All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(44)

“That is adorable.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Please.”

“Are you going to hold hands?”

“What do I have to say to make this conversation stop?”

She laughed a bright, tinkling laugh. “I guess I’ll watch the rest of this footage by myself. A boring night, all alone, while you and your lover go to a party.”

“My what?” I coughed.

“Oh nothing. Um, Vie?”

“Yeah?”

“Austin might get a little . . . worried if he sees you wearing a shirt soaked in blood. He was upset when I told him about the cut on your hand. Really upset. Like, I don’t want to be in the same state if he finds out you got beat up by Lawayne’s thug.”

“Damn it.” I glanced at the oval stain under my arm. “It’s not that noticeable.”

“Um.”

“Damn it.”

“Hold on.” Becca darted out of the room and returned with a chunk gray cardigan. “It’s my brother’s. He’s at school, so he’ll never know. Just try not to get cut or stabbed or burned alive while you’re wearing it.”

“Noted.” I shrugged on the cardigan, and Becca buttoned it.

“You look darling.”

“Dear God.” Worried she might have more to say on the subject, I concentrated on the security camera recordings. “We’ve got fifteen minutes. Let’s make them count.”

“We can’t watch it too fast,” Becca said. “We might miss him.”

“But we can skip ahead a little. We need to know what happened after he was at Bighorn Burger. Did he go back to the bus station? Did he get on the bus really early and just wait for it to leave? Did he catch a different bus?”

“Vie, he called me screaming. He didn’t get on a bus.”

“We still need to make sure. What time were you supposed to meet him?”

“9:30.”

“And what time did you get to the bus station?”

“9:15. I know, it was too early. But I was excited and I thought maybe he’d be there, we’d have some extra time together.”

“So let’s go backward from 9:15.” I hesitated. “Can you make it go backward?”

“Do I really have to answer that?”

She clicked something, and then something else, and then another thing, and on and on until all of the sudden the timestamp read 21:15 and the counter began to run backwards. People shifted, moving in reverse with oddly jerky motions. 21:11, 21:08, 21:03. My breath hitched, and the walls of Becca’s bedroom started to close in on me.

“Stop,” I said. “Go forward.”

Becca glanced at me, but whatever she saw on my face silenced her. She clicked, and the footage began to roll forward. This time, her breath caught too. “That’s River, but—”

“One more time.”

With one finger, I traced two figures as they approached River at the bus station. One was a girl from school: excessively thin, with stiletto heels and her hair piled on top of her head in curls, she looked like the constant Wyoming wind was going to pick her up and tumble her halfway across the state.

“That’s Hailey Van Hoyt,” Becca said. “But who’s the guy with her?”

His face never showed on the camera, but he wore a leather jacket, and a pair of gray chinos stretched over the lean muscles in his legs. He could have been anyone, but he wasn’t anyone. I recognized that spiky brown hair, I recognized that strut, I recognized the slow trickle of lightning down my chest.

“That,” I said, “is Emmett Bradley.”





Becca stared at the grainy color footage. “That’s Emmett Bradley? You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“What is he doing at the bus station with Hailey Van Hoyt? And why are they talking to River?”

I reached over and clicked the mouse, and the footage advanced again. “More importantly, why are they leaving with River?”

“This is insane. Emmett’s like, I don’t know, practically a recluse. He doesn’t hang out with anyone.”

“That used to be true,” I said. “When everyone thought he’d killed Makayla. But now he’s innocent. And he’s rich. And he’s—”

“Hot?”

“Decent looking,” I lied. “And he’s—”

“Someone special to you.”

“Quit doing that. I was going to say he’s back to being popular. He’s been dating Hailey for a couple weeks now.” I wanted to add that he’d been dating her ever since he caught Austin kissing me, ever since he’d gotten so angry with me that he refused to speak to me. But nobody knew that, not even Austin, and I wasn’t going to start by telling Becca. I thought again about what Remy had said, about the underage kids and the fight at Jigger Boss. “Emmett has a fake ID.”

“Everyone has a fake ID except losers.” Then she saw my face. “Oh. And you. I meant everyone except losers and you.”

“Good save.”

“Emmett is the last person we know who saw River alive. I’m going to talk to him and see what happened.”

“You think he’ll tell you?”