Two Can Keep a Secret(56)
He would, probably. He’d also stand over me the entire time. “Okay,” I sigh.
Shauna goes to the vanity and plucks a few makeup brushes from a can, dropping them into a half-open leather bag resting on the chair. “I have to get a move on. You caught me on the way out. The evil clowns need touching up at Bloody Big Top.” She zips the bag closed and slings it over her shoulder, crossing to the door and pulling it open. “You wanna come with? Murph might be there.”
“Sure.” I make as if to follow her, then wince and put a hand on my belly. “Ugh. Do you mind if I use the bathroom first? I’ve had kind of a stomach virus all day. I thought it was better, but—”
Shauna waves me away. “Just meet me there. Make sure the door locks behind you.”
“Thanks.” I dash toward the tiny restroom for effect, but she’s already out the door. As soon as I hear it click, I pull two paper clips out of my pocket and head for the office.
I’ve never tried to pick a lock before. But I took Vance’s advice, and I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos in the past twenty-four hours.
“You took it all?” Ezra stares at me as I empty a trash bag’s worth of paper onto Mia’s bedroom floor.
“Well, how was I supposed to know what’s important and what isn’t? I couldn’t sit there on the floor and sift through it. Anybody might’ve walked in.”
Malcolm eyes the pile. “At least we know they haven’t emptied it in a while.”
Mia plops down cross-legged on the floor and scoops up a handful of paper. “What are we even looking for?” she mutters. “This is some kind of invoice. This looks like an envelope for an electric bill.” She makes a face. “We’re gonna be here for a while.”
The four of us sit in a circle around the pile and start sifting through its contents. My pulse has slowed since I left the House of Horrors, but it’s still jumping. I checked the office thoroughly and didn’t see any security cameras, but I know they’re all over the park. It’s entirely possible that someone’s staring at footage of me hauling a garbage bag through Fright Farm right now. Which, okay, could easily be the sort of thing an employee would do in the normal course of business. But it could also look weird, and I wasn’t exactly subtle about it. I didn’t even wear a baseball cap or pull my hair back.
So I hope it’s worth it.
We’re silent for almost fifteen minutes until Malcolm, who’s sprawled next to me, clears his throat. “The police want to look at my phone.”
Mia freezes, a scrap of paper dangling from her fingers. “What?”
We’re all staring at him, but he doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “Officer McNulty said that with Brooke still missing, they need to dig a little deeper. I didn’t know what to do. Peter was … kind of great, actually. He managed to get across the point that they shouldn’t be asking for access to my personal stuff without a warrant while still sounding totally helpful. Officer McNulty ended up apologizing to him.”
“So they didn’t do it?” I ask, placing another invoice on our reject pile. That’s all we’ve found so far: invoices for food, maintenance, supplies, and the like. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it takes a huge amount of fake blood to keep a Halloween theme park running.
“Not yet,” Malcolm says grimly. He finally looks up, and I’m struck by how dull his eyes are. “They won’t find anything about Brooke if they do. Other than that text from Katrin telling me I should invite her to homecoming, which could go either way. But there are a bunch of texts between me and Declan and … I don’t know. After that article yesterday, I’d rather not get scrutinized like that.” He tosses aside a sheet of paper with a frustrated grunt. “Everything looks bad when you examine it too closely, right?”
Thursday’s Burlington Free Press article rehashed the past five years of Declan’s life, from the time Lacey died to his recent move to Solsbury, sprinkled with occasional references to the unnamed younger brother who was a key witness in Brooke’s disappearance. It was the sort of article Viv might have written—no actual news, but lots of speculation and innuendo.
Last night, I sat in my room in front of my bookshelf full of true-crime novels and made a timeline of everything I could think of related to the three missing girls and Echo Ridge:
October 1996: Sadie & Vance are crowned homecoming queen/king
October 1996: Sarah disappears while Sadie is with Vance
June 1997: Sadie leaves Echo Ridge
August 2001: Sadie returns for Grandpa’s funeral
June 2014: Lacey’s junior class picnic with Declan, Daisy & Ryan
August 2014: Declan and Daisy get together—Lacey has a secret boyfriend?
October 2014: Lacey and Declan are crowned homecoming queen/king
October 2014: Lacey is killed at Murderland (Fright Farm)
October 2014: Sadie returns for Lacey’s funeral
June 2015: Daisy & Declan graduate, leave Echo Ridge (separately?)
July 2019: Daisy returns to Echo Ridge
August 2019: Daisy gives Lacey’s bracelet to Ryan Rodriguez
August 30, 2019: Ellery & Ezra move to Echo Ridge
September (or August??) 2019: Declan returns to Echo Ridge
September 4, 2019: Anonymous homecoming threats start