Snow Creek(61)

“She’s got a knife!”

Ellie has thrown herself on me like a missile. I’m face down in the dirt and she’s wielding a blade against my neck.

“Make a move and this will go through your throat,” she says, coolly, a tone that suggests she means it. Maybe even had done it before. She’s fishing for the keys to the handcuffs, but they are in my front pocket and I’m flat to the ground. Her hot breath rakes against me, her fingers like a hundred spiders searching my body.

“You don’t want to do this, Ellie,” Sheriff pleads.

Her eyes dart away from me to him.

“You have no idea what I want to do.”

She presses the knife against my throat and speaks to Joshua.

“You did good,” she says.

I’m gasping for air in the dirt and feeling as stupid as I’ve ever felt in my life.

Despite the seriousness of Joshua’s injury, it’s a set-up. She used Joshua as bait. And we fell for it.

We should have known.

I should have known.

Blood from Joshua’s wound puddles.

“We know you are Ellie Burbank,” I say. “By this time tomorrow, everyone will know your face and your name. So stop. Stop now. Stop before you lose everything.”

Ellie seethes. “You stupid bitch. I’d rather have the nothing I have now than anything I’d ever had before. I don’t care about anything that people like you think is precious. Even freedom.”

She finally locates the key.

“Get up, Josh. Get over here.”

He slithers in the dirt, making guttural sounds.

She twists to give him the key, and I know it’s my chance and I make a rookie move.

I grab at the knife. Stupid. My hand is cut, and I yell out in pain. I turn myself over with such ferocity that it pushes her up and over to Joshua, who lets out a gurgled scream.

And then, a staccato, guttural, “I didn’t kill her.”

Ellie slides off of Joshua. Her eyes appear frozen and empty.

“He raped me,” she cries. “He kept me prisoner. I thought he was a good guy. He’s a monster.”

I know who the monster is.

She’s young. Pretty. Evil.

“Nice try,” I say as Sheriff and the other officers converge around us, the blood oozing from my hand and Joshua’s body turning the dust into a red mud.

Sheriff, panic in his eyes, pulls me away and immediately stems the bleeding with a Miller Highlife graphic T found in the barn.

And as he does, I look down at Joshua.

He’s alive.

“Someone stop his bleeding,” I say.



The first ambulance roars away, its sirens and flashing red and white lights amplifying the horror of the scene as it careens toward the hospital.

I sit on the back of the second ambulance. I’m at once embarrassed and proud. I know I did good investigative work. My failure was in letting my guard down. I watch Mindy lead the others collecting evidence, securing the scene. They walk with precision, avoiding any area that might reveal additional evidence.

Sheriff pours some hot coffee from a thermos into a paper cup. I hold the cup in my now bandaged hand. I don’t need a cardboard sleeve to protect me from the heat. That’s about the only thing good about my injury.

“He’s going to make it,” he says.

“Good,” I answer. “Dying would be the easy way out.”

He knows my comment is about justice, not a bitter statement—a comment born of my own background.

“How are you, Megan?”

“Okay. Just thinking.”

“What about?”

I down the coffee. It tastes good and I know I need a boost of caffeine. I refused pain meds because I want to be here in this moment. Right now. The girl on the portrait posed with her brother is on my mind.

“Sarah Wheaton,” I say. “We need to find her.”

“Or her body?” he asks.

I study the car holding Ellie from my ambulance perch.

“Right. There was a third party’s blood, a female, on the evidence we processed. Joshua said he didn’t kill her. Was that her, Sarah?”

“All good questions,” he says.

I get up. “Excuse me, Sheriff.”

I walk over to the cruiser transporting Ellie for processing at the Jefferson County Jail. I tap on the window and ask the officer if I can have a minute or two with her.

“Alone.”

He tries to dissuade me from what he considers a dangerous situation.

“She tried to kill you.”

I want to tell him others have too, but I don’t. It would only add speculation from some of my peers that I come from a fucked-up situation. No parents. No family. Car wreck? Murder–suicide? I’ve heard the gossip.

And I know they couldn’t even imagine.

“But she failed,” I say instead. “Just a few minutes, okay?”

He gets out and I slide into the driver’s seat. I look at her only through the rearview mirror. Her face is a grid through the steel mesh that separates us. She doesn’t acknowledge my presence.

I pull the phone from my pocket and turn it on. Without turning around, I hold it so the screen faces her. The wallpaper is a picture of Joshua. Most of his face is hidden by the small tiles of her collection of apps. Near the center left of the screen is the unmistakable “M” from the beer logo shirt he wore the first day we were out here.