scene. They also caught the edge of a car pulled off the road half a football field away. Someone was out there. Someone was watching. Bex started when she saw the glint of a tiny, red light in the blanket of blackness.
Like the red light on a video camera when it was recording.
• • •
The sunlight streamed over Bex and she rolled over, loving the soft warmth on her face. It took her a full minute to remember what had happened the previous night, and when she did, her blood ran cold and goose bumps shot up on her flesh.
“Bex!” Denise called from downstairs. “Wake up, sleepyhead! We’ve got pancakes!”
“And I didn’t cook them,” Michael joined in. “So they’re good!”
She kicked off the covers and trudged downstairs, the sweet scent of maple syrup meeting her halfway down.
“Hey, sweetheart. How was the bonfire?”
Suddenly the smell of syrup was overwhelming, the heat from the griddle suffocating. Bex shook her head, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. “It was awful,” she managed, surprised at the tears that started to fall. “Awful.”
“Oh, honey!” Denise gathered her up in a one-armed, one-spatula hug.
“Was it the boys? Did they do something?”
She could see Michael sitting rigid in his chair, his coffee mug in midair, knuckles white on the handle.
“No, no, nothing like that.” Bex sniffled. “It was—” She turned, pointing to the news on the muted TV. “It was that.”
“Authorities aren’t saying much about the body found last night off Corolla, except to say it is that of a young woman, probably in her late teens to early twenties. There has been no comment on whether this young woman has any connection to Erin Malone, found just over a week ago, and police won’t confirm if this latest victim’s death will also be classified as a homicide. What we do know is that the body was found by three Kill Devil Hills area teens who, we understand, are not suspects.”
The news anchor was in a little square at the corner of the screen while footage of the previous night rolled in front of Bex’s eyes. She saw the clumps of sea grass, the fluttering, yellow “Crime Scene” tape, Officer Kelty, and the assembled police units.
“Oh my God, Bex, were you and the girls the ones who found her?” Denise stepped back but kept her arms around Bex.
“Yeah.”
Michael pulled out a chair and gestured for her to sit. “Oh, honey. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. “You must have been so scared. Why didn’t you call us to come get you? Or at least wake us up when you came in?”
Bex wagged her head mutely, but everything inside her wanted to spill, to finally confide the secrets she had been carrying ever since she could remember. She wanted to tell Michael and Denise that the dead girl wasn’t a woman but a teen like herself—a teen from her high school who her new friends knew. She wanted to tell them that she wasn’t scared of the body; she wasn’t scared about what had happened—she was scared about what it meant.
They continued to watch the news, Bex rapt but dismissing every word. She was sifting for a few in particular, the few that would confirm her wildest fear: a missing ring finger. The anchorwoman droned on, flashing back to cases in other years and in other states where teens had been found, adding a few details here and there: the body was unclothed, no confirmed method of death but rumors of asphyxiation and possible sexual assault.
Finally, the channel moved to a story about a platoon of local vets coming home, and Bex let out the breath she didn’t know she had been holding. There was no mention of a missing ring finger. It was the best she could hope for, she reasoned.
Eight
After breakfast, Bex went to her room and stretched out on her unmade bed, staring blankly at the ceiling and letting the hum of the bees in her head block out any rational thought. Denise and Michael took turns checking on her every hour or so. Stepping in and wringing her hands, Denise urged Bex to talk or eat. Michael popped his head in and cleared his throat, opening his mouth and shutting it again, then finally blurting out something innocuous like, “Can I get you anything?”
It hurt Bex to see them so worried about her. It was a strange, uncomfortable feeling and she had a hard time not remembering her grandmother, the way her hand tightened over Bex’s, the papery feel of Gran’s thin skin against her own fingers. She had only had her mother’s mother, Gran. Her father’s biological mother had left when her daddy was just six years old. After that, according to him, his dad had a series of wifely stand-ins. Flitty blonds and brunettes who burned toast, resented their new beau’s boy, and eventually ran off when the next fleet of truckers hit town.
Bex had met Pa Reimer once and had no question why he ran women off. He had all the charm of a taxidermied snake and was only half as warm. There weren’t any pictures of Grandma Reimer—not even one. Her daddy said that was because she didn’t stay around long enough for “the film to develop,” but Gran said he had burned them all. She had seen one th
ough, and Grandma Reimer then—young, with a wide, openmouthed smile—looked like a teenager with crooked teeth and her blond hair in pigtails. She looked a little like the waitress from the Black Bear Diner. The one who had curled her phone number into Bex’s daddy’s palm. The one the media called Victim #4.
The image of Darla—a cute blond who, from her pictures, had the same easy smile and young-bride looks that her father seemed to favor—flashed in Bex’s mind again, and she felt the bile itching the back of her throat. She ran to the bathroom and retched, her palms burning against the cool porcelain. When nothing came up, she flopped back onto her bed, the sweat growing cold on her forehead.
Bex must have dozed off because when she opened her eyes, graying twilight had replaced the sun, chilly air ruffling the curtains on her open windows. A Post-it note was stuck to her lampshade: M went to pick up a pizza. I’m out in the yard.—D
She plucked the note off the shade, stretched, wandered down the stairs, and pulled open the front door.
“Hey.” Denise called from the kitchen. She dropped her shoes at the back door and closed the distance between them. “You’re up.”
Bex started. “I was about to go looking for you.”
Denise wiped her brow, leaving a smudge of brown-black dirt on her cheek. “I was working out back. How do you feel about rock gardens? It’s become increasingly obvious that plants aren’t my thing. Everything is dead.”
Bex swallowed and Denise looked pained, springing forward. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Bex batted at the air. “No, it’s okay.” She went to close the door she was still holding open, then paused.
A tiny, gift-wrapped box sat on the doormat outside. She pointed. “What’s that?”
Denise came to look over her shoulder. “No idea. Pick it up.”
“Is this some kind of feel-better gift from you and Michael or something? Because I appreciate it but—”
Denise stepped around Bex and stooped, picking up the box herself. “No. Is that what we’re supposed to do?” She looked worried. “I read online that we’re supposed to create a place of openness and comfort for you, and possibly explain our feelings about death to create an open dialogue. Michael thought we should get you a kitten.”
“No.” Bex held up her hands. “I don’t need any of those things. At least not a gift or a kitten. And you guys have already made me feel comfortable.” She offered a small smile.
Michael drove up and parked in the driveway, appearing on the front walk with a pizza box raised over his head. He looked from Bex to Denise, slight confusion in his eyes.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. There was just this”—Denise held up the box—“on the front porch. Oh…” She plucked out a tiny, white envelope that had been tucked under the bow. “It says ‘Bex.’”
Michael frowned. “Were we supposed—”
“No.” Denise tried to hand Bex the box, but she just stared at it, at the curlicues on the wrapping paper, the ends of the ribbon spilling over the box.
“Here.”
“I don’t… Who’s it from?” Bex wanted to know.
“There is a card,” Michael told her. “You should read it. But can we move this little shindig inside? Pizza is getting cold.”
Bex followed them into the kitchen, sliding her finger under the flap of the envelope. “There’s nothing inside.”
“No card?”
Bex shrugged, turning over the envelope as proof. “Nothing.”
“Open the box,” Michael urged.
Bex did as she was told, the wrapping paper uncovering a smooth, white jewelry box. She pulled open the top and her breath caught. Nestled on a cloud of cotton was a dainty silver necklace with a tiny open heart hanging from it.
“That’s beautiful!” Denise murmured. “Honey, don’t you think that’s beautiful?”
Michael looked up from the pizza slice that was halfway to his mouth. He nodded and offered some pizza-garbled approximation of the word “beautiful.”
“Put it on!” Denise clapped. “Here”—she turned Bex around—“I’ll do it for you. Oh! It’s so nice on you!”
Bex glanced at her reflection in the hall mirror, her fingers going to the silver heart charm. It had weight to it and hung perfectly, the silver standing out prettily against her new beachy sun-kissed skin.
“I wonder who gave it to me.”
Denise dropped a pile of napkins on the table and handed Bex three plates. “Didn’t you talk about a guy?”
Heat flushed Bex’s cheeks.
“He’s not, like, my boyfriend or anything really. He’s just a guy.”
She thought of the haunted look on Trevor’s face as he came running toward her. He was calling her name. Not Chelsea’s or Laney’s—hers. He’d called her his girlfriend. She blushed again. “We hardly know each other. Why would he leave me a necklace? We haven’t even gone on an actual date yet!”
Michael’s eyebrows went up. “We’re dating now?”
Denise gave him a playful slap on the arm. “She’s seventeen, Michael. She can date.”
He narrowed his eyes playfully but with a hint of seriousness. “We can talk about it.”
Bex could only stomach one slice of pizza before bounding up to her room and checking herself out in the mirror. The necklace really was pretty, hanging at the perfect height and somehow making her look more sophisticated, more polished. She grabbed her cell phone and flopped on her belly on her bed, dialing. She had never called Trevor before—she hadn’t called any boy before—and her stomach was a riotous mess. Her heart was pounding and her ears were hot; the single slice of pizza sat like a rock in the pit of stomach, and every muscle seemed to be vibrating.
She hit the Send button.
The phone rang, and Bex was sure she was going to vomit. By the third ring she thought her heart would bound out of her throat. She was starting to hang up when she heard Trevor’s voice.
“Bex?”
Her voice was trapped in her throat.
“Be-e-x?” Trevor strung out her name. “Did you just butt dial me?” His voice was jovial, and that calmed Bex down the smallest bit.
“Hey… No. Hi… Hi, Trevor. It’s me, Bex.”
He laughed and the heat raced from her ears, prickling all over her body. Is he laughing at me?
“I kind of figured it was you by the caller ID. That’s why I said your name.”
She let out a long whoosh of air. “Oh, right. Yeah—that was dumb.”
“So, what’s up?”
Bex found the pendant and rubbed the little heart behind her fingers, loving the smooth feel of the polished silver. “I was just calling to thank you.”
There was a short pause, then Trevor’s puzzled voice. “For what?”
“The necklace! I got it. It’s really beautiful. But why didn’t you just ring the doorbell?”
“What? I didn’t give you a necklace.”
“The package you left on my doorstep. The silver necklace.”
She could hear Trevor shift on his end of the phone. “Bex, I didn’t leave you a package. I don’t even know where you live.”
The call dropped.
Nine
Denise slowed in front of the high school on Monday morning, Bex’s eyes widening as she leaned forward, taking in the U-shaped drive that was now bumper-to-bumper cop cars. Her stomach fluttered but she sucked in a deep breath when Denise patted her shoulder.
“Are you going to be okay with this, hon?”
Bex licked her parched lips, not taking her eyes off the squad cars. “What do you think they want?”
Denise shrugged. “They might be asking questions, or maybe they’re here to answer them. Look, Bex, I know you didn’t know Darla, but if you want to stay home, I understand. All of this”—she wave
d her hands, and Bex wasn’t sure if Denise meant the cop cars or the events of the last two days or life in general—“is a lot to take in.”
Bex briefly considered going back home and tucking herself underneath her cheery mint-green comforter, then spending the day with Denise doing mom things—which were what, exactly? Bex didn’t know. The offer was almost tempting but at home, tucked in the drawer of her nightstand, was the white box with the silver heart necklace set neatly inside. It had taunted her all night—A kind offering? Some kind of joke?—and Bex didn’t want to be near it.
“No thanks, Denise.” She steeled herself and forced a smile that, when she caught her reflection in the rearview mirror, looked more like a bared-teeth grimace. “I’ll be okay.”
The vibe on campus was somber. Everyone seemed to move in slow motion. Where there were usually groups of chattering, joking teens, there were red-eyed mourners walking aimlessly and clutching the straps of their backpacks. Bex saw Trevor walking in from the student lot and detoured directly into the girls’ locker room, her heart thundering in her throat, her shoulders pressed against the cold brick wall. She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to see the “Are you crazy?” look on his face after last night’s phone call.
“I heard Laney and Chelsea found her,” came a rough whisper from between the lockers.
White-hot heat started at the base of Bex’s spine.
“They practically stepped on her,” another female voice added. “They were with that new girl too. Beth or Rec or something.”
Bex’s heart thundered in her ears and she held her breath, straining to hear. Were they going to accuse her?
“I heard poor Darla had actually been missing for a week. No one even went looking for her.”
Tears pricked at the base of Bex’s lashes.
“It’s so sad. And now there’s some crazy psychopath on the loose.”
Bex was breathing hard, teeth gritted, trying to block out the images that came at her full speed. They were newspaper headlines, television snippets from another time, another world that wouldn’t leave her alone no matter how far away she was.
