My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Lake Witch Trilogy #1)(54)

Jade opens her mouth to keep going, finds there’s nowhere to go.

So… so Connie the Librarian’s always known Jade’s hiding just on the other side of the audiobooks aisle after lights out?

And then Jade sees what everybody else here has already seen: now that high school’s over and she can’t tell Mr.

Holmes all her slasher theories, she’s trying to find someone else to latch onto, impress with her slasher Q.

“No, no,” Jade says, backing away from all three of them, which is just going to land her in the lake. “That Dutch boy she found in the water, he—him and his girlfriend, and… they were the blood sacrifice, see? They were the first ones, the proof, the promise of more to come, the appetizer that comes before the meal. That’s how it always works. They trespassed, were somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, so they paid the price, the ultimate price. That’s how it goes, sorry. Then—that Founder, Deacon Samuels. He—this proves that this is really happening, can’t you see?”

Hardy’s fingers worry the brim of his hat. Finally he looks up, says, “Are you saying the bear—”

“It wasn’t a bear, Sheriff,” Jade tells him, tells all of them.

“Bears don’t have revenge arcs. The bear’s just being framed, but nobody’s going to believe that until—”

“A party,” Letha offers, meaning she’s read at least one of the papers.

Jade holds Letha’s eyes, nods slowly, asks her back, leading her so slowly, so carefully, “And… what’s the big party here every year?”

When Letha doesn’t answer, Jade turns to Hardy, to Mr.

Holmes, says, “She’s not from here, she wouldn’t know.”

“Independence Day?” Hardy says with a shrug.

Jade fingershoots that correct, says, “Even in the form of a question.”

“July Fourth?” Letha says all around.

“You’ll see,” Jade tells her.

At which point Mr. Holmes wades into this debate, directing himself to Jade: “And so it was this, this slasher that killed that herd of elk over in Sheep’s Head, then?”

“Sheep’s Head?” Letha says.

“It’s what the old-timers call that meadow,” Mr. Holmes says with a shrug, like that isn’t the important piece of what he was saying.

“I told him he shouldn’t have showed that to you all,”

Hardy says. “It’s exactly the kind of thing that can add fuel to an overactive imagination.”

“No need to use names, Sheriff,” Jade says, pointing at her own temple, the overactive imagination in question.

“Independence Day,” Letha repeats softer, which makes it somehow louder.

“I know you thought you were helping,” Jade tells her, flabbergasted to the point of no return here. “But, and you couldn’t have known this, authority figures—cops, teachers, parents—it’s not possible for them to believe, not until it’s too late. But your impulse to get help, to fight back, to stop this, that’s what we can take from this, that’s what we can weaponize, that’s what we can—”

“But we can stop it,” Letha says.

“You can, yeah,” Jade tells her back.

“That’s why I called Sheriff Hardy,” Letha says, again with that apologetic tone.

Jade turns to Hardy about this.

“I pulled in Mr. Holmes because I—” he says, fumbling a bit, which isn’t his usual way. “I know he was your favorite teacher. Is, is your favorite teacher.”

Jade levels her imploring eyes over onto Mr. Holmes.

He shrugs, toes at the gravel with his loafer, says, “I confirmed that you’re crazy for this subgenre of movie. For these type of horror movies. These… slashers.”

“Thanks?” Jade says.

“Just… and this is on me,” Mr. Holmes says, spreading his fingers to touch his own chest, indict himself. “I never saw it like Ms. Mondragon is… I knew you didn’t want to write about history, but I never suspected it might be your own history you didn’t want to talk about. So all the papers on horror—”

“About slashers.”

“Complete with boogeymen,” Mr. Holmes adds.

“He shouldn’t have fostered that kind of speculation, he’s saying,” Hardy says, his tone getting across that he’s sort of speaking for Mr. Holmes here, saying what Holmes can’t say himself.

Still, “I think you mean ‘foment,’ Angus,” Mr. Holmes snaps back to Hardy.

“That’s Sheriff,” Hardy says.

Mr. Holmes shrugs, and Jade can tell he’s here against his will, somewhat.

Not that that helps her even one little bit.

“This isn’t about me,” she tells all three of them, her tone ramping up into a plea, which she full-on despises. “This is about that dead kid in the water, this is about the Founder who got killed with that fancy golf club—”

“With?” Hardy asks.

“Alongside,” Jade corrects, brushing the clarification off.

“This is about who might have gone to the dollar store specifically to buy a long black wig, and why they needed to look like that, and how they’re, I don’t know, pretending to walk on the water—maybe they’re tying Jesus lizards to their feet—we don’t know yet!”