Chapter Fifty-Two
The next couple of days were quiet, and Isla was ready to continue on, not letting whoever had tried to scare her in the woods deter her. She was so close to the truth that she could taste it, and she hoped the momentum would keep going. Victor’s reception was getting close.
She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket as she waited in the empty parking lot of a CVS.
The streets at this time of night were spookier than in the day, but that wasn’t unusual.
What was unusual was her actually agreeing to meet James so they could talk alone and away from prying eyes.
She was especially jittery after the hunting party, and her ankle still throbbed.
James hadn’t been with the party, but what if he had still been there?
What if he’d been the one chasing her? So why, again, had she agreed to meet a guy by herself and without telling anyone?
She was asking for trouble and probably heading into a trap.
On the phone, James had sounded different. He hadn’t sounded like his smug friends or like something was up. He’d sounded horrible, to be honest, worse than he’d sounded when she’d gone to his house.
She sensed she was being watched. The hairs on the back of her neck raised, and goose bumps spread over her arms. She was just about to forget the entire thing when a figure separated itself from the dark shadows of the alley that she stood looking into.
She swallowed a scream and clutched the canister of Mace in her jacket pocket, her finger sliding to the trigger.
“Isla.” The sudden voice when there had been silence was startling as James became more visible in the beam of a streetlight as he approached. He had his hands out to let her know he meant no harm. “It’s me,” he said.
“I know,” she replied, annoyed at being scared like that. “What’s up? You said come, and I came. Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
He looked like he was giving himself a pep talk. He nodded. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll show you.”
That made her nervous. “Where are we going? Can I follow you?”
“It’s better if I drive. The road out there can be rough, and I know how to drive it.” He pointed at the mud-splattered 4x4 taking up two parking spots. He started walking there, not seeming to care if she followed or not. Isla made a quick and maybe bad decision to follow.
James kept his eyes on the road, which became bumpier as they climbed into what looked like more mountain, woods, and trees.
Isla couldn’t tell any of them apart, and that probably wasn’t a good thing.
She had the Find app activated on her phone, so if James had other plans for her, Rey and Nat would know where to start.
She just hoped her signal would hold out all the way up here.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said and what happened to Edie.” His eyes darted around like he expected someone to leap from the shadows. “You know Bennett and Danny think you ratted them out to Mr. Corrigan—about the LA situation.”
Was he fishing for info? “What makes them think that?”
“Apparently you were leaving his dad’s office right before his dad tore them new assholes. He made Bennett and Danny quietly step down from the LA offices, you know. So Bennett’s pissed.”
“I can imagine,” she said. “But pissed enough to try and scare or hurt me at the hunting party?” Isla asked. “That’s extreme.”
He glanced over at her, then back at the desolate road that disappeared into the forest that closed in around them. Everything felt suffocating.
“Yeah, well, those two can be extreme. You have no idea. And with Mrs. Corrigan and her lawyer always backing him, he thinks he can do whatever he wants. You should stay clear of them.”
They kept climbing up and up, and Isla asked him where they were going.
“To the old Abbott farm.”
James drove with a white-knuckle grip on the wheel, his nerves palpable in the confined space of the truck. Her heart beat in time with his.
“She wanted money to run away,” he said suddenly, his voice strained. “She was going to blackmail us. Said she’d tell everyone about the accident.”
“The accident with the four out-of-town family members?” Isla asked.
James didn’t answer right away. Instead, he turned onto a dirt path that led deeper into the woods. The towering trees closed in more, the path becoming narrower, the darkness becoming heavier with each passing mile.
“The accident was our fault. When she came back, Edie wanted us to admit what we’d done.
She wanted Bennett to give her enough money to leave for good and never come back.
At least that’s what Bennett told us. Danny was pissed, calling it blackmail.
Roger wasn’t taking it too seriously because he’s a dumbass.
Nothing’s real—everything’s a joke. But that accident, that family. It was all our fault.”
“That’s not what it said in the paper.” The one clipping she’d managed to find. The Corrigans had done a remarkable job killing any press about it.
“Of course not. It had to do with the Corrigans, and Danny’s family, and even mine. Our parents ensured that we weren’t known to be involved. We were just innocent kids who happened upon a horrible accident and called the cops.”
Dread was growing in the pit of Isla’s stomach. “But you weren’t.”
“We weren’t innocent. Edie tried to make us tell the truth.
That it was a bad prank gone wrong. But Bennett said no way.
He guilted her into believing she would ruin the family.
He said we’d go to prison. I was terrified, and I went along with them and pressured Edie to keep quiet.
After that, she didn’t want anything to do with me.
And then a little while later she left.”
“But then she came back.” Isla had to keep the conversation going. They were slowing down now, pulling to a stop. Ahead, the top of some kind of structure peeked up from over the hill.
“This is where we get out,” James said.
As they trudged up the hill, Isla was thankful she was wearing the proper shoes, but her ankle was hurting just the same.
James continued, “She wanted to meet at her old stomping ground. We picked her up from a motel.”
Isla’s memory took over from here. The taillights. The yellow Jeep. Eden telling her that she’d be back.
“Danny and Bennett didn’t want to talk about it.” James’s words came out haltingly. “No use bringing up old shit, they said. But people died, Isla. We did that. Bennett did that.”
Isla’s stomach churned. What could she say? How could they have done that? How could Eden? She let out a slow breath.
“They didn’t mean for it to happen,” he said, almost pleading. “We were supposed to just talk, and Bennett was supposed to meet us. Talk, that’s all. But then . . . everything went wrong.”
They came upon the old Abbott barn, its weathered exterior looming and ghostly. It was a thing of horror movies. Isla gave James a worried look. She hoped they wouldn’t have to go in there. The barn was leaning dangerously, as if it could collapse at any moment.
“It happened in there.”
Shit.
Inside, the barn smelled of rot and decay. She followed James to the center, his steps as hesitant as his retelling.
“She was so angry. I’d never seen her this way.
But Danny was so damn cocky. He was trying to scare her, you know?
Me and Rog, we tried to get in between them.
Keep them apart. But Edie kept saying we needed to tell the truth, over and over,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
He gestured wildly as he spoke, reenacting the events of that night.
“She was yelling at us, saying she’d go to the police if Bennett didn’t get here quick and bring the money.
She and Danny struggled, and he pushed her off him. And she fell backward.”
He took several steps to a large window with almost all its glass gone. “She fell on the glass. There was so much blood.”
Isla wanted to throw up, imagining the last moments, the fear, that Eden had experienced. “Then what?”
“She wasn’t dead,” James said quickly, as if absolving himself, his voice full of hope. “Bennett got here, and we went out to tell him what happened, but when we came back, she was gone. We searched everywhere. She made it out!”
There was a crash near where they stood and then an explosion as a lantern ignited the dry hay and the fire began to spread all around them.
“James,” she said at the moment he seemed to comprehend they were in trouble. He grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the back.
Flames licked high to the second floor, eating hungrily at the dried and rotting wood. Smoke filled the room quickly. Isla’s eyes stung, burned. She began coughing, choking. She couldn’t see her way out, but James had her arm firmly. He tugged, and she followed.
“Move!” James shouted, pulling Isla toward a ragged hole in the back, the front totally engulfed, the fire roaring wildly, the heat so intense.
James pushed her through the hole, and she turned to help him out. Together, they stumbled away from the barn, coughing and disoriented. They managed to make it back to his truck, and through tears, James pointed. Another set of tires had been there.
“There’s no way they’re getting away with it this time.
I swear.” It was the most strongly she’d ever heard him speak.
He was determined. She barely had time to jump in the passenger seat before James reversed, stopped hard—shoving her backward—and made a turn, then raced back down the tiny path they’d come up.
The barn groaned ominously as the fire consumed it, licking to the sky.
She just managed to put on her seat belt.
She looked back and watched as the barn grew smaller and collapsed within itself.
“What if it’s her?” James asked frantically, wiping at his still-tearing eyes. “She burned the farm where we hurt her.”
“James, that can’t be.”
The truck careened down the narrow dirt path, James gripping the wheel with shaking hands.
“I can feel it. I can feel her.”
He was losing it. She had no way to calm him. She pleaded for him to slow down. Watch out. She didn’t want to go over.
Isla glanced through the front window, the two red lights of another truck appearing. “It couldn’t be . . .”
James squinted. “That’s—that’s Danny. The bastard.”
Isla’s heart leaped into her throat.
“He wants to do this. This time I’m not backing down.” James switched off his headlights, and pitch black swallowed them whole.
Isla was growing frantic. It was a dream, a bad dream. They roared behind the other vehicle, hitting all the rocks and branches the other truck kicked up in its wake. “What are you doing? Turn the lights back on!”
Danny’s truck turned down another road, disappearing in the darkness.
James reached the turn and followed, slowing only slightly to follow suit.
Were they on the main road? Isla tried to recall where, on their way up, she had noticed the sharp curve, creeped out then at the thought of having to take such a precarious turn on their way back. Now they had to be charging toward it.
Then, suddenly, opposite them, lights flashed on, high beams blinding.
“James, turn!” Isla shouted.
He didn’t listen. The two vehicles were now heading toward each other. James grit his teeth, leaning forward and gripping the wheel tighter.
“I’m sorry,” he said. They were getting closer. “It was our fault. All of it. This. This was where it happened.”
“What, James?” she pressed, the railing separating them from the drop beyond nothing but a blur touched by moonlight as they whizzed past. “Where what happened?” Maybe if she kept him talking, he’d come back to reality and see what he was doing.
“Where we killed them!” he roared. He was so loud, his words echoed in the truck.
Her hands clamped over her ears to drown out both him and the sound of the vehicle whipping through the wind as James accelerated in this deadly game of chicken.
They roared toward the other vehicle. She begged James to stop, to move over.
But he wouldn’t, laughing and repeating over and over that there was nothing left.
They were just about on the oncoming truck, its horn blaring nonstop.
She couldn’t watch. She couldn’t look away.
She couldn’t think as she saw Danny’s horrified face through the windshield, getting closer, until just as they were about to collide, the other truck swerved at the last minute.
Not quick enough for James to avoid smashing into its side.
The other vehicle spun out of control, careening off the road, out of her line of vision, as James lost control from the impact, wrenching the wheel hard to keep them from crashing through the metal barrier and going over the drop.
They hit a stone embankment in an amalgamated discordance of clashing metal, squealing tires, and shattering glass.
Isla’s head smacked into her window as the airbags deployed. She heard, saw, felt nothing more.