Chapter 10 Gwen
GWEN
Ibolted to the bathroom.
Only once I’d dropped to my knees and hurled all that coffee and pepperoni roll into the toilet did I begin to process those texts.
For half a second, I thought it could have been Simone. She understood what I’d done, how dangerous it was. It wasn’t out of the realm of imagination that she could’ve gotten a burner to message me about it.
That half second was nice. Then reality set in.
If it were Simone on a burner, she would’ve called. She would’ve called on her regular phone, told me she’d gotten a burner, then instructed me to get one. Otherwise, this one-sided anonymity would be useless.
It wasn’t Simone.
Someone had to have seen me.
No, they hadn’t just seen. They’d found the body. And the personal effects I had been too stupid to remove.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
What the hell had I been thinking? Why hadn’t I checked his pockets?
At that thought, my stomach tightened, and I retched again.
I sat up and wiped my mouth, breaths coming in ragged.
They couldn’t have just found the body. There had been nothing to connect me to it.
Sure, maybe a bit of my DNA. No matter how careful I’d been to conceal it, a hair follicle or two could have slipped out, but it wasn’t like I’d pinned a picture of myself to his chest.
Either they’d seen me wrapping him in the tarp and loading him into his car, or they’d seen me dumping him into the river. But I would’ve known if anyone had followed me to the bridge. That road had been so quiet, no one could’ve been close enough behind to identify me without me seeing them.
Not unless they’d been in the woods around the bridge. That was possible. Not only possible, but probable. Another thing I should’ve thought about this morning. Hunting season had just begun.
I shut my eyes and placed a hand on my forehead, running it through my hair to the back of my neck. My hands were like icepacks against my clammy skin.
Son of a bitch.
Holy shit, how had I screwed up this badly?
Not unless it was someone from the ranch. How would they have found the body and known to connect me? Unless I had been tailed. But I would’ve seen headlights behind me, right?
Dazed, lightheaded, and almost certain I wasn’t going to puke again, I dropped onto my ass. The cool linoleum caressed my spine through my sweat dampened T-shirt. Resting my head against the blue-tiled wall behind me, panting, I grasped my chest. My heart threatened to pound its way out of my body.
Breathe, Gwen. Just breathe.
They hadn’t turned me in. Did they even have proof I’d done it? I’d been bundled up like an infant on their first venture into the winter world. Even if they had taken photos of me, there was no way to prove it was me. That, I was sure of.
But why had they sent me a message?
I wouldn’t know, couldn’t know, until I asked.
With shaking fingers, I typed back.
Gwen; Who is this?
Ding.
Instant reply.
Unknown; A friend.
Ding.
Unknown; What did you do with the car? Can anyone find it?
My heart sank to my stomach. What the hell did that even mean? A friend. A friend wouldn’t message me about this anonymously. They would either turn me in or ask me directly what happened, without the shield of anonymity.
Gwen; I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who is this?
Were they blackmailing me? Was that the plan?
Who the hell would blackmail me? The only person I could imagine doing that was Troy. He was a vindictive bastard. I could see him doing this just to torture me.
But he would’ve shown by now. Either here at the bakery, the ranch, or at the local bar I performed at on the weekends. He would’ve shown up and begged me to take him back. When I told him no, then he would torture me.
Regardless, there was no way he could’ve found me here. I’d had no contact with anyone from my hometown, including him, in almost a year. I hadn’t used social media in the same amount of time. Lacey Montgomery was dead for all intents and purposes. It wasn’t possible—
Ding.
Unknown; Cut the shit. We both know. I googled him. Bastard probably deserved it. I just want to make sure you were smart about it.
Were they… helping me?
I shouldn’t have even been having this conversation.
While I also used a burner phone, that was only because it was the rule at Rhiannon’s Ranch.
Every single one of us used a contract-free, pay by month, cash only phone plan.
We could only get a regular phone through a main provider once we moved out.
That didn’t mean this phone couldn’t trace back to me. I used it to talk to everyone at the ranch, my coworkers here at the bakery, and the managers of the bars I performed at.
How the hell could I even know that whoever was on the other side of this line was trying to help me? For all I knew, they were a cop with a theory. They didn’t have enough proof, and they were planning on using this conversation to get me to confess.
Gwen; I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please stop texting me.
A long stretch of silence. Each passing second had my heart beating faster, harder. My hands were still shaking, stomach swirling, sweat covered every inch of me, and black started edging around my vision.
Nope. No way in hell was I passing out in the bathroom at work.
I lowered myself flat to the ground, lifted my knees toward the ceiling, and shut my eyes. Calming breaths. At least fifty calming breaths before that spinning sensation slowed.
Ding.
Unknown; Look, I get that you’re freaked out. I would be too. But I’m trying to help.
Anxiety lessened, I harrumphed.
Gwen; I don’t need your help. Stop texting me.
Ding.
Unknown; Too bad I already did.
Gwen; You already did what?
Ding.
Unknown; Helped you.
Gwen; I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.
Unknown; Get a burner phone. Text me on it instead. That way, you don’t have to be afraid someone’s going to see this.
Gwen; I’m not afraid of anything. I just don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about.
Unknown; Bullshit and we both know it.
Gwen; If you don’t tell me who you are and wtf this is about, I’m blocking you.
Unknown; Look. The only thing I want to know is if the car is taken care of.
It was. I hoped. But no way in hell was I confessing to that over text.
Gwen; Didn’t tell me who you are or what this is about. Blocking you.
Except, I didn’t.
Whoever this person was, they knew what I’d done. Blackmailers would’ve shown proof by now. Either they didn’t have any or they were telling the truth.
They were covering for me.
But why would they do that for a stranger? And how would a stranger have gotten my number?
They called themselves a friend. I had too many of those to count.
My close friends would’ve confronted me by now. Just like Simone had this morning.
Just as it would’ve made sense for anyone else close to me to confront me. Or, hell, if they’d been watching from the sidelines, they could’ve lent a damn hand.
No one did.
Whoever this person was, we couldn’t have been all that close.
Ding.
Unknown; I’ll take that as a yes then.
The bell at the checkout counter rang three times, the shrill sound passing through the bakery like the yard alarm in a prison.
I got to my feet, steadying myself with the porcelain sink.
My legs shook beneath me, and they threatened to topple over once I let go of the sink’s edges.
I didn’t dare look at myself in the mirror as I splashed some water on my face and scrubbed my hands.
Drying them, taking one last breath, I strode out of the bathroom.
Nine more cakes to go.
Telling Simone about the mystery messages might’ve been a good idea.
But she already knew too much. Last night, I’d put her in the line of fire. In a way, I guessed she did that to herself, but I fired a machine gun in her direction.
Everything was at risk. Her budding business. Custody of her child. Before, she may have gotten off with fines for the identity fraud, but now? Now, she had aided and abetted.
I told her nothing when I picked her up from work.
As we drove back to the ranch—her in the driver’s seat because of my exhaustion—she tried to start conversations about anything, everything.
I quickly shut down every attempt. Not with rudeness.
Just short replies that wrapped up the conversation before it could start.
When we got close to the ranch, I took the wheel and she climbed into the backseat.
She squatted on the floorboards and covered herself up with my mounds of spare hoodies.
Why did I keep so many of those back there?
Laziness. It was cold when I left in the mornings, but then I got hot and tore it off during the drive and tossed it in the backseat, where I inevitably forgot it.
Supposed they came in handy right about now.
Simone’s reasoning was simple. If anyone saw her in the passenger seat, they may mention it to Rhiannon, and she would know Simone lied about the conference.
Seemed logical enough to me.
A few yards from the gate, we did pass another car. I recognized the woman behind the windshield, but I didn’t know her name. We exchanged a wave and honk regardless.
“What was that?” Simone asked.
“One of the girls from the apartments,” I said, pulling off to the shoulder to give her room. As I watched her taillights in my rearview, I readjusted the wheel and got back on the gravel road. “I was just letting her pass.”
“Gonna give me a heart attack back here.”
“It’s not like you’re trespassing.” Gassing up the hill, I glanced at her in my rearview. Still just a blob of cotton. “You’re allowed to be here.”
“Yeah, and if anyone sees my face, Rhiannon’s gonna know, and then we’re both screwed.”
“You’re not screwed.” I squinted at the glow of headlights in the distance. “I’ll be screwed, but you’ll be fine.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, bitch, I don’t want you to be screwed,” Simone said. “I want my face to heal, and then I want to forget this ever happened.”