“Call your mother and tell her you’re safe,” I said.
My hands shook as I put the key in the ignition. An adrenaline dump from the heights panic and the following drama had left me feeling shaky and wired.
“There still aren’t any bars,” Seth said.
I turned to him without starting the engine.
“Seth, what happened? How did you get up there with Bea Paxton?”
He hung his head and didn’t look at me.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms. “I’ve got time.”
“Mac said we should go straight to the station,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes even though he wasn’t looking at me.
“Okay. Mrs. Paxton came to the house and told me that Faith and Skye were at the mall. She said she’d drop me off there on her way to the church.”
“Had you heard from Skye or Faith?”
He nodded. “I’d gotten a text just a few minutes before she showed up, but now I know that she’d taken Faith’s phone. She made me write a note—did you get it?”
“Yeah, that’s when I got suspicious,” I said.
He clenched his fists on his knees. “Anyway, she claimed her phone battery was dead and asked to see mine. Then she took it! She started lecturing me about Faith and how we were too young to be dating. Which we are absolutely not. Dating, I mean.” Seth glanced at me from beneath his bangs. “We drove around for a while looking for Faith. Mrs. Paxton was furious that she couldn’t find her. And before I knew it we were here.”
“How did she get you into the church?”
“She started saying crazy things about how Faith talks too much and now we’re both in trouble and she pulled out a gun. I didn’t know what to do so I went into the church with her.” Seth had started shivering and I reached out to put an arm around him.
I turned on the engine and cranked up the heat.
“What did she mean, about Faith?”
Seth sighed. “Faith found a bottle of cold-pressed peanut oil in the back of the pantry. She’s allergic to peanuts, just like Rafe was. She convinced herself that her mother was going to kill her because she was getting bad grades this term.”
“What?”
Seth nodded. “I know, it’s nuts. But that house is sketchy. Mrs. Paxton is always quoting the Bible and telling Faith that she better not turn out like Skye. The dad gets mad if he sees her even looking at a boy and won’t let her go to any school dances or games.”
I had to bring this story back around. “So, Mrs. Paxton thought you knew what the oil meant?”
Seth shrugged. “I guess. I told Faith in a text that it was probably cold-pressed oil that killed Rafe and then Faith went off on how her mother is probably a murderer. It was all on her phone. Mrs. Paxton told me she checks Faith’s phone whenever she can and she found all those messages.”
I had heard enough to piece the rest together. I put the Jeep in gear and pulled out onto the highway to head to Crystal Haven.
When we were a couple of miles outside of the city limits, my phone started buzzing and vibrating on the dash. Seth said there were forty unread texts, most from Vi, but a few from Grace.
Seth called Grace. The rain had settled into a steady mist and I listened to Seth reassuring his mother over the sound of the beating windshield wipers.
He checked the texts on my phone, which were more and more frantic pleas for information about Seth’s and my safety.
We pulled up in front of the police station and my chest squeezed at the sight of the orange smart car parked outside. I went around to the lot and parked. Seth and I both took a moment to steel ourselves.
I had never seen the police station so packed. It seemed the whole town was there.
Vi rushed over to us before we even got in the door and inspected Seth for injury. Mom burst into tears and hugged us both. Dad stood awkwardly to the side, waiting for her to release us. Diana, Dylan, and Alex were there, lobbing questions in our direction.
Mac appeared with a bullhorn. He set off the alarm button and the noise stopped all conversation. Once he had everyone’s attention, he directed Seth and me toward the interview rooms and the rest he sent away, grumbling and protesting.
It took a couple of hours to sort out exactly what had happened. Faith had discovered her phone was missing and panicked at the thought that her mother had read all the messages she sent to Seth. The landline wasn’t working, no one was home in her immediate neighborhood, and by the time she found someone who would let her use their phone, Skye was at the police station.
The girls and Mac quickly figured out what must have happened and tried to reach Seth and then me. Grace got nervous when she couldn’t reach me and called my family, who called Tom, and the address to the church was passed along.