Twisted by Hannah Jayne(12)

“Chels!” Laney caught Bex’s eye in the rearview mirror. “And by the way, she’s totally lying.”

“I am not,” Chelsea whined, turning her attention back to Bex. “They say the guy who murdered the young couple had a hook for a hand.”

Bex giggled, then heard the tires spin over the sand, trying to gain traction. The girls all jerked when it finally did, the car righting itself on the road with a clunk.

“Why are you trying to kill us?” Laney asked, trying to maintain her anger over her laughter.

But Chelsea wasn’t listening.

She was leaning forward in her seat, hands flat on the dashboard. “Aim that way again,” she said, pointing toward the area where they were nearly beached.

“Why?” Bex asked, picking up the towels and chips that had flopped off the seat when the car lurched.

“I thought I saw something.”

Laney slowed the car but didn’t stop. “What are you talking about? What did you see?”

Chelsea blew out a sharp sigh. “If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t have asked you to light it up, now would I?”

Heat began to prick on Bex’s ears. “You guys, this is a little too horror movie for me,” she said with a nervous giggle. “Can we just get to the beach?”

Chelsea spun to face her. “You just want to get your freak on with Trevor. Like we haven’t noticed him puppy dogging you all week. Turn around, Lane, just for two seconds.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Laney said, turning anyway.

“Could be pirate treasure. Give me the booty!” Chelsea screamed in the worst pirate accent Bex had ever heard. “See? There!” She bounced on the seat as she pointed.

Laney and Bex leaned forward, squinting. “Oh my God, someone’s out there.”

Bex cocked her head. “Is it two people? Are they having sex?”

Laney stopped the car and slammed on the horn, the headlights fully illuminating a pair of bare feet in the sand. She honked two more times, and Bex’s stomach started to fall as a memory nibbled at her periphery.

It was a pretrial hearing in one of those cavernous courtrooms that was supposed to be closed to the public. But it was packed nonetheless.

“Counselor,” one of the attorneys—Beth Anne couldn’t keep their names straight—raised his hand as he stood. She remembered thinking how strange it was that a grown man, a grown man in a suit even, still had to raise his hand when he wanted to speak. “I’d like to request that the defendant’s daughter be excused before viewing the crime scene photographs. She’s only a child—”

“No!” A stocky man from the prosecution’s side of the room jumped up. “She should have to sit here and see what her father done! What he done to my little girl!”

The judge slammed his gavel hard and yelled something. The courtroom started to murmur and Beth Anne heard it again: “She’s just a little girl! She had nothing to do with anything!”

Kasey, the advocate assigned to her by the court, wiggled through the crowd and held her hand out. Someone pushed Beth Anne forward, her hand finding Kasey’s—but not soon enough. There was already a photo on the screen: the soles of two bare feet, blotched and purpling, peeking out from underneath a blood-speckled sheet. A little, yellow tented number was placed next to them, the words Vic: Hayley Davison, 19; Exh 1 printed in black Sharpie across it.

Chelsea and Laney kicked open their car doors, but Bex wanted to stop them. She wanted to scream at them to get back inside, to start the car and go to Corolla Beach, but she couldn’t move. Everything fell into silent slow motion. The sand kicking up behind Chelsea’s flip-flops. Laney’s hair fanning out behind her as she beckoned for Bex.

Woodenly, Bex pushed the seat forward and slipped out of Laney’s door. She heard nothing as she stepped onto the sand, still warm from the sun. Laney and Chelsea had turned back by then, their mouths open, their faces tortured. Chelsea was yelling at Bex, pointing at the phone in her hand. Bex didn’t react, and Chelsea finally snatched it from her. Laney’s face was red, mascara running down her cheeks with the tears.

Bex stopped, the bare feet mere inches from her own.

They belonged to a woman—no, a teenager—lying facedown in the sand. Her hair was spread in a graceful blond halo, the edges disappearing into a clump of sea grass. Her head was turned, lips blue and slightly parted, eyes open as though she were staring down the beach. Her right arm was laid gently at her side, fingers curling over her palm. Her left arm was arched over her head, her fingers half-buried in the sand. Bex didn’t need to see them to know that the ring finger was missing, because that was his calling card.

The Wife Collector.

Her father.

Daddy’s home.





Seven


No, Bex thought.

It couldn’t be. Her father had been gone—on the run—for ten years now. The murders had stopped.

But what if he’s started up again? the tiny voice in the back of her head asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “No.” She didn’t realize that she had said it out loud until Laney turned to her. She was trembling.

“Darla,” Laney murmured, her index finger shaking as she tried to point. “It’s Darla.”

Bex didn’t know how long it took for the police to come. The three girls waited in Laney’s car, the silence deafening until Chelsea said, “I’ve never seen a dead body before.”