The judge slammed his gavel hard and yelled something. The courtroom started to murmur and Beth Anne heard it again: “She’s just a little girl! She had nothing to do with anything!”
Kasey, the advocate assigned to her by the court, wiggled through the crowd and held her hand out. Someone pushed Beth Anne forward, her hand finding Kasey’s—but not soon enough. There was already a photo on the screen: the soles of two bare feet, blotched and purpling, peeking out from underneath a blood-speckled sheet. A little, yellow tented number was placed next to them, the words Vic: Hayley Davison, 19; Exh 1 printed in black Sharpie across it.
Chelsea and Laney kicked open their car doors, but Bex wanted to stop them. She wanted to scream at them to get back inside, to start the car and go to Corolla Beach, but she couldn’t move. Everything fell into silent slow motion. The sand kicking up behind Chelsea’s flip-flops. Laney’s hair fanning out behind her as she beckoned for Bex.
Woodenly, Bex pushed the seat forward and slipped out of Laney’s door. She heard nothing as she stepped onto the sand, still warm from the sun. Laney and Chelsea had turned back by then, their mouths open, their faces tortured. Chelsea was yelling at Bex, pointing at the phone in her hand. Bex didn’t react, and Chelsea finally snatched it from her. Laney’s face was red, mascara running down her cheeks with the tears.
Bex stopped, the bare feet mere inches from her own.
They belonged to a woman—no, a teenager—lying facedown in the sand. Her hair was spread in a graceful blond halo, the edges disappearing into a clump of sea grass. Her head was turned, lips blue and slightly parted, eyes open as though she were staring down the beach. Her right arm was laid gently at her side, fingers curling over her palm. Her left arm was arched over her head, her fingers half-buried in the sand. Bex didn’t need to see them to know that the ring finger was missing, because that was his calling card.
The Wife Collector.
Her father.
Daddy’s home.
Seven
No, Bex thought.
It couldn’t be. Her father had been gone—on the run—for ten years now. The murders had stopped.
But what if he’s started up again? the tiny voice in the back of her head asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “No.” She didn’t realize that she had said it out loud until Laney turned to her. She was trembling.
“Darla,” Laney murmured, her index finger shaking as she tried to point. “It’s Darla.”
Bex didn’t know how long it took for the police to come. The three girls waited in Laney’s car, the silence deafening until Chelsea said, “I’ve never seen a dead body before.”
Neither had Bex, in person.
“Not a body,” Laney said, her voice a breathy whisper. “Darla.”
The police came in a flood of red and blue lights. No sirens, just lights that bled across the sand, lending the evening an even more morose and eerie feeling. When the police got out of their squad cars, it was like the clock started again—radios cackling, the steady hum of cars continuing to arrive, waves crashing in the near distance. Everything was happening.
“Bex!”
Bex snapped to the voice, and Trevor launched himself from the driver’s seat of his car, cutting through the sea grass toward her. One of the officers stepped in front of him.
“We’re going to need you to stay back, son.”
“But they’re my friends,” Trevor said, his hands falling listlessly at his sides. “And that’s my girlfriend.”
Bex should have felt something—an exhilarated zing, a delicious anxiety, even a pop of irrational fear. She had eaten lunch with Trevor exactly five times and shared an ice cream cone and her history notes—and now he was calling her his girlfriend. She had always wanted to have a boyfriend, to be normal, one of the gang. Now that it had happened, all she could feel was numb. The bees were buzzing in her head, pricking hot spots down her spine.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening…
One of the cops—his name badge read Officer Kelty—shuffled the three girls away from Trevor and into the shadow of his black GMC.
“We’re going to need to ask you ladies some questions.” He jutted his chin toward Laney and Chelsea. “You two hang back right here for a second. I’m going to talk to…” He raised his eyebrows but Bex didn’t say anything.
“Her name is Bex,” Chelsea put in. “Bex Andrews.”
That’s not right, Bex thought. That’s not my name…
As Officer Kelty gently steered her to a slightly more private area, she steeled herself, repeating that she was Bex Andrews and that what was happening now had nothing to do with her father. But still that little voice persisted.
“So, Bex, can you tell me why you and your friends were out here tonight?”
The temperature seemed to drop by ten degrees and a crisp wind sped across the dunes, picking up grains of sand and re-dispersing them. Bex zipped her hoodie up to her neck.
“Bonfire. We were going to have a bonfire.”