“Okay, let’s try this. Let’s forget how you should feel or shouldn’t feel. Why don’t you just tell me exactly what you’re feeling and thinking right now?”
“It’s not…” Harper swallowed hard, planning to dismiss Daniel’s question, but then she changed her mind. “I can’t stop thinking about his face when we found him. He had a maggot crawling on his lip.” Unconsciously, she ran a finger over her own lips. “Those were lips that I’d kissed.
“And I can’t get the way the bodies smelled out of my nose. No matter how much I shower or how much perfume I spray, I can’t stop smelling it.” Her voice got thick, and her eyes welled with tears.
“It’s his lips and face I keep picturing, but his body was all torn up.” She gestured to her own torso. “He’d been ripped open and … I just keep thinking how scared he had to be.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “He had to be terrified when that happened. They all did.”
Daniel got up from the table and walked over to her. He stood in front of her and put his hands on her arms, but she wouldn’t look at him. She stared off at a point on the floor, crying.
“We saw him that day,” Harper went on. “The day he disappeared, at the picnic. And I just keep thinking, if I’d invited him to hang out with us, he’d still be alive. When I saw him, I was upset because everything was so awkward between us now. And he was a nice guy! If I’d just…”
She started sobbing then, her words getting drowned out by her tears. Daniel took the coffee mug from her hands and set it on the counter behind her. Then he reached out, and, almost tentatively, pulled her into his arms, hugging her.
“It’s not your fault,” Daniel told her as she cried into his shoulder. “You can’t save everybody, Harper.”
“Why not?” she asked, her words muffled.
“It’s just the way the world works.”
Harper allowed herself to cry for a little bit longer, feeling both grateful and ashamed at having Daniel’s arms around her. When she’d calmed down enough, she pulled away from him and wiped her eyes. He retracted his arms, but he stayed right in front of her, in case she needed him.
“Sorry,” she said, pressing her palms to her cheeks to dry the tears.
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
“Well, you have no reason to be sorry. You’re not being a total freak.”
“Neither are you.” He brushed a lock back from her forehead, and she let him, but she wouldn’t look up at him.
“And I know you’re right. I mean, that it’s not my fault.” She sniffled. “But I just can’t stop thinking about that day at the picnic. I mean, we saw him that afternoon, and he went missing that night. If I’d just said, Hey, why don’t you hang out with us? instead of letting him go off with that girl…”
“You can’t beat yourself up like that. There’s no way you could’ve known.”
“Yes, I should’ve.” Her eyes widened as she realized something, and she looked up at him. “The last time I saw Luke alive, he was going off with Lexi.”
“Who’s Lexi?” Daniel asked.
“One of those really pretty, creepy girls.”
“So he left the picnic with this Lexi girl, and then disappeared?” Daniel asked. “Did you tell the cops that?”
“No, I mean, yes.” She shook her head. “I told them what I knew, but that didn’t seem very important. He went home after the picnic and had supper with his parents. It’s after that that he left, then went missing. But he did go off with Lexi, for a little while.”
“You think that Lexi and Penn and that other girl are somehow involved with the murders? That’s what you’re suggesting?”
“I don’t know,” Harper said, then changed her mind. “Yes. I do. I think they’re connected.”
“At the risk of being accused of being a sexist pig, I’m going to say something—they’re just girls.” He took a small step back from Harper, as if he expected her to hit him, but she didn’t. “I get that it’s the new millennium and equal rights and girls can be serial killers just as well as boys. But those three girls don’t really look like they have the upper body strength to, you know, eviscerate somebody.”
“I know, but…” She furrowed her brow. “They’re evil, and they had something to do with it. I may not understand how yet, but I know it.”
Daniel watched her for a minute, thinking, then he nodded. “No. I believe you. Now what?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “But I’m not letting Gemma go anywhere near them again. I’ll tie her to the bed if I have to.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Where is Gemma?” Daniel asked.
“She’s over at Alex’s.” Harper gestured to his house next door. “She’s comforting him.”
“So we know she’s safe and taken care of?” Daniel asked, and she nodded. “Good. Then why don’t we do something that you want to do?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. What do you like to do?”