The Dead and the Dark(63)

“It won’t be you.”

“How do you know?”

Brandon was quiet. He gripped the mattress harder. “There won’t be anyone else. We’ll catch them.”

“You know who it is?”

Brandon stared.

The motel room was quiet, but it was alive with a current that made Logan’s heart race. Because, for just a second, she’d thought everything would be okay. She and Ashley were friends, Brandon and Alejo had promised to tell her everything when this was over, and even if everything hurt, the clues were slowly coming together. There was a light at the end of this—the promise that she would make it out of this town in one piece. But now it was all wrong. Bug was dead, Ashley was gone, Alejo was on his way to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

And Brandon was all she had.

Brandon, who stared at the wall now like his husband hadn’t just been hauled away in handcuffs. Brandon, who couldn’t speak more than a few words without disappearing into himself, who wouldn’t look her in the eyes, whose whole plan was to just wait. Something boiled in her chest, electric and blinding and new. It was a rage she’d never let herself feel before because it was too big, too hot, too much. It was a fire that sparked its way over her skin now. Her breath caught.

“I thought they’d come for you, not Dad.”

“So did I,” Brandon breathed.

Logan swallowed and closed her eyes. She remembered the Brandon from her dreams—the one who buried her, who spoke in a voice as deep as an ocean, whose eyes shone dark and glossy like an oil slick. She remembered the Brandon who couldn’t look at her in Tulsa. The one so full of anger it choked her.

“Was it you?”

Brandon lifted his face from his hands. His eyes were foggy with tears. His hands shook, hovering in front of him in a silent question. The gray morning light crept in through his drawn blinds, painting his face sickly and pale. “Logan…”

“Me and Dad weren’t here when Tristan went missing. He didn’t do it. But you were already here.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“Everyone thinks you did it.”

Brandon’s brow furrowed. “You think I killed those kids?”

“Did you?”

“You know me. We’re family.”

Logan sucked in a ragged breath. “I don’t know you.”

Brandon stood, but not as though he meant to come after her. He looked out the motel window and shook his head. “I can’t explain it to you. Please trust me.”

She couldn’t. She wondered if she ever had.

“I have to … I have to make sure Ashley is okay,” Logan said. She plucked the keys to the minivan from Brandon’s bedside table.

“Logan,” Brandon said, quiet as a breeze. “I promise we’ll explain everything when this is over. I promise. We’ll be okay again.”

She doubted they had ever been okay in the first place. Brandon stood behind her, lips parted like he had a thousand more words tucked under his tongue. Like he wanted to let it all spill out into the silence between them.

But he said nothing.

Logan stepped out into the morning and closed the door behind her.



* * *



For the thousandth time since coming to Snakebite, Logan was suffocating. She pushed down her rising panic attack and drove across town. The morning was petrichor and musk, rain fighting to split from the gray clouds overhead. Snakebite was unsettlingly quiet as though it were already in mourning. The minivan tore down Barton Ranch’s gravel driveway, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

The Ford was parked in the driveway, spattered with mud and dirt. Logan stormed past it to the back of the house. The windows were shut, blinds drawn, and for a moment Logan hoped no one was home.

She sucked in a sharp breath and knocked on Ashley’s window.

Nothing.

Logan knocked again. Her heart hammered in her chest because Ashley was all she had left. The wind from the lake was biting as the slate gray sky.

She slammed her fist against the window again.

The window tore open. Ashley pushed her curtains aside and then they were face-to-face. Ashley’s eyes were red rimmed with tears. Her expression wasn’t grief, it was anger. She leaned out the window, fingers clenched on the windowsill.

“Are you okay?” Logan asked.

“What are you doing here?” Ashley snapped. “Go home.”

Logan blinked. “I’m sorry about Bug. I just wanted to…”

Ashley’s eyes narrowed. Through the window, her bedroom floor was littered with clothes and blankets. Her bulletin board was stripped bare, and pictures of Bug, Fran, and Tristan were scattered across the room. The cool wind fluttered Ashley’s curtains against her arms.

“What happened?” Logan asked.

Ashley exhaled. “I got asked a million times why I was there. At the motel. Why I didn’t … hear anything.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You already said that.”

“I…” Logan started, but she didn’t know what else to say. She hadn’t expected Ashley to be angry like this. She hadn’t really expected to see Ashley at all. “What did you tell them?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Logan folded her arms. “You were at the motel. You could just say we’re friends. It’s not weird.”