Eight
Thea and Mikey had followed Officer Shaw wherever they could since the podcast had gone live on Wednesday morning. It felt as though they were on a stakeout, their days spent sitting in Mikey’s car and snacking on Dina’s cheese fries while they waited for something to happen; waited for Shaw — or Sara Morris — to scout out her next victim.
Bryce still hadn’t reached out, but Thea knew her work schedule and took time out of Shaw-spying, as Mikey called it, to make sure she always got to and from the arcade safely. It was still more than likely that Bryce was next on the list, and Thea wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.
By Friday, Thea was jittery, restless, and completely unsure of herself. They hadn’t observed anything suspicious or even remotely interesting, her legs were constantly cramping from sitting all day, and she was sick of listening to the same three droning Smiths albums — the only CDs Mikey owned. Shaw didn’t start work until noon, and they followed her on her usual patrol around Stone Grange, where she did nothing save for reprimanding a truant high school student smoking pot in the park and an old drunk for urinating in the bushes outside the Bloody Mary.
Things changed that evening, when the sky was a glowing amber and the analog clock on Mikey’s dashboard ticked to eight-thirty. Shaw led them in a snaking pattern right through town, towards Dina’s Diner. The railway line just so happened to be in the same direction, and Thea’s heart thundered the closer they got.
But they didn’t end up as far as the tracks. In fact, they rolled to a stop just before them, in the huge field behind Dina’s, along with fifty or so other cars parked in crooked rows. Dina stood at the front of the line, handing out tickets and popcorn. A plain white square was projected on the diner’s brick wall behind her.
“Crap,” Thea cursed as realization set in. “There’s a drive-in tonight. I didn’t even know.”
Mikey shook his head with equal cluelessness as he parked and shut off the engine. His knuckles whitened against the steering wheel. Ahead of them, Shaw had rolled to a stop, too. She’d probably been sent here to patrol in case things got rowdy. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
It seemed they’d been led on a wild goose chase just to watchBreakfast at Tiffany’s.
“What now?”
Thea scanned the lot, focus falling on the thin veil of trees that curtained the field from the old railroad tracks. The weight of what she’d done clawed at her all at once, and she squeezed her eyes shut against it.
“Mikey,” she breathed shakily.
“What?”
She could barely muster the courage to look at him. “Half of the town is here… in the place where we told the killer to come. If she strikes tonight, we’ve baited her into an entire pool of potential victims…
“We’ve just puteverybodyin Stone Grange in danger.”
* * *
Bryce had thought that after the conversation she’d had with her last week, Liv was done breaking Bryce’s rules, so when Bryce came home to an empty house and a note written in pencil that read, ‘Gone to the drive-in with Tasha, don’t wait up!’ pinned to the fridge by a magnet, she was less than impressed.
Never mind the fact that Liv was supposed to be grounded after the stunt she’d pulled only a few weekends ago, there was also the fact that a homicidal maniac may or may not’ve still been terrorizing the town. Still haunted by the shed and all she had discovered in it, Bryce had no idea if she believed Jace’s guilt or not, but either way, her sister going out just before dark didn’t sit well in her stomach, and Bryce ripped the note from the fridge vehemently before setting out to the diner on her bike.
By the time she’d pedalled into the rolling fields, where a colony of cars had flattened the damp grass and left muddy tire tracks in their wake, Bryce was soaked in sweat and her legs were throbbing. Audrey Hepburn’s glamorous features flitted across the brickwork of Dina’s Diner in black and white, and if Bryce hadn’t been so riled up, she might have been sitting here, too, with Thea and Mikey, gushing over her beauty.
But that part of her life was over. Other than a few texts, Thea hadn’t bothered to make things right, and Bryce had woken on Wednesday to find a new episode ofPerfect Crimesavailable, despite the fact that it had torn their friendship apart.
So, after sending an apologetic glance towards Dina for turning up on a bicycle rather than a car, and for not purchasing a ticket, either, Bryce searched the rows upon rows of vehicles desperately. She ignored the frustrated requests for her to move as she paced each aisle, breathless and not quite sure why she was so frenzied when the rest of the town already appeared to have forgotten the three recent murders.
“Bryce!” a deep, non-Liv voice called. She turned to find Peter throwing a handful of popcorn in the air and catching one lonely kernel as he leaned against his car. “Want to join me?”
Bryce shook her head. “Have you seen my sister?”
He frowned, scratching his head. “No, sorry. Is everything okay?”
“Just let me know if you see her.”
Bryce continued the search without waiting for a response and found a familiar face halfway down the lot: the blonde-haired girl, Tasha, who’d slept over in Liv’s bed a few times. She lounged on the hood of a beaten Ford Focus with two other girls Bryce somehow knew — probably because they’d brought beer into the damn house the night she’d had blown up.
“Hey, Bryce.” Tasha waved gingerly when she saw Bryce approaching, face tinged green with dread.
“Where’s my sister?” Bryce demanded, peering through the car’s windows to see if Liv was hiding inside. Aside from McDonald’s cartons and Dorito bags, it was empty.
“She went to get snacks, I think.” The answer was weak, and Bryce crossed her arms over her chest.
“You already seem to have plenty of snacks. Take it from me: If you’re going to go the teen rebel route, you need to learn how to lie better.”