Her voice was trapped in her throat.
“Be-e-x?” Trevor strung out her name. “Did you just butt dial me?” His voice was jovial, and that calmed Bex down the smallest bit.
“Hey… No. Hi… Hi, Trevor. It’s me, Bex.”
He laughed and the heat raced from her ears, prickling all over her body. Is he laughing at me?
“I kind of figured it was you by the caller ID. That’s why I said your name.”
She let out a long whoosh of air. “Oh, right. Yeah—that was dumb.”
“So, what’s up?”
Bex found the pendant and rubbed the little heart behind her fingers, loving the smooth feel of the polished silver. “I was just calling to thank you.”
There was a short pause, then Trevor’s puzzled voice. “For what?”
“The necklace! I got it. It’s really beautiful. But why didn’t you just ring the doorbell?”
“What? I didn’t give you a necklace.”
“The package you left on my doorstep. The silver necklace.”
She could hear Trevor shift on his end of the phone. “Bex, I didn’t leave you a package. I don’t even know where you live.”
The call dropped.
Nine
Denise slowed in front of the high school on Monday morning, Bex’s eyes widening as she leaned forward, taking in the U-shaped drive that was now bumper-to-bumper cop cars. Her stomach fluttered but she sucked in a deep breath when Denise patted her shoulder.
“Are you going to be okay with this, hon?”
Bex licked her parched lips, not taking her eyes off the squad cars. “What do you think they want?”
Denise shrugged. “They might be asking questions, or maybe they’re here to answer them. Look, Bex, I know you didn’t know Darla, but if you want to stay home, I understand. All of this”—she waved her hands, and Bex wasn’t sure if Denise meant the cop cars or the events of the last two days or life in general—“is a lot to take in.”
Bex briefly considered going back home and tucking herself underneath her cheery mint-green comforter, then spending the day with Denise doing mom things—which were what, exactly? Bex didn’t know. The offer was almost tempting but at home, tucked in the drawer of her nightstand, was the white box with the silver heart necklace set neatly inside. It had taunted her all night—A kind offering? Some kind of joke?—and Bex didn’t want to be near it.
“No thanks, Denise.” She steeled herself and forced a smile that, when she caught her reflection in the rearview mirror, looked more like a bared-teeth grimace. “I’ll be okay.”
The vibe on campus was somber. Everyone seemed to move in slow motion. Where there were usually groups of chattering, joking teens, there were red-eyed mourners walking aimlessly and clutching the straps of their backpacks. Bex saw Trevor walking in from the student lot and detoured directly into the girls’ locker room, her heart thundering in her throat, her shoulders pressed against the cold brick wall. She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to see the “Are you crazy?” look on his face after last night’s phone call.
“I heard Laney and Chelsea found her,” came a rough whisper from between the lockers.
White-hot heat started at the base of Bex’s spine.
“They practically stepped on her,” another female voice added. “They were with that new girl too. Beth or Rec or something.”
Bex’s heart thundered in her ears and she held her breath, straining to hear. Were they going to accuse her?
“I heard poor Darla had actually been missing for a week. No one even went looking for her.”
Tears pricked at the base of Bex’s lashes.
“It’s so sad. And now there’s some crazy psychopath on the loose.”
Bex was breathing hard, teeth gritted, trying to block out the images that came at her full speed. They were newspaper headlines, television snippets from another time, another world that wouldn’t leave her alone no matter how far away she was.
“…Isabel Doctoro had been missing for more than fourteen days before her body was found…”
“…need to find this psychopath…”
“No one knew to look for her.”
“Hello? Hell-ooh?”
Bex snapped out of her daymare and blinked at the two girls standing in front of her. They were both decked out in black-and-red Kill Devil Hills basketball sweats, with their long hair pulled back into slick ponytails topped with black-and-red hair bows. They were school spirit through and through, right up to their made-up lips, now tugged down into deep frowns.
“Were you listening to our conversation?”
“N-no,” Bex stammered. “I-I just walked in.”
The girl who hadn’t spoken—the one with the glossy, black hair and blue eyes that took up half her face—stepped in front of her friend, scrutinizing Bex. “Hey, aren’t you the new girl?”
Bex nodded, suddenly mute.