Bex blinked. “I totally am. Was.”
“Then what did I say?”
Bex frowned. “That Laney should start opening the paints?”
Chelsea rolled her eyes. “I was talking about Dan. Danny.” She brushed her long hair back, sweeping it up into a high ponytail. “Now you don’t get to know.”
“No. Danny… I totally heard you.”
“Can we just get to work on these things, please?” Laney looked annoyed. “It’s bad enough we have to waste an entire Friday night standing around handing out that nasty orange punch to our parents while our teachers bad-mouth us. I don’t want to lose a whole other night on these things.”
“I’m pretty sure teachers don’t bad-mouth the straight-A students, Lane.” Bex grinned, then glanced down at her phone. A text message from Detective Schuster: Please get in touch.
A wave of anger burned through her. Schuster wasn’t her father. He was… She wanted to call him no one, but that wasn’t true. Schuster was the man who had taken her father away from her, who had taken daughters away from several fathers. Bex was pulled back into the courtroom all those years ago when one of the victim’s fathers had wanted her to stay in the room, yelling, “She should have to see what he done to my little girl.”
A lump, hard anger and sadness, sat in Bex’s gut. Schuster had been sitting right there in that courtroom when shame and bewilderment had exploded through seven-year-old Bex. He hadn’t flinched. He hadn’t cared. He was a monster.
It was almost midnight when Bex stood the posters up in her garage to dry and Laney and Chelsea went home. Though sleep was pushing her eyelids closed, Bex pulled her computer into her lap after washing her face and brushing her teeth. She went to the Forum page, waited for GAMECREATOR to find her. He didn’t.
IMHIM_HESME did.
IMHIM_HESME: Hi there.
Bex ignored the message, scrolling through her last chat with her father. IMHIM_HESME popped up again.
IMHIM_HESME: Are you there?
IMHIM_HESME: Beth Anne?
Bex blew out a sigh and started to type.
BETHANNER: I’m logging off.
IMHIM_HESME: WAIT. Please.
BETHANNER: Good night.
IMHIM_HESME: You’re not safe.
BETHANNER: Go away.
IMHIM_HESME: You have to listen to me.
Bex knew she should just log off, stop typing, and shut the laptop. But something bothered her and she typed on.
BETHANNER: I don’t even know who you are.
IMHIM_HESME: A friend.
BETHANNER: Sure you are. Bye.
IMHIM_HESME: I promise. Talk to me.
BETHANNER: Blocking you now.
IMHIM_HESME: Then someone you love is going to die.
Thirty-Five
Bex slammed the laptop shut and skittered away, pressing herself up against the side of her bed and breathing hard.
Someone you love is going to die.
The pounding of her heart metered out the words: you’re (thump) going (thump) to (thump) die (thump). She stared at her computer in abject horror, waiting for it to ping out the sound of a new message, to open itself up, the ominous silver screen glow coming after her.
“Just a weirdo freak,” she panted, her heartbeat thudding in her head now. “He’s just stupid.”
She clicked out the lights and curled up on her bed, pressing her eyes closed tightly, but the words were behind her eyelids too, tattooed there, stark and black and deadly. She opened her eyes and blinked as though she could erase the words from her mind. Then she stared into the darkness, letting her eyes adjust. A breeze lazed through her open window, pushing back her curtains. A car drove slowly down the street and Bex dove to the window, certain the car was looking for her.
Who is IMHIM?
Her father was safe; he was on her side. But the site was populated by the Wife Collector’s crazed “fans,” morbid rejects who thought murder was cool and treated killers like rock stars. And wanted to be like them.
“He’s probably just some stupid kid, trying to scare me.”
Bex tried to believe it, but something ominous made her uneasy. Something that told her IMHIM_HESME wasn’t joking. Something that told her that he was closer than she wanted to believe.
She wasn’t sure when she fell asleep, but when she did, she slept fitfully, dreaming of old newspaper clippings and of the hollow, haunted look in Lauren’s eyes, and of her father and Detective Schuster, and the sound of the dirt falling on Darla’s coffin: heavy, smothering.
? ? ?
“It’s just unnatural being at school at night,” Chelsea was saying as she and Laney walked just ahead of Trevor and Bex. Trevor squeezed Bex’s hand in his and shot her a heart-melting smile. It made the lump in her throat feel that much more raw. She shifted her purse. It was weighted down with an extra set of clothes and a thick handful of underwear, socks, and bras, as well as a toothbrush and the least amount of makeup she could get by with.