Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(32)

I want my mom. Mom would know what to do.

Down on the beach, the music’s still blasting, but I can hear the sirens now far in the distance. I hear people shouting, “Cops!” I can’t go look, but I imagine everybody who isn’t passed out is running for it. I try to stay calm and count the pulse beats I can barely feel struggling against my fingers.

“Hey,” I say. “Candy? Can you hear me?” I don’t think she can. I’m crying, and my voice is weird, and I have to wipe my nose and swallow hard before I try again. “Candy, it’s Lanny Proctor. I’m here. I’m not going to leave you, okay? It’s going to be all right. I promise.”

Down around the lake, I hear engines starting up. People are getting the hell out.

That leaves me even more alone.

The operator’s busy telling me help is coming. She sounds professional and calm, and that helps some, but I still feel so isolated up here, like I’m the only thing alive except for Candy. I wish someone else were here. Anyone else.

And it’s like I wish it into existence when I hear footsteps coming up the path. Maybe it’s Vee, coming back? But no.

It’s Bon. What’s Bon doing here?

In the moonlight he looks pale and sweaty.

I instinctively put the 911 call on mute.

“Hey,” he says. “Saw your friend take off. You okay?”

I want to throw myself into his arms and cry, but I don’t. Barely. I just point toward the girl. In the glare of my phone’s light she looks pale and dead, but I can see the pulse still beating at her throat. Bon’s eyes widen.

“Is she alive?” he asks. I nod. I don’t think I can form whole sentences right now. It’s okay. Bon’s here. He’s older. He’ll know what to do.

The operator asks me if I’m by myself again, and I hold a finger up to my lips to warn Bon before I unmute it and say, “Just me. I’m alone with her.” Bon’s brave for coming up here after me, but he’s probably got half a dozen drugs on him that could get him in big trouble. He could have run away. Everybody else did. I don’t want to get him arrested.

“Have you seen anybody else up there?” the operator asks.

“No,” I tell her. “Well, yeah. People have been doing cannonballs off the cliff. But I don’t know who.” That’s a direct lie. I should mention Lottie. But I don’t, because I don’t want to get her in trouble either.

Bon is gesturing at me, and I realize he’s asking for the phone. I instantly give him the phone, and transferring that responsibility feels so good it makes me shudder with relief. I mouth thank you to him.

But instead of talking to the operator, Bon just ends the call and turns it off. What the hell?

Then he says, “I’m sorry you had to find her, Lanny.”

I don’t get it for a long few seconds. I really, really don’t.

Then I realize just how dangerous this is, and it feels like electricity crawling all over my skin. The jolt of fear feels like lightning striking, but I push that away. I need to be smart now if I want to get through this, but my brain is racing, babbling, wondering what Bon is doing, why he could have done this to Candy, when . . . so many questions. But I don’t ask them. I just breathe, and watch. As Bon pockets my phone, I slowly get up off my knees and back away from Candy. I never take my eyes off him.

“Cops are coming,” I say, which seems dumb even as I say it. We can both hear the sirens in the distance. But that doesn’t mean they’re really close, either, not out in the country like this.

“Just means we have to do this fast,” he says, and he gets a knife out of the sheath at his belt. “Sorry, Lanny. Nothing personal.”

Oh shit.





9

LANNY

“You did this?” I choke on that, because I don’t want to think that, to realize that I had a nice, comfortable time sitting next to a man who’d bashed one of my classmates in the head.

He shrugs. “Look, she ripped me off. She knew better. Things got out of hand. Besides, I got a partner, and he don’t play.”

The cops are coming, but I have no idea when they’ll get here. Minutes? I might not have minutes. He’s between me and the path down to the beach. So I stall, because my only real hope is that the cops come fast, and maybe he’ll decide to run instead. But I know he won’t.

He can’t.

“Maybe—” My voice sounds small and weak, and I’m shaking all over now. Can’t get my breath. “Maybe it was an accident. She fell and hit her head. I could tell them she said that.”

“What if she gets better and says different?” He shakes his head. “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt her. I shook her and pushed her, and she fell on the rock.” I’m not sure that’s true. But I just nod. He’s turning the knife over and over, and I can tell he doesn’t want to do this. Not really.

I hear someone scrambling up the path. Relief hits me like a truck, slamming through my body and turning me weak at the knees. The cops are here. Thank God.

But it isn’t the cops. The sirens are still screaming, getting closer, but they’re not here yet. In place of that wonderful relief, I get a wave of real fear that makes my mouth dry up and my fists clench. The young man who comes out of the path is sweaty, greasy, older than Bon. He’s wearing a stained old muscle tee, and he’s got an honest-to-God mullet. I can smell his acrid body odor from three feet away. He doesn’t look high like Bon, and I think that scares me more than anything.