I sat glued to my laptop, ignoring the meat loaf that Grace had reheated for me when I’d arrived home from the beach, as well as the text bubbles lighting up my phone—probably from Emily.
Randy had been MIA since my run-in with Cade, but I was thankful for one less distraction.
I was too sucked in.
I shivered.
Following Amanda’s suggestion, I had decided to do some research, and for an instant I understood why everyone was so shocked.
Willy had that certain look to him—a perfect set of features and a radiant smile that belonged on the cover of a magazine.
Not in a mug shot.
I’d only found one photo in which he looked genuinely upset; the rest, including candid photos snapped from after his trial when he was being led away in his bright orange jumpsuit, were all the same.
His face was plastered with an incandescent smile.
Like he didn’t have a regret in the world.
Even more disturbing was the resemblance to his son…
Apart from their eyes, and the obvious age difference, which only seemed to compliment Willy, he and Cade were practically doppelgangers.
No wonder everyone in Elk Springs was so wary of Cade.
He was the spitting image of the man who’d been attending their cookouts and teaching their children how to throw a curveball.
I couldn’t imagine the shock.
The betrayal.
The ones that were harder to find, and once I did, I couldn’t stomach them for very long.
A high school cheerleader burned alive, melted down to the bone.
A firefighter, his body found on the side of the highway, his head found across town in the middle of a pumpkin patch.
Other than Willy’s signed confession and the memorabilia—trophies from his victims—found in his toolshed.
The only link, in fact, was the smoothness of it all. The lack of witnesses or evidence.
Each time, a sure thing.
Willy claimed in an exclusive video interview with Rachel Porter, a local journalist, that finding his victims and evading the police for so long hadn’t been luck.
That he had had something to help him along the way.
Some sort of secret weapon, a tool that told him who to choose and how to do it.
Seamlessly.
When Rachel pressed him on the topic, he flashed his dimples and dropped his head bashfully.
“Fate,” he said finally.
The dark corners of the Internet, however, didn’t buy it.
Hundreds upon hundreds of fan sites and online communities dedicated to liberating Willy Woods or electing him president, or conceiving his children—they all said the same thing:
There was a weapon out there. Something real. Not something illusory, like fate.
And Willy was protecting it.
Because, perhaps, Willy believed someone else was meant to finish his work.
My attention was broken, finally, by the sudden flash of red and blue lights that scattered across my dimly lit bedroom.
Peering through my bedroom window, I watched as two police cruisers pulled up outside of Emily’s house.
Then two more.
An officer—or at least someone who looked like he was in charge—stood on the steps of her porch, hat in his hands, rocking back and forth slightly, almost like a nervous tick.
Emily answered and stepped out alongside two people I could only assume were her parents.
The officers conferred with the guy in charge for a moment, then hesitantly walked around the garage to the fenced-in backyard.
The floodlights in the back of the house were switched on, illuminating the yard and whatever lay behind the fence, just out of view.
My curiosity got the best of me and I crept downstairs.
I quietly slinked out onto the back porch, careful to switch off the motion-sensor lights from inside, sure the police wouldn’t take kindly to my snooping.
Our house, like most in the neighborhood, had a tiny shed in the back, which I decided would have the perfect view of Emily’s yard.
I darted across the backyard, to the corner where the shed was tucked closely against the neighboring fence.
Climbing onto the ledge of the shed windowsill, I grabbed hold of the edge of the roof and attempted to boost myself.
Suddenly, a strong pair of arms wrapped around my torso, pulling me down, one hand moving to clamp over my mouth, stifling my scream.
The intruder spun me around, pinning me against the shed.
Squinting in the darkness to make out his face, I already knew who it was.
“I’m going to let go now, and I need you to promise not to scream,” he whispered. “Do you promise?”
I nodded, though I had no intention of keeping my word.
“I was just trying to keep you out of sight. You look a little suspicious, you know.”
He released me, taking a step back to give me some space.
That kid had some nerve.
“I heard on my police scanner that they found a body. Wanted to get a closer look.” He said it nonchalantly, as if offering some perfectly logical explanation.
Like everyone and their brother had a police scanner lying around the house.
Preparing to say something snarky, I stopped myself.
“What—what do you mean, ‘a body’?” I whispered back.
“You know, the dead kind.”
“Yes, I think I got that part.”
I tried not to think it, to harbor any sort of prejudice against him because of his dad, but I couldn’t help myself.
My pulse quickened, and I could almost hear my heart beating in my ears.
I took a step back, knocking the back of my head against the shed.
“What have you done?” I whispered, not actually meaning to say it out loud.
Despite the darkness, and my near inability to see his face, I felt his features harden.
“I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill her.” He took a step toward me and I cringed.
“Why else would you be here? Why would you—”
“I told you, I just wanted to get a closer look. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen here.”
The beam of the floodlight from next door bounced harshly off of the top of Cade’s head, almost creating a halo around him.
“I was just about to get a good look too,” he added. “But then you showed up and ruined everything.”
“I did not,” I began, accidentally raising my voice, until he clamped his hand once again over my mouth.
“Do you want to see what’s going on or not?”
I considered biting him a second time and running inside.
But I couldn’t resist glimpsing whatever was on the other side of the fence.
Slowly uncurling his fingers from my mouth, I whispered, “Fine. But don’t screw this up.”
I followed him over to the massive oak tree near the edge of our property, whose branches stooped slightly over the fence and above our neighbors’ yard.
Cade effortlessly swung himself over the lowest-hanging branch and offered a gloved hand to pull me up.
Once I was safely positioned, he began climbing up the height of the tree on the sturdier branches.
I attempted to keep up.
Cade stopped on a broad limb perhaps twenty feet in the air, crawling out from the trunk to give me some room.
“What do you see?”
He paused for a moment, concentrating, before slipping the strand over his neck and handing the binoculars to me.
“Nothing,” he said. “They’re all crowded around it.”
The entire squadron, it seemed, surrounded the body in fascination.
My gaze swept over to the part of the fence meeting the driveway, where the police officer who knocked on their front door quietly let himself into the yard.
Approaching the spot where the ogling squad was gathered, he hastily glanced down at the body before abruptly walking off toward the porch, pulling out his notepad to write something down.
Something about him felt so…
“Who is that?” I asked, handing the binoculars back to Cade. “That officer standing off by himself.”
Cade studied him for a moment. “He’s the new deputy. Just moved here last week. Deputy Larsson, I think is his name.”
“Well, something about him is just—”
“Shh. They’re moving,” Cade whispered excitedly.
“Give me those.” I grabbed the binoculars back from him and watched the officers dissipate, making room for a medical examiner.
I caught my breath.
The body was a girl, not much older than me.
She was lying on her back, eyes eternally frozen in horror.
What was left of her, anyway.
She’d been eaten alive.
I squeezed my eyes shut, stomach churning. Cade took the binoculars from my limp hand and peered at the mangled corpse in fascination.
“There’s something drawn on her hand,” he whispered fervently. “It looks like a line of black ink…or maybe the number one.”
That didn’t make any sense, considering she’d been eaten alive. What kind of animal knew how to write?
Unless it wasn’t an animal.
That’s when it hit me.
Cade cocked his head at me in confusion.
I wasn’t going to waste time asking questions.
I needed to get as far away from Cade Woods as I possibly could—as soon as possible.
Grabbing hold of the branch, I swung myself down and dropped to the ground, my knees buckling underneath me.
Scrambling to my feet, I made a run for my house.
Behind me, the sound of branches snapping was followed by a brief grunt as he hit the ground too.
And then he was on his feet. Sprinting after me.
Because he had to.
He would know that better than anyone.
No loose ends.
