She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to; he wasn’t really asking her a question. But his nearness was unnerving, and Violet found herself leaning back against the wall to get away from him.
He straightened up, his voice taking on a deceptively casual quality once again. “I didn’t actually kill them, you know?” He watched her, waiting for her reaction.
She wasn’t sure she should rise to his bait, but his cryptic explanations were wearing thin. And curiosity was a powerful emotion. He had no way of knowing that she could recognize the lie he spoke. “I don’t believe you,” she stated flatly.
“It’s true. Or at least it was true. He was the one who killed them,” he said, alluding to his partnership again. “I would find them and bring them to him. That was the part I loved, the hunt. That was the part that did it for me. After that, at least until it was time to dispose of the bodies, they were his problem.” He said it as if the girls themselves were insignificant. And Violet believed that, to him at least, they were. Their lives meant nothing to him; they were simply quarry to track, useless once captured.
It suddenly made sense to her, why the other man had carried so many echoes on him, like a patchwork coat he wore all around him. She hadn’t wondered before, but if she would have had time to process it, to think it through, she would have noticed it. That this man, the cop in front of her now, carried only one shrill echo.
So whose echo was it?
It was a question she couldn’t ask.
But she didn’t have to; he answered anyway.
“They’ll never find her, you know, the girl they were searching for out in the woods.” He smiled again, only slightly, and it made Violet’s skin crawl as she studied him. “I was always so careful, dumping each of them in different locations, in different ways. Never the same place twice.
“But not this time, not her. She was my first kill, and this time they’ll have no idea to look for her in the exact same spot where they found my partner, standing guard over the McDonald girl.” His smile grew, revealing a flash of glistening white teeth. “And they’ll never find you either.”
CHAPTER 27
JAY STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE DANCE FLOOR, still holding Violet’s purse and scanning the darkened gymnasium, searching for her. He tried to ignore the panic rising within him. Something was wrong.
But when he saw Chelsea, dancing with her date, he was no longer able to contain it.
He interrupted the two of them on the dance floor. He didn’t seem to notice that he was causing a minor scene. “Where’s Violet?” he demanded, ignoring Chelsea’s shocked expression.
“What…Jay? What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes widening at his unexpected outburst.
But Jay was too determined. “Chelsea…where is she?”
Chelsea stopped, momentarily stunned by the alarm she heard in his voice. “Relax! She’s in the bathroom, fixing her ankle wrap. She’ll be right back.”
Jay looked up, in the direction of the restrooms, and felt himself relaxing when he saw the swarm of girls coming and going in clusters. Chelsea watched his reaction.
“Not that one.” She corrected his mistaken belief that Violet was in there with the crowd. “We went down to the one past the locker rooms, so we could be alone.”
Jay felt his blood turn to ice; he felt freezing fingers grip his heart with chilling dread. “You left her there? Alone?”
Chelsea shrugged, glancing rudely at a couple beside them who were staring now. They looked away, embarrassed to be caught in Chelsea’s cutting gaze. “So what?” She turned back to Jay. “She’ll be right back. Go get some punch, or maybe something stronger if it’ll calm you down.”
Jay searched the room, spotting one of the uniformed officers stationed near the entrance. His irritation with Chelsea turned to insistence, as he barked orders at her. “Go tell that cop to get help. Tell him where Violet is, and tell him to call her uncle!”
Chelsea was confused, but something in Jay’s cryptic demands broke through to her, making her feel panicked without even knowing why. She didn’t question him again; she just ignored her date, who was still standing there stunned by the conversation he’d just witnessed, and she raced toward the doors-toward the officer standing there-to get help for her friend.
Jay was already running the other way.
The giant man in front of her reached out and captured a stray tendril of Violet’s hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefingers thoughtfully, and then he looked up as if he were genuinely sorry. “I’d love to sit here and chat with you, and believe me, I am enjoying myself. But we have to go.” He spoke somberly, sadly. “It’s time.”
Violet shook her head. “I’ll scream,” she insisted, not sure what she really hoped to accomplish with the empty threat.
He seemed authentically disappointed. “I would snap your neck before anyone even had a chance to respond. Besides, Violet”-hearing her name on his vile lips made her visibly recoil again-“no one can hear you. And even if they did, I have a gun.” He glanced down at his weapon. “I have to get rid of you or I lose everything. It’s too late to go back now, right?”
Violet thought about her classmates…her friends…Jay. How could she allow any of them to be hurt by drawing attention to her…unfortunate predicament? She wanted to scream, to cry for help, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
She stood up and reached for her crutches, feeling dead already. She had no other choice.
He led the way, holding the door open for her while she awkwardly shimmied through. He was sickeningly polite…and calm. He wasn’t the hunter now, just the nameless executioner leading his prisoner to the gallows. There was no chase, no thrill in capturing her, at least not this time. She had made it far too simple for him.
CHAPTER 28
VIOLET’S ARMS WERE ACHING FROM TRYING TO keep up with him, but she refused to complain or even to slow down. His strong, calloused hand was wrapped tightly around the back of her neck, a warning to her of how fragile she was, how easily he could end her life should she try to get away from him at any point. She had a hard time imagining just how he thought she might escape, given the fact that she could barely walk, let alone outmaneuver him. But she kept her opinions to herself.
They were alone out here, in the long deserted hallway, heading toward the doors that led to the faculty parking lot. She could still hear the distant music, seemingly farther now and fading fast, in the background of her distressed thoughts.
She was worried, not about if she would die, as it seemed a certainty at this point. And although Violet had never been particularly afraid of death itself, she was worried about how it was going to happen. She prayed he would do it quickly, without making her suffer too much.
The other thought that haunted her in these last moments of her life, the one that bothered her even more than dying, was the idea that this monster, this madman, would wear her imprint on him for the rest of his life. Maybe longer.
The very idea made her feel physically ill, as she imagined sharing any part of her life’s essence with him.
At first she thought she’d imagined it, the voice she heard coming from the other end of the hallway, from behind them. But it was too real, too perfectly beautiful, to be imagined. The moment her name was spoken, and she recognized who it was, her eyes began to tear up painfully.
It can’t be him! Violet thought. Anyone but him!