The Weight of Blood (63)

A few drops of paint trickled out of the bucket onto the stage.

“Careful,” Jules warned, wiping it clean.

“Relax, babe. I know what I’m doing.”

Jules doubted that.

Brady fastened the bucket around the piping on the stage lights with thick black rope to blend in with the curtains, making sure the string held the bucket in place, right on the edge of the beam. He then finished filling the bucket with the paint color of Jules’s choosing. Two cans’ worth: she wanted maximum carnage.

Jules swept her flashlight across the room, the silver decor glimmering back at her. The tables surrounded the dance floor in a U shape, trees of starburst lights arranged in each corner. Even in the dark, the decorations were exquisite. It didn’t even look like the Barn.

“Wow,” Jules muttered, touching one of the place settings, the napkin folded into a fan—something Jules had seen Wendy practice doing with McDonald’s tissues. Her ex-best friend had a magic touch for these sorts of affairs. Leave it to Little Miss Perfectionist to turn shit to gold.

Her jaw clenched as she fought back angry tears. How could Wendy abandon her during her time of need? Jules had been there for her since the second grade; didn’t their friendship mean more to her than helping some stupid girl or impressing her lousy boyfriend? Jules had done more for Wendy over the years than he had. He wasn’t even that great of a boyfriend.

“Babe, I need some more light over here.”

Jules sniffed, unraveling the napkin with a yank, and turned back to the stage. “Are you almost done?”

“Almost,” he mumbled with one final tug of the rope, then shined his flashlight directly down on the stage. “Mark that spot.”

Jules snapped two pieces of white tape where the light hit and made an X.

Brady climbed down and joined Jules on the dance floor, staring up at the stage.

“When it’s time, I want to be there, Brady. I want to see it all.”

“That’s fine, babe. But . . . how do you know she’ll be up there?”

Jules couldn’t tear her eyes away from the thrones. She licked her lips, imagining the scene, how the chaos would all play out. A giggle escaped her. Brady frowned, as if worried she had become unhinged.

“Don’t worry,” she muttered. “I got friends in high places.”





Part Three





Sixteen


MADDY DID IT

EPISODE 9

“Wendy: Part 1”

Michael: Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us.

Wendy Quinn: You said something about having new, never-before-seen evidence or something like that?

Michael [narration]: Aside from Maddy and her father, another key character in the events leading up to Prom Night was Wendy Quinn. Over the years, I’ve reached out to her on multiple occasions, but she frequently changes her address, phone number, and email, citing death threats. Currently, Wendy lives in an undisclosed location out of the country, under a different name. It took a lot of convincing, begging more on my part, for her to join the show.

Michael: Yes! But first, I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.

Wendy: What d’you wanna know?

Michael: Well, we’d love it if you could tell us what you were doing on Prom Night. Several witnesses stated that you were there, at the Barn, but that you weren’t supposed to be.

Wendy: For the fifty thousandth time, I went there to meet my boyfriend, Kenny Scott. We were supposed to go to the after-prom party, and I got there a little early to pick him up. Not a crime. Next question.

Michael: Guess I’ll just cut to the chase. Do you know where Maddy Washington is?

Wendy: Are you kidding? We all know she died in the fires.

Michael: But we don’t know. They never found her body.

Wendy: They didn’t find a lot of bodies. You’re not much of a journalist, are you?

Michael: Okay. What did you do after everything happened?

Wendy: You mean after the explosion? I went home.

Michael: Home?

Wendy: That’s what I said.

Michael: Wendy. The reason why we were so insistent upon interviewing you . . . Well. Okay, so we recently tracked down some CCTV footage of you at a gas pump within a mile of Greenville. Do you remember what you were doing there?

Wendy: Oh. Yeah. I was giving a friend a ride to the Hilton in Greenville. That’s where the after-prom party was supposed to be. Folks wanted to get out of Dodge.

Michael: Was it Maddy?

Wendy: Ha! No. Around that time, Maddy was busy burning down the town.

May 30, 2014

Wendy’s legs were like clamshells, pinching Kenny’s waist as he lay between them. Her lips were thin. Chapped. Her mouth never opened wide enough for him to hungrily kiss her the way he wanted. He felt himself pretending to be satisfied . . . just like at school.

Had it always been like this?

Wendy insisted they spend some time alone, which seemed excessive. Didn’t he already see her at school enough? Weren’t they going to the after-prom together? Kenny wasn’t really in the mood but appeased her. What else could he do? He didn’t want to be that guy.

As he listened to her forced moans and overacting, his thoughts continued to churn—

Were her lips always this dry? Were her hips always this stiff? Were—