“Please, Bryce. I’m sorry. I’msosorry. I had no idea that you or Liv or anyone would be here tonight. Youhaveto believe me.”
“Idon’tbelieve you!” Bryce yelled, and it was true. She didn’t believeanyof it anymore. “I don’t believe you care about anybody but yourself. You think you can just walk around playing detective as though people’s lives aren’t at stake, as though that might bring him back!”
Silence fell with Bryce’s words, and then Thea’s face crumpled with confusion. “Bringwhoback?”
If she’d been in her right mind, Bryce wouldn’t have gone any further. But Liv was missing and Thea wouldn’t listen to anything she said, and she was done holding her tongue. “Your dad. That’s what this isreallyabout, isn’t it? You never got over his death. You wanted so badly to believe that it was some great unsolved mystery, so you play with other people’s deaths as though it might solve his. We’re just your toys. Your way of dealing with grief. You don’t give a shit about us.”
Bryce saw the hurt dance across Thea’s face, but it did nothing to make her feel better.
“Don’t bring him into this. I was doing this foryou. Because you could still be the killer’s next target.”
Scraping her hand across her tear-stricken face, Bryce shook her head and stumbled back onto the path. “I don’t have time for this. I need to find my sister.”
“I’ll help you.”
Bryce didn’t want Thea’s help, but she didn’t have the energy to argue; to think about anything other than the fact that a killer might strike tonight, and her sister was nowhere to be found. And those pictures on the shed…
“Hey!” A voice broke her out of her thoughts as they reached the treeline. Officer Shaw jogged towards them, face twisted with concern. Bryce tried to search for some sign that it was her, that she was the killer, but she found none. She didn’t even look like Roger Morris anymore. Not like she had as a child. “Is everything okay down here? You’re missing the movie.”
“We’re fine,” Thea said, at the same time Bryce muttered, “I can’t find my sister.”
Shaw’s attention snapped to Bryce, and she tried to ignore the way Thea stiffened. Bryce didn’t have a choice. She had to believe Shaw could help. They had no solid proof of anything, and that had to be enough. Otherwise she was on her own, and she wassodamn tired of being on her own.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Ihaven’t, but her friends are up there. They said she went off with some guy named Finn.”
She must have heard the fear in Bryce’s voice, because Shaw softened and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sure she’s fine. I find a lot of teenagers in the old interlocking tower. We can start there.”
That was true. Bryce herself had slept in the old, dusty, signal cabin once or twice as a teen, and plenty of kids still played on the bridge and tracks below.
She followed Shaw across the footbridge. Trailing at her side, Thea cast a look Bryce knew well. The ‘serial killer vibes’ look, all wide eyes and pursed lips. Bryce didn’t want to see it. She just wanted to find Olivia. If Shaw threw her sister off the rusted bridge afterwards, so be it.
The tower was half-eaten by overgrown shrubs now, but the door had been left ajar. Bryce nudged it open with the toe of her boot. She’d been praying the whole way here that she’d find her sister, but when she did, straddling the lap of a teenage boy, only anger ricocheted through her.
“Olivia Grace Nicholls. Do youwantme to haul your ass to a Swiss boarding school?”
“Bryce?” Liv stumbled off the sandy-haired boy Bryce could only assume was Finn, straightening out her bunched sweater breathlessly. They were barely more than silhouettes in the dark.
“I’ll leave you all to it.” Shaw ducked out with a grimace, but Bryce barely noticed.
She didn’t have it in her to scream. She didn’t have it in her to do anything. Liv clearly wasn’t in the business of listening to a word she said. “What part of ‘grounded’ didn’t you understand?”
“Oh, come on, Bryce.” Liv sighed, getting to her feet. Her hair was ruffled untidily, lips swollen and cheeks flushed. “We’ve had curfew for over a week. This is the first time I’ve been out in ages.”
“And I see you used the opportunity wisely.” Bryce scowled at Finn, but even that drained energy she no longer had. “I was worried sick about you. Go back to your friends before I drag you home myself.”
Liv’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “That’s it? No shouting? No lecture?”
“Would you listen if there was?” The question was hollow, as though she’d been wrung out of any emotion, of anything at all. She was cold and exhausted, having worked overtime and double shifts to earn more money to go towards Liv’s tuition. She’d lost her best friend, lost her podcast. Found out someone linked to the murders had been spying on her. It was too much. She could only build a sharply-pointed fence around herself to keep it out, to keep anything from touching her — even Liv. Because if it did, if she thought about it for too long, she would finally break.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. Just go back to the movie, Liv. Please. We’ll talk about it later.”
“Bryce,” Liv pleaded. “Are you okay?”
She wasn’t okay, but Liv didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of it even now. So Bryce nodded, chewing on her bottom lip and gesturing to the bridge. “Just go.”