Chapter Thirty-One

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Dusk was falling when I parked Robbie’s Accord on the side of the road, under an overhang of trees. The sky was purplish gray, and mosquitoes flitted past my face as I got out. The sound of the driver’s door closing was loud in the silent air.

I had left a near-empty house. Eddie, still silent, had gone for a nighttime run an hour ago and hadn’t come back. Rose was in her bedroom, watching TV. Quentin’s visit had left a crater, as if he’d dropped a bomb among the three of us.

I didn’t know what Eddie was thinking. Was he angry with me? With himself? Was he rethinking everything that had happened since we left the interstate? Was he rethinking everything that had happened since the moment we met?

I zipped up my navy blue windbreaker and put my hands in the pockets. I was wearing jeans and sneakers, the clothes I’d brought in case it rained on my honeymoon. I had tied my hair back in a ponytail, and though I sweated into the tee I was wearing under my jacket, I kept the windbreaker zipped up. It made me feel less exposed and it kept the mosquitoes away.

Atticus Line was dim and silent, stretching away in both directions. There was no sign of a car. My feet crunched on the gravel as I walked away from Robbie’s Accord. I had parked just off the interstate, near where I had seen the strange light in the trees that first night. The first time I’d had an idea that something was wrong with this place.

I was in no hurry, so I walked slowly. The light faded moment by moment, and I touched the small flashlight I kept in the pocket of the windbreaker. I’d found it in the toolbox in Rose’s garage—I assumed it had been Robbie’s. So, too, was the folded pocketknife I carried in my back pocket. A girl couldn’t be too careful, alone on a deserted road at night.

When my mother had roused me from sleep that night all those years ago, she’d taught me one of her important lessons—that helplessness gets you nowhere. She may have taken it to a demented extreme, but that night, my mother had taken charge of her life instead of waiting for someone else to run it for her.

Now, though the situation was different, I was facing the same kind of decision. With Eddie withdrawn from me and my future as April Carter in the balance, I could either wait around for something to happen, or I could go and get answers. You can’t run from your demons forever—sometimes you have to walk into them head-on.

Despite everything—the insanity of my situation and the crashing hopelessness of my life—I settled into a rhythm, my sneakers making a beat on the gravel. A breeze blew, drying the sweat on my neck. I heard a single bird in a tree high overhead, and then nothing.

There was something very, very wrong with this road.

The landscape didn’t change as I walked, moving slowly past the trees. I wondered how many hitchhikers had come before me over the years on this same road. I wondered how many sets of sneakers had made this noise in the silence. Had the others felt the same disquiet that I did? Had Katharine O’Connor or Carter Friesen felt fear as they walked, not hearing any sound in the trees? Had they hoped a car would come along to take them off this road?

Maybe this was a fool’s errand. But as a waft of icy cold air hit my spine, crawling under the hem of my windbreaker, I knew it wasn’t. The Lost Girl hadn’t shown herself yet, but she knew I was here. She knew every time someone walked this road, and she certainly knew me.

If you see her, you’ll be the next one found at the side of the road.

Well, I’d seen her already, more than once, and so far I was still alive. I started to whistle, the sound carrying through the dead air.

The sky grew darker, and then I saw it—the light in the trees. It started dim, then flared up, like a lantern. I was cold now, my neck prickled with gooseflesh. I stopped whistling but I kept my pace, one foot in front of the other.

Far overhead, lightning flickered in the sky between the clouds, a midsummer storm. The air was expectant, and I wondered if I would see her from the corner of my eye. I wondered if I would turn my head to see her walking next to me. I thought I heard the sound of leaves swirling to my left, but before I could turn to look, I heard the far-off sound of a car, coming down the road.

I turned and started to walk backward. When I could see headlights, I put out my thumb. Was this part of the game? The Lost Girl liked to kill hitchhikers, right? Fine, then. She could try and kill me.

Or I would try and end her, any way I could.

The car slowed as the driver obviously caught sight of me in the headlights. Because of the light shining in my eyes, I couldn’t see the driver. I kept my thumb out. I kept my chin up.

The car slowed more, pulling up beside me. “Come and get me,” I whispered into the darkness. Crystal Cross. April Delray. April Carter. She could come and get all of us.

I stopped walking, lowering my thumb. The passenger window rolled down. “Are you out here all alone?” It was a woman’s voice.

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting. Another unnatural storm? A girl screaming and running in the road? A different ghostly trick? I paused for a beat too long, wondering how the Lost Girl was trying to trap me, before I spoke.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m headed to Hunter Beach.”

“That’s another hour’s drive up the road.”

“Do you think you could take me at least part of the way? However far you’re going? It would help me out a lot, and I’d appreciate it.”

There was a pause as the woman in the car thought it over. I still couldn’t see her clearly in the dark, just a shadowy shape. She was alone.

“I suppose I could do that,” she said. “But I can’t take you all the way.”

“I understand.”

“All right, then. Get in.”

I opened the passenger door and got in the car. The woman driving was wearing jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt. She was around forty, Asian, her black hair worn down. She gave me a smile that was polite and a little worried.

“I’ve never done this before,” she said, “but I couldn’t just leave a woman alone on the road. My name is Trish.”

I turned to glance in the back seat, which had no one in it. Then I looked at the road ahead, which was also empty.

“I’m April,” I said.

“You’re going to Hunter Beach? You don’t have a backpack.” Trish’s voice was curious, even kind. Her eyebrows were drawn down in a bemused frown. She wore a wedding ring on her left hand.

“I’m staying there. I took a day trip today, and now I’m going back.”

Trish hesitated, and just like I had done to her, she glanced down at my left hand, where my wedding ring was. I didn’t seem much like a Hunter Beach kid with a ring on my finger. Too late, I realized I should have taken it off.

“My husband is there, at Hunter Beach,” I explained. “We got married only a few days ago, and then we decided to travel for a little while. We wanted to get away from real life, I guess.”

“Congratulations,” Trish said, though she still looked wary. She hadn’t put the car in gear.

“Thanks.” A heavy feeling dragged at the pit of my stomach, telling me something bad was about to happen. And despite the fact that I’d come here specifically to find the Lost Girl, and this seemed to be part of it, I said, “It’s fine if you don’t want to give me a ride. I understand. I can just get out of the car and walk. No hard feelings.”

“No.” The word was sharp and immediate. Trish shook her head, as if pushing a thought away. “It’s fine. I’m not leaving you in the dark.” She put the car in gear and stepped on the gas, jerking us onto the road in an uncoordinated movement. I braced myself by putting a hand on the passenger door.

“Thanks,” I said again. I turned and looked in the back seat once more, noticing this time that there were kids’ toys back there but no car seat. One of the toys was in the shape of a tooth, plush and white, with a cartoonish smiling face on it. It bore the logo of a mouthwash brand and the words Dentists keep you smiling! Trish accelerated in silence.

“Have you seen anything strange on this road?” I asked her.

Trish frowned as she drove. “Strange?”

“Yeah, strange. Like lights or anything like that?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve heard stories,” I said, trying to keep up the fiction. “You know, about this road. About hitchhikers here.”

“You’re a hitchhiker,” Trish pointed out.

Oh, great—now I was giving her the creeps. “I guess it’s just spooky, since a girl was murdered here a few days ago.”

“What are you talking about?” Trish sounded bewildered.

I looked more closely at her. Except for her confused expression, she looked like a normal woman, and yet something was wrong. “I assumed you were a Coldlake Falls local,” I said.

Trish said nothing. Her hands had gone tight on the wheel, and there was sweat on her forehead.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going home.”

Something was definitely wrong. I shivered as cold crept down my neck, under my jacket. I looked at the knobs on the dashboard that controlled the temperature and saw that the air-conditioning wasn’t on.

“Are you cold?” I asked Trish.

“I’m going home,” Trish said a second time, her tone distracted. She put her foot on the gas and the car sped up.

I was freezing now, the chill numbing my cheeks and my fingers. Outside, lightning flickered high in the clouds again, flashing light into the car. I turned the air-conditioning knob one way and then the other, but nothing changed. I tried to roll down my window, but the roller wouldn’t move.

“You can let me out here,” I said.

Trish didn’t answer.

I tried the window roller again, jerking it, but it wouldn’t turn.

I looked in the rearview mirror and there was the Lost Girl, sitting in the back seat.

I had expected this, possibly even wanted it, but still, when I saw her pale face and long, brown hair, my chest seized with fear. My breath stopped and we locked eyes in the mirror.

She was a girl, but she wasn’t. She was a person, but she was also an empty hole where a person should be, sucking all the air through it and spreading darkness. I could see how thin her arms were, and I thought I could hear her breathe. But she wasn’t breathing, was she? She’d been dead a long time, and this close I caught the faint scent of rot, earthy and sweet. There was blood trickling from her ear.

Then the Lost Girl smiled.

A sound left my throat that was part gasp, part helpless moan. I knew that smile. It wasn’t the amused kind, or the friendly kind. The Lost Girl’s lips formed a pressed line, a smile that said, You’re going to suffer, and I’m going to enjoy it.

“No,” I breathed. And it crashed through me, what I had done, how the Lost Girl had tricked me. I’d thought I would be facing her alone. But the Lost Girl didn’t play by my rules, and she’d never intended that at all.

The car slowed down. “I need to pull over,” Trish said.

“Trish, something’s wrong.” I had to try. I had to get through to her.

The car slowed to the shoulder of the road, and when Trish looked at me, her eyes were black, her pupils blown all the way open. Her features were slack.

“I have to get something from the trunk,” she said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Don’t,” I said. “I’ll get out, and you keep driving. Please. Just put your foot on the gas and keep going. Drive to Coldlake Falls and don’t stop for anything you see. She’ll give up and leave, and this will all be over. You probably won’t even remember it. Get out of here. Please.”

Trish didn’t seem to hear me. She had turned back to the road as she stopped the car and put it in park, turning the key in the ignition. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said again.

She got out of the car and walked to the back. I heard the thump of the trunk opening. “You bitch,” I said to the Lost Girl, and when I spoke, my breath curled in the air.

She was gone from the back seat. It was empty except for Trish’s children’s toys. I slid into the driver’s seat and turned the key, which was still in the ignition, my hand slick on the metal—maybe if I could get away, the Lost Girl would follow me and leave Trish behind. Nothing happened. The motor didn’t turn, and there was no sound.

I tried again, cursing. There was another thump as Trish moved something in the trunk. In my mind’s eye I saw the Lost Girl’s smile, knowing and cruel. She had made Trish leave the key in the ignition on purpose. She wanted me to hope, to think I could end this nightmare. She wanted me to waste my time.

How many people had this happened to before me? A lonely hitchhiker gets a ride. The driver says they need to pull over for a minute. How many knew by this point that something was wrong? All of them? How many tried to get away from whatever was going to happen? How far did they get?

Beaten with something curved, possibly a tire iron. Stabbed with something resembling an ice pick. Beaten on the back of the head with something large and blunt, possibly a branch or rock.That was how the others had died—killed with whatever was at hand. The killers hadn’t brought a gun, because when they got into their car that day, they hadn’t known they were going to kill someone. How many of them knew what they were doing, even though they couldn’t control it? How many of them remembered?

I opened the driver’s door and slid out, trying to keep low so that Trish wouldn’t see me.

I had waited too long. From the corner of my eye, I saw a movement. I jumped to my right just as something whistled past my head and hit the pavement.

A tire iron. Trish, her eyes black and her face dead of expression, had swung a tire iron at me. And she was lifting it to swing it again.

I ran.