Except that-
Julie jabbed her finger forward again. “Right there!”
The road twisted, moved farther inland. Julie’s finger was pointing to the right. Rob craned his neck as far as he could in that direction and the impression of emptiness was revealed as an illusion. Now he could discern the shapes of houses in the darkness, a big cluster of them along the beach. They were almost invisible beneath the dense cloud cover, through which only the faintest glow of moonlight penetrated. There was a scent of rain in the air, the promise of a storm approaching. He spotted an access road and began to slow the clunky old Subaru. The car’s engine coughed and sputtered, almost died again. He cursed the poorly maintained junker and tried not to think of the corpse in the trunk.
Just a harmless old man, he’d been.
No threat at all.
There’d been no reason to kill him.
And yet they’d done it. The girls, that is. First they’d broken into his shabby home on the outskirts of town. That he understood. They needed a place to hide and lay low. The torture, though, had not been necessary. That had just been fun and games. Rob didn’t want to think about it. It sickened him. Just as all the rest of it sickened him. And yet he was still with them.
Why?
He didn’t know. And he’d like a real answer to that question. Not the crazy one Julie had proffered: It turns you on when you watch us kill.
It couldn’t possibly be true.
Could it?
No. Hell, no.
He steered the car down the access road and came to a stop. A gate blocked the way into the beach-house community.
Julie swung her arm to the left. “Over there.”
Rob saw it. He backed the Subaru up and pulled up alongside the electronic keypad, which was inset on a metal pole. He cranked the window down and looked at Roxie. She unfolded the sheet of paper she’d dug out of her tote bag earlier.
“The code is…”
Rob punched in the numbers as she read them. Then there was a click and the gate swung open. Rob put the car in gear, made a sound of frustration as the engine sputtered again, then slammed the gas pedal down as it finally caught. The old car shot through the opening an instant before the gate started to swing shut again. He tapped the brake pedal and slowed back down as they began to navigate their way through a web of very narrow sandy roads. Roxie kept glancing at the scrap of paper in her hand, reading off directions while he drove.
“Stop here.”
Rob pulled to a stop at the side of the road. It was actually a bend in a road between two clusters of houses. He glanced past Roxie and saw the dark ocean. A cold breeze stirred the tall grass on the dune separating road and beach. He’d vacationed with his grandparents in places like this when he was younger. He longed to journey back to those days. Or to any saner phase of his life. He didn’t want to die. Didn’t like this feeling of being swept along by fate. And yet he was powerless to do anything about it.
Roxie flipped open the cell phone she’d taken from the Subaru’s deceased owner. She punched in a number and a brief text message. A silent moment passed. The car’s interior was thick with tension. It was almost choking them.
Don’t answer, Rob thought.
Please, please don’t answer.
Then the cell phone buzzed and Roxie flipped it open again. She read the message on the screen and smiled at Rob. “Let’s go.”
They got out of the car and set off down the road on foot. Rob’s stomach twisted. He’d seen a lot of people die this last week. Many of them horribly. But this was personal and would be about a thousand times worse.
After a walk of some fifty yards, they arrived at the driveway of a three-story beach house. Roxie moved quickly down the driveway, not quite running but advancing with the long strides of someone anxious to get somewhere fast. Julie hurried to catch up to her. Though it pained him to do so, Rob picked up his own pace. That urge to turn and run was still there, a mental voice growing more frantic by the moment, but he knew he wouldn’t heed it. It was too late.
They circled the house and then continued around a tall fence surrounding a swimming pool. They entered through an open gate. Rob moved carefully over the cement deck. It was dark out here and the last thing he wanted was to fall into the pool. Though the lights were off, he could make out the shapes of inflatable rafts and beach balls floating in the water, bobbing in the lazy currents like little corpses.
They stepped off the deck onto a wooden patio, where a set of sliding glass doors stood open. A beautiful woman who looked a little like Roxie before the bleach job stepped through the opening and stood on the patio with them.
Roxie smiled. “Hi, Emily.”
The woman looked at Roxie. “Hello, Missy. So glad you could make it. You have no idea how ready I am for this.”
Rob frowned.
Missy?
“Uh…Roxie? What did she just call you?”
“It’s my real name.”
Rob’s frown deepened. “But…how did she know it? And…”
Roxie-Missy-laughed. “Why didn’t I tell you?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugged. “I call myself different things all the time. It’s not real important. Let’s get this party started.”
She clasped hands with Emily and they went on into the house.
Julie started after them, but glanced back at Rob. “You coming?”
Rob felt dizzy. He felt like the whole world was coming undone around him. Roxie wasn’t who she said she was. At least not completely. And if she’d lied to him about her name, what else had she lied about? He laughed. Did it really matter? None of it changed the essential core truth about her.
She was a killer.
She lived for it. Thrived on it.
Julie went on into the house, leaving him alone on the patio for a moment. And this was it. Finally. His very last chance to turn and run. To maybe turn himself in or summon the cops.
But that was another lie.
That chance was gone forever.
He drew in a deep breath and followed the rest of them inside.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
March 22
Missy’s breath came in quick, shuddery gasps. Her face felt hot. Sweat was beading on her brow. The thump of her heart seemed as loud as a drum. Her hands were shaking. Anger bloomed within her again as she watched the tremors. It had been so long since anyone had gotten to her like this. So long since anyone had made her feel so small. So stupid and insignificant.
Four years, to be exact.
Daddy used to make her feel like this. He’d call her stupid and ugly all the time. And though she knew she was neither, it felt true when her daddy called her those things. That feeling was worse even than the other things. The beatings. The bad touches. Those things were bad. Horrible. They made her want to kill her daddy. She didn’t because a part of her clung to the need for her daddy’s love and approval. He was a bad man. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that. But she kept loving him anyway, hoping that somehow, just maybe, he would change and become the kind of daddy other girls had. But it never happened. He called her a “mistake,” telling her how one of his biggest regrets was failing to raise the money to have her aborted. And he told her the reason she was so fucked in the head was a result of all the times he’d punched her mother in the stomach in an effort to make her miscarry.
“I scrambled your brains but good, kid,” he liked to say.
She killed him the night she turned sixteen. He came into her room stinking of beer a little before midnight, stumbling around and cursing in the dark. Then he fell into her bed and reached for her, as usual. But this time she was ready for him and gave him a great big surprise.