Of the Trees(52)



What bothered her even more than that though, was why she hadn’t recognized any of them sooner. She had seen Corey at the carnival! She had seen Aidan and had been glared at by Jude. How did she not see that these were the same men?

And they were men. Young as Corey looked, he was an adult. No teenager could travel a carnival route, working weekends and transporting broken down rides from little town to little town. Aidan was relentless and aggressive. His actions toward Cassie alone, his confidence as he let his hands rove her body, spoke of experience that was beyond any teenager Cassie knew. There was no question that Jude, Judoc, or whatever his real name was, was an adult. A menacing, vicious adult. At the very least, he abandoned Jessica somewhere drunk, essentially letting something dangerous and lethal happen to her. At the worst, he killed her himself.

But none of that—realizing that Laney had lied to her, figuring out that they weren’t students at the high school in the next town over, knowing they worked the carnie circuit, probably cutting back to their town to prey on susceptible, willing girls like Laney and Jessica—none of that explained why Cassie hadn’t recognized them immediately. There had been something, some flash, some displacement of their features, like a flame to wax, slowly shifting and molding and melting. Cassie had seen it, but she had been drinking and then the voices, whispers in the night, pounded into her brain, erased everything and replaced it with the urgency to go. Go and run and leave the carnies and the woods and the pushy, grabby hands far behind her.

“They looked too old to be students,” Rebecca said with a flippancy that suggested it didn’t matter, that she hadn’t been fooled by them from the beginning.

“Well, Corey didn’t,” Cassie said. She pushed her plate away, giving up on any pretense that she was hungry. “And Aidan.”

“That guy that was staring at you?” Rebecca asked. She brought her gaze from the window and directed it straight at Cassie. “He was solidly in his twenties. He had to be. Even in that picture—”

Cassie cringed in her seat, pursing her lips to hold back a groan. That picture. She hadn’t seen it yet. For anyone to have even bothered to show it to Rebecca, it must have been awful.

“I mean, c’mon, Cass! Have you seen the picture Jon took? It’s pretty, well,” she trailed off, her hand waving about in a vague circle. Cassie wasn’t sure she even wanted to see the picture the rest of the school was talking about. She wasn’t even sure when it was taken. Suddenly, she wondered if the police had seen it. They would question everyone who was there that night, wouldn’t they? If the police knew about it, would her parents? It was hard to keep anything from her father, especially since students were gossiping around him all day. Hopefully, he wouldn’t pick up on it.

Although, maybe the police should examine the picture. They’d have a photograph of Aidan then, something solid on which to start to build a case and look for Jude. He wouldn’t be found at St. Paul’s; of that she was certain. But if they took the picture to the carnival and possibly got a full name for the man last seen with Jessica, that could help.

“Could you, I mean in the picture, could you see his face?” Cassie asked, hope flaring. Rebecca frowned and then shook her head.

“Not really, it was kind of from the back. He’s got a broad back. That’s what I mean, he looks so much older than you, even from behind. You could see his hands pretty clearly. Well the one really, the other was … ” Rebecca cleared her throat, regarding Cassie from across the table.

“You might as well tell me,” Cassie said, slumping into the booth. “I think I’m the only person in the school who hasn’t seen it.”

“To be fair, I’m pretty sure the janitor hasn’t.” Cassie glared at Rebecca from across the table, and she put her hands up in a gesture of surrender, a small smile playing on her lips. She cleared her throat, and the smile died.

“Hands?” Cassie asked, directing the conversation back.

“I could see the one hand clearly, on your chest,” Rebecca said, her gaze wavering between Cassie and the window. “The other was on your leg, kinda high up. Your dress was covering it.”

“Right,” Cassie said. She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, the panic she had felt that night overtaking her again. Her chest felt tight and all too clearly she could feel his hands again, warm and firm and demanding. She coughed and slid her palms down her thighs, pressing tightly in an attempt to wipe his touch from her skin. It felt engrained there. “But you couldn’t see his face?”

Rebecca shook her head. “Just yours. You looked … ”

“Oh, just lovely, I’m sure,” Cassie said with a snort. Rebecca offered a wry smile.

“I was going to say happy.”

Cassie let out a short laugh. “Well, I wasn’t,” she murmured.

“Don’t let them get to you,” Rebecca suggested, her tone striving for lightness but just missing the mark. Cassie appreciated the effort anyway.

“I won’t,” she said. “After all, there’s worse—”

Cassie stopped. The air in the restaurant seemed to stop. The noise of the hikers roared loud in comparison. Of course, there were worse things that could have happened. They had happened. To Jessica Evans. And, by extension, to Rebecca herself.

Cassie took out her wallet and threw a couple bills on the table. They walked out in silence, not even bothering to answer the waitress as she waved take-out containers at them.

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