Tasha sighed and twanged a hair tie against her wrist with trembling fingers. “I think she went off somewhere with Finn.”
It took everything in Bryce not to erupt. “Where?”
“I don’t know. This is his car so they can’t be that far away.”
Bryce’s fingers flexed with irritation as she wandered away. The place was open, so if Liv was anywhere close, Bryce would have seen her by now. She returned to the front of the lot, where Dina manned a hot dog stall and popcorn machine. “Everything okay, sweet? You hungry?”
“Have you seen my sister around?”
“Not since the movie started.” Dina grimaced apologetically. “She in trouble again?”
“Oh, she has no idea. Thanks, Dina.”
Bryce continued to search high and low for a familiar head of brown curls but found no sign of Liv. As she made her way to the back of the lot again, though, shedidfind Mikey’s familiar Chevy — and froze. He and Thea were visible through the windshield; both of them had already noticed her.
Before Bryce’s knees could buckle from the pain of seeing them here together without her, Bryce turned around to head back the way she’d come. Before she could get too far, the sound of a car door swinging open echoed over Audrey Hepburn’s softly spoken monologue, and then her name was called.
“Bryce!”
Footsteps squelched their way towards her. Bryce inhaled through tight lungs before whipping back around on her heel. Only Thea had followed; Mikey still sat in his car, pretending that he wasn’t watching them through his open window.
“Have you seen my sister?”
Thea’s face paled, and it sent a disorienting shiver down Bryce’s spine. “Liv is here?”
“Have you seen her or not?”
She seemed to grapple with something, mouth opening and then shutting as her eyes darted around. “No. But she shouldn’t be here, Bryce.”
“Yeah, no shit. She’s grounded — for life, now.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Her severe tone caused Bryce to falter, and her eyes snapped unwillingly back to Thea. It was hard to look at her after the fight. Hard not to miss her, to wish she could reach out and tighten the scrunchie falling loose from her hair. Harder still because Thea looked as though she was going to throw up on Bryce’s boots.
Oh, God.If she was here tonight because of something to do with the killer…
“Then whatdoyou mean?” Bryce could barely spit the quivering question out, too afraid of what the answer might be.
Thea played with the button on her dungarees. Her pastel nail polish was chipped and faded, fingers pale and shaking. She never usually left her nails untidy, not like Bryce did. That knowledge alone filled her with dread.
“I didn’t know there was a drive-in tonight.I swear,I didn’t know.”
“What have you done?” Bryce could barely hear her voice through the pounding in her own ears.
“We put out the podcast this week. We thought that maybe we could catch Shaw that way, like we planned.”
Likeyouplanned, Bryce would’ve accused, had she not been drowning in an icy wave of panic. Panic and piercing anger. “You were hoping to lure a killer here? To a drive-in? Where half the town,including kids,are?”
“No!”Thea’s brows furrowed desperately. “No, Itoldyou I didn’t know about the drive-in. The podcast was about the Railway Murders. We’ve been trailing Shaw all week, waiting for her to strike. She came here tonight. We think maybe… it might happen.”
Bryce had glimpsed Shaw in her blue uniform earlier, and had looked the other way. If she was here, she was here on duty, not to kill someone.
If Bryce responded to Thea, she was worried she might explode, so she marched away before it happened. She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that Thea had chosen to throw away their friendship to find the damn killer. Nothing mattered to her but murder and crime. Nothing. Not even Bryce.
Thea followed at her heels as she strode further away from the cars, towards the copse of trees that fringed the field. They were swathed in shadows now, the sky an angry ripple of purple as twilight fell.
Cold hands found Bryce’s arm, tightening to try to get her to stop. Bryce snatched it away, lips curling in disgust, in fear, in heartbreak. Her best friend had done this. The woman she loved, trusted, more than anybody. The woman she would willingly choose to spend her life with had she not been working herself to the bone for her sister.