Bryce couldn’t find anybody to help. She spent ten minutes looking for Officer Shaw or an off-duty doctor, anybody who would know what to do, before her fear of leaving Thea alone left her so breathless that spots danced across her vision, and with a final glance across the lot, where everyone still sat watching the show — including her sister and Mikey, thank heavens — she returned to the railway tracks on unsteady feet.
Her heart plummeted to her stomach when she found neither the body nor Thea anywhere on the tracks. Only a smear of blood remained, and she selfishly prayed it wasn’t Thea’s.
“Thea?” Bryce shouted, panic simmering in her voice as she searched the shadows desperately.“Thea!”
“Bryce!” The muffled response wasn’t that far away, but Thea’s voice sounded mangled and wrong and it only added to Bryce’s all-consuming fear. It seemed to drift from somewhere over her shoulder, and she whipped around, eyeing the bushes and fringe of woods for Thea’s pale face. She found it by the green metal of the bridge’s beams, streaked with tears and covered by a sickly white hand.
Its owner stood above Thea, silencing her by clutching her body tightly to theirs. Bryce’s heart stuttered when she saw that the other hand clutched a silver blade against Thea’s throat. It winked wickedly in the broken moonlight.
And the person holding her, the person hurting her…
“It wasyou.”Bryce’s voice was serrated from the screams that had already left her throat. “It wasallyou.”
“It was me.” Peter stepped forward, dragging Thea with him. Sweat matted his dirty blond hair to his forehead, and something wrong, something inhuman, twinkled in his pale eyes. “Surprise, Bryce.”
She caught another silhouetted, motionless body twisted in the underbrush beside the tracks, but Bryce couldn’t make out who it was from here. She couldn’t focus on anything but Thea’s teary, fear-filled eyes and the sharp knife at her neck.
“Why?” Her voice broke with the question. Peter had been irritating and persistent and a little too eager to get Bryce’s attention, but he had never been…this.Threatening. Murderous.Evil.She’d never thought him capable of it. Of harming somebody. Killing them. She vaguely recalled him refusing to step on a spider in the arcade’s cafeteria once.
“You wouldn’t notice me any other way,” he shrugged, as though it was all casual conversation. “I knew this would make you happy.”
Acid rose in her throat at that, her face twisting with disgust. “Most men buy women flowers or chocolates when they want to be noticed, Peter. They don’tkillpeople.”
“Well, I’m not most men,” he sniffed, “and you’re not most women. You’reintothis, aren’t you? C’mon, Bryce. I’ve heard the podcasts. Youloveit.”
“You’re sick,” she spat. “Let Thea go.”
“So you can leave me forher?”He was unhinged… Bryce saw it not just in his words, but the way he looked at her — a predator hell-bent on hunting its prey. His eyes kept her locked in place, saucer-like pupils turning them near-black.
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She had no idea how either of them were going to get out of this. It was clear enough that Peter wasn’t about to listen to reason.
“No. No, justpleaselet her go.”
“How about a compromise, Bryce?” He kicked Thea to the floor with a grimy boot, eliciting a shrill whimper from her. Bryce winced against it.No. Bryce had just gotten Thea back. She wouldn’t let him hurt her. “I’ll save her until last. You can watch me end Morris, first. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Peter stepped backwards as he spoke, reaching down to pull the other body up by a fistful of their navy shirt. Bryce winced when she got a good look at Sara Shaw. Her eyes were hooded and her posture limp as though she was only half-conscious.
“Wait,” Bryce begged when the knife found Shaw’s collarbone, as she choked back a distorted sob. Bryce had to keep him talking,hadto keep him distracted. “Wait. Tell mewhy,first. I want to know why.”
“Why?” Peter cocked his head, gritted his teeth, as though the question fuelled him with rage. How unreasonable of Bryce to ask.
“Yes. Why?” Uninvited tears splashed across Bryce’s cheeks. She couldn’t look at Thea, still kneeling halfway in the bushes. She would break if she did.
“I’m disappointed, Bryce,” he sighed. “But it’s okay. I’ll clue you in. Sara here is Roger Morris’s daughter. I thought you’d figured that out after you found my little hideout.”
He’d known. He’d known Bryce had been in there, seen his secrets. Even then, he’d been watching her somehow. Waiting to strike. Waiting for this. “And what has Roger Morris got to do with any of this?”
“The son of a bitch killed my mother.” Peter’s shoulders squared with a sudden, unexpected, fiery fury, and Bryce’s breath caught in her throat. She had been so focused on Morris and Shaw, she hadn’t even looked at the names of his victims. “When I found out his daughter still lived, I wanted payback.”
“But you started with Isaac Harmer.Why?”
“It was punishment. Harmer was completely incompetent at his job. He waited until it was too late to catch Morris. Heworkedwith the guy and still didn’t realize it was him. My mom was dead and buried by the time he finally put Morris behind bars.”
“Okay,” she nodded, trapping down any defence for Isaac she wanted to let out. She didn’t know enough about Morris’s case to argue. “What about George Hegarty? What didhehave to do with it?”
“Nothing. He was just convenient. A new victim to get your attention.” Peter’s nose began to run, and he wiped it with his sleeve like a toddler who hadn’t discovered hankies yet. The knife glinted with the movement, a stark reminder against the night’s blackness. “I saw him looking at you in the Bloody Mary, and he was easy enough to get to.”
It made no sense — but then, killers didn’t make sense. Not to anyone but themselves. Bryce had long since learned that. Whatever Peter’s obsession with Bryce had become, it had clouded everything. It made her sick that, in some twisted way, it had been forher.As if she couldeverwant this.