Wicked Charm

by Amber Hart

  Her name is Michelle—a girl I once dated. Her neck is bruised, and her eyes are wide. And then she does something I don’t expect her to do. She moves her fingers.

  I need to find the killer.

  And I need to help Michelle.

  She looks as though she wants to say something. As I approach, I have to hold onto my wits because what I see is horrific. Her throat is crushed. She’s attempting to breathe in short raspy inhalations that get more desperate by the second.

  I can already hear Willow in the background on her phone, trying through patchy reception to tell the police we need help.

  I don’t want to let the killer go, but I can no longer see him, and Michelle doesn’t look as though she has long. I bend over her and set my hands on her chest, ready to begin CPR.

  Michelle is dying. Right in front of me.

  “I will find him,” I whisper to her. “And he will pay for doing this to you and the others.”

  Her chest suddenly rises so roughly that her back arches off the ground in desperate attempts for air.

  I begin chest compressions like they taught us in school. I can’t remember if I’m doing it right, but I don’t want to stop. I can’t stop.

  Suddenly, Michelle stills.

  “Help her!” Willow screams as she draws near in the boat.

  “I’m trying!”

  I continue the compressions—one, two, three, four—until Willow erupts into a burst of sobs. Water drips from my wet hair onto Michelle’s face, making it look as though she’s crying.

  I keep at it until the police show up and emergency workers take over. It seems like forever, too long, before they shock her with electric pads and push down on her chest, breathe into her mouth, and wait and wait and wait for Michelle to breathe on her own. She never does.

  I reach for Willow and try to offer her comfort, knowing all the while that my mind is elsewhere. We were so close to having a witness, someone to identify the killer. I could have caught the Mangroves Murderer. If I’d left Michelle, maybe he would have been stopped.

  These girls are gone because of me. It’s too hard to deny the connection. No matter what I do, I can’t get them out of my head. Especially now that I just watched one die.

  And her killer is still on the loose.

  33

  Willow

  “Please state your name.”

  “Willow Mae Bell,” I say.

  “Do you have any idea where the killer went?” the police officer asks me.

  I can’t think. I can’t remember. I keep seeing legs. Legs attached to a dead body.

  “He ran off into the trees,” I say, gesturing in the general direction.

  “And you?” the cop asks Beau. “Do you remember which way he went, aside from ‘into the trees’?”

  “He seemed to be heading north,” Beau replies.

  The cop nods, more satisfied with Beau’s answer than with mine.

  “Can you describe him to me, miss?”

  I remember in flashes, bursts of images like a digital camera in playback.

  “Tall, maybe. Black coat. Hood over his face.”

  That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I shiver from the memory, clutching my cardigan closer.

  The police officer makes notes on his legal pad.

  “You knew the victim?”

  “A little.” Beau shifts uncomfortably. “But we haven’t talked in months. I haven’t even seen her except for a few times in school. We’re not exactly friends.”

  “And you?” the cop asks me.

  “I didn’t know her at all.” I can’t remember ever seeing her.

  Bile rises, burning my throat, and I fear that I’ll be sick.

  Another officer approaches. The swamp is swarming with them like mud wasps buzzing everywhere. Looking for any sign of the Mangroves Murderer.

  “This is Officer Keely,” the cop says. “He will escort you both home. It’s not safe in the swamp.”

  I can’t help but look toward the body, laid out on the mangroves like a play doll. There’s a sheet over her now. But I can still picture the girl’s pleading face, her look of terror as she struggled to breathe. Suddenly, my stomach turns and I can’t hold back. I bend over and lose my dinner. Beau is there with a comforting touch, rubbing my shoulder softly, holding back my hair.

  “Ma’am,” Officer Keely says when I’m done. “Best be getting you home.”

  …

  Once we arrive back at our cabins, the officer leaves us be and returns to the swamp investigation. In his wake, another of his colleagues takes patrol at the dividing line, keeping watch over both our houses.

  “Who would do this?” Beau asks as we enter his cabin. “And why is the timing different? The others took place late at night. This one happened in the early evening hours. It almost seems as though the killer is becoming more desperate.”

  “Or the killer is becoming sloppy,” I say. “Either way, we were there, right there. Too close to the crime.”

  I’ve already checked in with Gran, who advised me to reconsider going to Beau’s house. But I had to come here. I have to talk it out with someone, and seeing as how she doesn’t want to discuss it, and as how Mom and Dad still have a forty-five-minute drive home until I can talk with them, Beau’s place seems like the right decision.

  Charlotte is waiting for us in the living room as we enter the cabin. Her stare is trained out the window, into the dark night. A candle flickers beside her, smelling heavily of spice.

  “Is it true?” she asks. “Did you find a dead girl?”

  “How did you know that?” Beau asks.

  Charlotte stands and walks to the kitchen to retrieve a cup of coffee. She makes one for Beau and me as well, adding cream and sugar.

  “I arrived home just afterward. The officer taking watch spoke with Grandpa and me. He told us.”

  As though hearing himself mentioned, Beau’s grandpa walks into the room.

  “Beau,” he says, nodding a greeting. His eyes find me. “Virginia’s granddaughter. Lord, you look just like her.”

  It’s the first time I’m seeing him in the flesh up close, reclusive as he is.

  “Thank you,” I say proudly, taking a sip from the mug that warms my hands.

  The coffee is sweet—enough sugar to zing my senses, a hint of vanilla flavoring.

  “Why can’t they find the killer?” Charlotte says. “He can’t have gone far in such short a time.”

  “Why would he do it?” Beau’s words fade to a whisper. “Who has reason to kill innocent girls?”

  Charlotte suddenly turns to me. “Do you have something to do with this, Willow?”

  What? A shiver runs through me. How could she ask such a thing? Does she honestly think of me as a murderer, even after we’ve told her that we caught the killer in the act? Is she that inclined to think me guilty?

  “I most certainly do not have anything to do with this,” I say, disgusted. “Why would you think that?”

  Charlotte sips her coffee and leans her elbows against the kitchen island.

  “I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’re capable of, and it doesn’t hurt to ask. Plus, the murders didn’t start until you arrived.” She gives me a piercing look. “Let’s say you’re being honest,” she continues. “If it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Grandpa or Beau… Then who?”

  “Knock it off, Charlotte,” Beau says. “You know that Willow didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Beau’s right,” Mr. Cadwell says. “I don’t think she’d hurt a soul.”

  He doesn’t know me well enough to say, but his faith in me is appreciated. I can’t help but compare the wrinkled face in front of me to the smooth-skinned face in Gran’s photo album. He looks older than I originally thought he was, and there’s a wet sound to the way he breathes. This is the man Gran once loved. Perhaps still does.

  “Where can the killer possibly be hiding that none of us can find him?” Mr. Cadwell asks, but his words turn into a barking
cough. It takes him a full minute to catch his breath again.

  None of us has a solid answer, so as it turns out, there’s not much to discuss anyway.

  Mr. Cadwell takes his coffee mug with him to one of the living room chairs, settling into it with shaky limbs.

  Beau’s fingers wrap around mine and, for once, I feel as though he needs my support, like I might just be the very thing holding him together.

  Charlotte twirls a ring on her pointer finger. The stone matches the candy-red paint on her long nails.

  Beyond the window, police lights blare a belated warning.

  “Do you think they have any leads?” I wonder if they would tell us if they did.

  “Aside from badgering Beau? No.” Charlotte doesn’t look at me when she speaks, but I feel her gaze when I glance away.

  Though I’ve been too frightened to speak the words aloud, I finally voice something I’ve been thinking about lately, another option, albeit a dangerous one.

  “Do you think I should try to lure the killer?” The words are out of my mouth so quickly I have no time to debate them. Anger flashes across Beau’s face. I try to backpedal, to explain. “That’s what everyone thinks, that the killer is after me next. I hear it in the halls. I know you think it, too, Beau. Even your friends wonder. It’s a logical train of thought. My parents and Gran would kill me for even speaking like this, but maybe there’s a chance to catch him if it seems as though I’m in the swamp alone. You could be nearby. Maybe we can trick him. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Are you crazy?” Beau’s voice leaks with venom. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “I wouldn’t actually go alone. We’d just make the killer think I’m alone. Maybe then he’d come for me.”

  Beau shakes his head slowly, his eyes trained on me and me alone.

  “Every day, Willow.” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “Every single damn day, you are a target. Moving from my house to yours to the swamp to school. Lately, whenever I see you, I see them, the dead girls. I wonder if you’ll be next. It drives me mad, and I can’t stand it. You will not become an even bigger target. No way. I can’t let…”

  He trails off, and I wonder if he means to say anything else at all. Charlotte and Mr. Cadwell watch us silently with expressions I can’t quite read.

  “You can’t let what?” I finally ask.

  Beau leans closer to me, as though he intends to shut out the rest of the world.

  “I can’t let it be you. Not ever. I feel so much guilt over the girls who’ve died. But if something happened to you—I’d be lost.”

  I wonder if he cares that his family is hanging on his every word with their stares.

  I open my mouth to protest. To comfort. To tell him it won’t be me, even though that might be a lie.

  “Don’t.” He holds up a hand. “Don’t placate me, Willow. Just hear me, okay? Please. You are so full of light. You brighten the entire damn world, and I can’t go back there.” His voice lowers. “I can’t go back to before. Cold emotions and distance. I need you.”

  When he leans in and kisses me, I am absolutely dizzy with pleasure. His words leave a tingle on my skin, a warmth that feels something like love. I forget about our audience. I know nothing of murders or danger or police. There are only his lips on mine. His heart is beating so fast that I can’t distinguish between it and my own. I don’t remember what it is to know this world without Beau and these kisses and this fire, fire, fire.

  I hope I never have to.

  34

  Beau

  “Grandpa, mind if we talk?” I ask.

  He turns toward me and sets down the book he’s reading. His eyes are tired and the sun has only just risen.

  “I figured you’d notice,” Grandpa says.

  I keep quiet to hear exactly what he means.

  “Charlotte’s already come to me, of course,” he says. “The girl notices everything under the sun, that one.”

  I had actually meant to discuss a different strategy to find the killer. The police aren’t doing a good enough job, and I can’t seem to get the dying girl’s face from last night out of my mind. It’s haunting me, and I fear the only way to stop it is to find the killer. But now, the need to know what exactly Grandpa means pulls at me.

  “Charlotte knows. Suppose you do, too.”

  “Sure,” I lie.

  His eyes narrow. “Damn.”

  And then he does an unexpected thing. He laughs good and loud. He laughs so hard that he coughs, which turns into a fit. He puts a hand to his mouth to stop it.

  “Grandpa, you okay? You catch something?”

  Finally, he stills and pulls his hand back.

  His chin and palm are covered in bloody speckles.

  “Well, hell,” Grandpa says. “Here I thought you came to talk about me dying, when all along, you didn’t know. I caught something, all right. A fatal lung cancer.”

  I stagger back a step.

  Fatal.

  I try to blink away the shock of his statement. Despite my best intentions to stay so carefully guarded, I’m going to lose another person in my life.

  “But you’ve never smoked a day in your life.” I don’t know why I say it. It’s just the first thing that comes to mind.

  Panic surges through my veins. I wonder if the anguish I feel is reflected in my expression. I consider Grandpa closely. My stare goes again to the red flecks on his skin. Does it hurt to know he’s dying?

  “Don’t be dense, boy. You don’t have to smoke to get cancer. ’Course, you sure increase your odds if you do, but cancer handpicked me, and so here I am. For all my sins, seems like a mighty right way for me to go. Could have been worse.”

  I grab a towel from the side table and hand it to him.

  “How much longer?” I ask. I don’t want to know. But I can’t not know.

  “A week? Two? I don’t know. Haven’t eaten much. Can’t keep most things down. Mind is going in and out. I’m tired, Beau. It’s close to time.”

  “How long have you known?” I ask. My voice is steady, though my thoughts are not.

  Grandpa is dying. I feel as though I am dying, too. And suddenly, the weight is too much. I take a seat, my head in my hands. I stiffen, fighting back the sobs that threaten to wreck me. Not again. Not Grandpa, too. I can’t lose him, too.

  “About six months. Went to the doctor in town. He sent me to the hospital. Know what it’s like to get stuck with needles and poked a million times, feeling like a pesky porcupine went and put its quills in you? Well, it’s about as awful as it sounds. Actually, worse.”

  “What about medicine?” I ask. “There must be something they can do.”

  Grandpa wheezes. “They offered treatments, sure. I’m not taking them, though. I want to die the right way. Here in my own home.” He stops to catch his breath, which never seems to happen. “Let the swamp have me when it’s over, will you? That’s all I ask. Sink my ashes in the muddy gator water. Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  I came to talk to Grandpa about strategy, and now I’m taking an oath to respect his death.

  “I’ll do it, you know I will,” I say. A pinch of anger rolls through me. “But were you ever going to tell me? Was I just supposed to wake up one morning to learn that you never will again?”

  Anger gives way to sadness. I take a ragged, steadying breath and place a palm against my chest, over my heart, where it feels as though I’m being split in two.

  Grandpa shrugs. “What would you have done, Beau? On the one hand, I suppose telling you lets you see it beforehand. But I wonder what good that does. Can’t change a thing.”

  “It gives me a chance to say goodbye. That’s more than I got from Dad and Mom.”

  “Then say it,” he replies.

  “Not now, you’re not that close to being gone yet.”

  “Might as well be. The worst is comin’. Can’t promise I’ll remember if you don’t say it now.”

  “I’m not going to,” I say, a note of fi
nality in my tone.

  It’s not fair, none of it. I press two rough fingers to my lips to keep the goodbye from slipping out. Each breath feels as though it’s sawing through my lungs, too painful to bear.

  “Suit yourself. Maybe I can tell you something, though?” Grandpa requests. “I want you to know that I’ve only truly loved a few people in my life, and you happen to be one of them.”

  I’m silent. I’m stone, unmoving. The Cadwell family doesn’t express emotions. It’s not who we are, damn it. But I see it anyhow. It’s written in the way my hands shake. In the way I open and close my mouth several times in indecision. I want to tell him how much he means to me, too.

  Maybe I should be telling Grandpa that I love him, but I can’t seem to pull the words out past the rock in my throat.

  Grandpa wraps a blanket around his shoulders even though it’s about a hundred degrees with the windows open. His eyes are getting heavier, drooping nearly closed, like even sitting here and staying awake is too much of an effort for him.

  Charlotte rounds the corner. Grandpa takes shallow breaths, sounding wet like the slurp of mud tugging at boots.

  “You’ve told him, then,” she says.

  Grandpa nods, saving his voice. Even the slightest sigh sends him trying to swallow down coughs. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. He’s been weak, tired. Staying to his room. Off balance, maybe due to dizziness from not eating much. The cancer is swallowing him whole.

  For once, Charlotte’s face is somber.

  “Now what?” she whispers.

  “Now we wait,” Grandpa says.

  The end of his sentence hangs silent and invisible, but I say it in my mind anyway.

  We wait…for his death.

  35

  Willow

  A water moccasin coils and waits like a stump by the tree, but I see it good and clear, even though it mostly blends into the dirt.

  “Watch your step,” I tell Jorie.

  We pass the snake without incident. Occasionally they give chase, but not today.

  “How about that tree?” Jorie asks.

  The weeping willow is clear of snakes, and so we take a seat under its hanging limbs. I place the picnic basket between us and get to work opening its contents. Down the way, a gator suns himself, side-eyeing us. I can tell by the way he hardly moves that he’s cold from the water, needing warmth to reenergize him. It’s the ones that have been out in the heat for hours that you need to worry about. They’re faster than fast and feisty, too.