Twisted by Hannah Jayne(60)

“Were those in your locker too?”

Bex pressed her palm to her forehead. “No, they were on my friend’s car. Hundreds of them. They were all…” She took a deep breath. “The victims.”

“Victims?”

She gritted her teeth. “The Wife Collector’s victims.”

Her father cleared his throat. “I didn’t do that.”

“Who would? And why would someone?”

“I can’t explain everything right now. There’s not enough time. I can’t stay here.”

A sob lodged in Bex’s chest. “You just… I just found you. You can’t just go.”

“It’s not safe right now. I’ll make contact with you. I promise I will.”

“Dad, I—”

“Look, Bethy, I’ve got to go.” A siren wailed long and low in the distance. “I’ll call you again soon, okay? I’ve got to go.”

He hung up the phone and Bex stood there, her phone pressed to her ear, listening to the dull silence. Finally she hung up, wondering why she felt so empty inside.

Bex walked through the next day in a daze, checking her cell phone call log to make sure that the previous night’s phone call had actually happened, that she hadn’t imagined it.

She remembered talking to Laney and Chelsea but couldn’t say what it was about. She remembered sitting down and having lunch with Trevor, then kissing him good-bye when she slid into Denise’s car.

“Good day today?”

Bex nodded, her hand still on her cell phone.

Denise was silent until they were nearly home. “Is something going on, Bex?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve been holed up in your room. You barely talk when you do come downstairs, and it’s been like pulling teeth to even get you to go out with your friends the last few days.”

Anger swelled in Bex’s chest. Denise wasn’t her mother. Denise had no idea what she was going through, what she had gone through. Her father did.

“We’re going to talk to your teachers at Back to School Night. I hope they’re not going to tell me you’ve been out of it in class too.”

Bex shook her head, then forced the words out of her mouth. “No. I’m doing okay. I’m just distracted. Schoolwork and—”

“You’ve played the schoolwork card a few too many times, hon. And the distraction one. You need to let us know what’s going on with you. Is it something with Laney and Chelsea? With Trevor?”

Bex gritted her teeth, feeling annoyed and violated. What right did Denise have…?

“I’m fine,” Bex said.

Denise pulled into the garage and Bex slung her backpack over her shoulder, deliberately lingering a few extra minutes in the kitchen so Denise would get off her back. She unwrapped a granola bar and sat at the table while she ate, and she and Denise at a frosty standoff.

“Can I go upstairs now?”

“You can go upstairs whenever you want. I’m just worried about you, Bexy.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” she said, pushing past her foster mom.

Bex padded up the stairs, not bothering to check the readout when her cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“It’s Detective Schuster. I’m just checking in—”

“No,” she said, “he hasn’t made contact.” Bex hung up without waiting for Schuster to respond. She threw her cell phone onto her bed and dumped her backpack, then opened up her laptop. She had no new messages. She stared at the bright screen and her empty mailbox until she drifted off to sleep.

? ? ?

“Beth Anne! Beth Anne!”

She knew that voice, remembered that voice. It was far off in her dreams, in her memory, coming from somewhere deep. “Dad?” she heard herself murmur.

“Yeah, Beth Anne, it’s me. It’s your daddy. Now I’m going to put my hand over your mouth here. Don’t you scream, okay? Don’t you scream.”

“Why would you—”

Bex felt fingers on her cheeks pressing carefully but firmly. A thumb on the bone just under her eye socket. The heavy, far-off scent of tobacco and old sweat was overwhelming.

“Now don’t scream.”

Her eyes flew open.

His grip tightened across her mouth. She blinked. His eyes widened, round, black marbles in the darkness.

“Promise me, Bethy.”

Bex could feel the tears running over her temples and pooling in her ears as she nodded her head. She wouldn’t scream.

Her father took his hand from her mouth, his dry lips cracking into a smile.

“It’s been such a long time, Beth Anne. Just look at you.”

Bex didn’t dare move. A man was beside her, hulking, bigger than she remembered, with a face that was familiar but more lined, more seasoned than the one she saw in her memory, in her dreams. She was in her mint-green bedroom in Michael and Denise’s house where she was Bex Andrews, and her father was right there, kneeling by her bedside. Her two worlds crashed together.

“How did you get in here?”

Her father’s eyes went round, hurt and surprise playing in them. “It’s been ten years, Bethy. Look at you. You’re like a young woman now. So pretty.”