Twisted by Hannah Jayne(34)

“I-I can’t. I can’t do that.”

“You could really help people. You could help your father.”

Bex snapped her gaze to Schuster. “Like I helped him before?”

“You did the right thing then, and I’d hope you would do the right thing now.”

Bex wished she could name the feeling that roared through her. It wasn’t simply anger. It wasn’t simply pain. It was something like rage mixed with sadness and guilt, and she was feeling it more and more. She closed her eyes and pressed the pads of her fingertips against her eyelids. The girls the Wife Collector had murdered marched by in a macabre parade—lives lost, stories that never were. They were inexplicably connected to Beth Anne, and no matter how far Bex ran or who she became, they would always be connected to her.

And then there was her father.

After he was arrested, even after he was arraigned, he never spoke to Bex about the murders. She had never asked, though sometimes she had wanted to. Late at night, she would go over memories and details in her head, anything that could have been suspect or hard proof that her father had or had not committed those crimes. But the few times she had been face-to-face with him then, she had known there was no reason to ask. He was her father. He loved her and protected her. He was the greatest man in her life.

But had he been another way with someone else?

“I can’t…I can’t think about this right now.” Her head was pounding. She felt itchy and jumpy.

“I know this is a lot to take in. But if you could just—”

Bex stood up. “I’ll think about it, okay? But right now…” She looked around, not exactly sure what for, then shrugged. “I just can’t do this right now, okay?” She didn’t give Detective Schuster a chance to answer before grabbing her shoulder bag and disappearing out the coffeehouse door.

It was cold outside. The fog was rolling in off the ocean in a thick, gray haze. Bex zipped her sweatshirt up to her neck, trying to avoid a chill that went all the way down to her bones. Cars zipped by and a small group of girls just a few years older than her shimmied past. She couldn’t help but glance at each one, taking in their features, their clothes, and their hair. She paused by her bike, staring in the direction the girls had gone.

“Always be watching,” her father seemed to whisper in her ear. “What you need is out there just for the taking. The key is finding exactly what you want.”

Bex couldn’t remember what her father had been referring to when he’d whispered that in her ear, but now his advice took on an eerie tone. She glanced around out of curiosity. He glanced around when he was— Something thick and heavy settled low in Bex’s gut.

Her father glanced around like that when he was hunting.

Was he looking into the faces of women to find one that he liked? One with blond hair and pretty, summery features?

One that he could destroy.

A memory dislodged itself when Bex slumped against her bike, her hooded eyes trying to figure out where the gray surf ended and the sky began.

She was sitting on a park bench—no, at a picnic table—her sandaled feet nowhere near touching the ground. Her mother was there, right next to her, trying to clean Beth Anne’s hand, but Beth Anne didn’t want to wait. She struggled against her mother’s grip while her father mumbled something across the table.

Beth Anne was reaching, her fat, little fingers pinching… A cup. She was reaching for a cup. She felt the flimsy Styrofoam between her fingers, then felt it slipping through. She remembered the arc of the bright-red juice as the cup toppled. Her mother dropped Beth Anne’s hand and tried to reach out as though she could stop the spill. But it splashed her father and Bex remembered the way the droplets hit his white T-shirt, leaving bright-pink trails down his chest.

She remembered the flash in his eyes.

The way his lip kinked up with a snarl.

His eyebrows diving down. Nostrils flaring. The red of his cheeks so much brighter than the stains on his shirt. She saw the veins bulge, stretching the skin on his neck taut. His hands seemed so big when they slammed against the picnic table. The other cups trembled. The smack of skin against skin. She was vibrating. Her skin, her teeth. The taste of blood. Sand against her cheek, peppering her lips.

What had happened?

Bex sank onto the concrete, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Was her father the kind man she thought he was—or just a kind man in her memories?





Twenty


It was barely an hour since Bex had sat across from Detective Schuster but it felt like a thousand years had passed. She tried to curl her hair and brighten the blush in her cheeks, but no matter what she did, she looked exhausted.

Her father had surfaced. According to the picture in the file, he was officially out. Bex had her hand on her cell phone, ready to call Trevor and cancel, when she heard the muffled din of his engine, the thunking bass of his radio. He was pulling into her driveway. Bex did her best to push everything to the back of her mind, to hang on to what might be her last few hours of normalcy. If—if—her father came for her, contacted her, or made his presence known, then the whole of Kill Devil Hills—and the high school—would know who she was.

Your father has already made his presence known, the tiny voice in the back of her head taunted. Remember Darla?

She stamped out the thought and smiled at Trevor when he smiled at her, nodding mutely and allowing him to open her car door. She was on a date—her first date! Sure, they were just going to a party, but he picked her up and told her she looked nice and she had waited for this moment her whole life.