Chapter 47
Evie
Strike
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” I asked as Skye untied us. I rubbed my sore wrists and glanced down at Charles’s lifeless body. He’d claimed in his last moments that he didn’t know who my father was. I wasn’t entirely sure I believed him.
With each name crossed off my list, the chances of figuring out the mystery I hadn’t known I cared about were growing slimmer and slimmer.
As long as it wasn’t Jason, I supposed. Or Mike Thornton, considering I’d almost dated his son.
If he were my father… I brushed the gross thought away.
It wasn’t Mike or Jason. If what Charles said was true—that my mom hadn’t deemed Charles handsome enough—then she certainly hadn’t picked Dourif or Thornton.
“No,” Sebastian answered, kicking the body. “I think he was too entangled in Elliott Bradley’s web. He was going to defend him till the death.”
“Was that too messy?” Skye cringed, handing my daggers back to me after wiping Charles’s blood and gore off them.
“Jason was worse,” I told her.
“Oh, phew,” she sighed in relief. “I thought it was too much. God, I’m an actress, but pretending to be on board with knocking you two out and stuffing you into his car was too much.”
Sebastian bent down and put his hands under Charles’s arms, lifting. “Let’s get him to the boat. He gave us the tools. Might as well use them.”
“The boat?” Skye asked, heading toward Charles’s feet.
I joined her, and we each took a leg as Sebastian lifted his torso.
Together, we took his body over to the rowboat and rolled him over the top, dropping him inside with a loud thump.
We followed Sebastian back to the wooden chairs we’d been tied to and grabbed the cinderblocks, returning them to the boat.
“Will this float?” I asked. “With all of us in it?”
Sebastian’s brow furrowed as he stared at the boat. Skye put her hands up and stepped away. “You guys go. I’ll stay on land and try to clean up. I saw which building he grabbed the chairs from. There was a hose inside.”
“Are you sure? I mean, this is your kill.” I felt guilty leaving her on shore while we disposed of Charles’s body, almost as if I were stealing this from her. “If you want to go, you totally can.”
“No, for real, you go,” she insisted, but the smile she had on didn’t meet her eyes.
“I’ll stay,” Sebastian blurted. “You guys take the body. I’ll make sure there’s not a single trace of what happened. Skye, can you row a boat?”
Skye’s face lit up, and she threw her arms around Sebastian. “Oh, yeah. We used to go out on boats at Bible camp. Let’s go.”
We climbed into the boat, and as Sebastian pushed us off the shore, I realized that arguing over who got to dump the body was such an odd thing to fight over. I smiled, holding in my laughter. What was my life these days?
“What’s so funny?” Skye asked as she rowed us toward the center of the lake.
“Nothing. Just…this entire night. One moment I was signing autographs. The next I was watching a guy turn into a human juice box.”
“Oh my God, okay, so you heard that too!” Skye said. “I swore it sounded like Sebastian had popped the tab open on one of his energy drinks. I got a little thirsty,” she giggled.
I stared at her, so bubbly and unconcerned over our current situation. She’d been so upset over Jason’s death. She’d claimed to be a lover, not a fighter, and yet here she was, having fought for me.
“I love you so much,” I laughed.
“Right back at you.” She winked, and a moment later, she stopped rowing.
Falls Lake was a set, so it wasn’t very big.
It’d only taken us about two minutes to get to the center.
“Okay, let’s weigh him down like he’d planned to do to you,” she said in such a chipper tone, it was as if she were talking about hauling groceries instead of a dead man.
“Wait. I want that journal,” I said. I searched inside his jacket, retrieving the leather notebook.
Then, curiosity getting the best of me, I dug through the rest of his pockets, finding his keys and wallet.
I tossed the journal onto the floor of the boat, then Skye and I started the process of rolling him over the side and into the water.
“Holy shit. This is harder than I realized,” she groaned as we lifted. We’d tried headfirst but barely managed to get his head out of the boat.
“Do the cinderblocks first!” Sebastian called from the shore. We turned to stare at him. His hands were cupped around his mouth as he called to us again.
Skye and I looked at each other and nodded.
We pivoted, hauling the cinderblocks over the side. Charles’s body practically flew out of the boat and down into the water. It happened so fast, I let out a small yelp as water splashed into the boat and onto our faces.
“Whoa…” Skye said. “How did he know that would happen?” She gripped the sides of the boat, trying to steady us.
I looked back at the shore. Sebastian was giving us a thumbs-up. As we took our seats and Skye rowed us to shore, I pondered her question.
How did he know how to do all this stuff?
He’d been entirely too eager to help me.
He’d killed Thornton before I arrived in Hollywood.
I’d spent these last few months thinking he was helping me with my quest for revenge, but had I been manipulated this whole time?
Did I run into him while he was in the middle of his own murder spree?
“I kind of want to look for that movie he was talking about.”
“What movie?” I shoved my thoughts to the back of my mind with the plan of returning to them later.
“The one with the rose garden in the lake? Charles was rambling about it on the way here. I kind of want to look it up.”
“I’ve never seen it either, actually. Which is weird, considering my mom told him about it, apparently.
” I picked up the notebook, tracing the faded gold lettering on the front with Charles’s name.
The further I got along this journey, the more I was discovering I didn’t know Lita Reyes as much as I wished.
I hated these men more and more for taking her from me.
Now, I would never know these things. She hadn’t been given the opportunity to show me that movie.
I flipped through the pages. Maybe this book would tell me something.
“We should just do a cabin horror movie marathon. Cabin Fever, Cabin in the Woods, Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, Camera Stays On. Iconic,” Skye rattled off as we returned to shore.
Sebastian assisted us out of the boat once we got there. The chairs were gone, as were all traces of Charles’s blood.
He was too good at taking care of crime scenes.
Red flags were being waved, but I couldn’t figure out what exactly they were. I was just as bad as he was, right?
I looked back at Skye. “That sounds great. I actually love Cabin Fever. It’s so bad, it’s good. Can we get out of here now?”
“We’re not that far from our lot, and my trailer has hot water. I need to shower. My call time is in a few hours. I’m going to be really sad once this is all over,” Skye said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, stuffing the notebook into my pocket.
“Simon Says.”
“Six,” I added.
“Six Six,” Sebastian continued.
Skye rolled her eyes.
“See! This! You guys have made filming so much fun. Bryce too. These last few months have been so amazing, life changing in so many ways. But I won’t be coming back for another one because I’m being killed off.
” She paused, her eyes widening. “I just don’t want it to end and stop hanging out all the time. ”
“Oh, Skye.” I threw my arms around her and hugged her tightly. “That will not happen. You’re my friend for life. We’re so fucking trauma bonded, we’re friends until the end.”
I chose my words carefully. I didn’t want to make promises I couldn’t keep. I wasn’t lying, though, when I said we’d be friends for life. Whether that was sixty more years or sixty more days.
“You want to walk with me?” Skye asked.
“Actually…” Sebastian stepped over to us, reaching for my hand. He tugged me to him, and I shivered from his sudden warmth. “I was thinking Evie and I could take the scenic route. What do you think?”
He nodded to Skye, and we started in the opposite direction at a lazy pace.
“Scenic route?” I glanced around. I’d never actually been in this part of the studio before.
“You ever see the Psycho house?”
“As in…Norman Bates?” I asked, my eyes growing wide with excitement.
He pointed off in the distance, and I turned, exhaling. “Groovy.”
He chuckled, and we started off in the direction of the infamous house.
“Groovy.”