14. Severed #2
“Taryn, you’re scaring me.” She lowers her voice, but everyone else is showering, and we’re alone in this portion of the locker room. “If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, there’s nothing I can do to help you.”
She’s right. This is becoming an obvious problem. “Ok, you can look inside, but promise me you won’t freak out.”
“The fact that you’re asking me not to freak out is making me freak out, Tar.”
With a heavy sigh, I open the locker door.
“What the fuck?” Jodie jumps as if there really were a huge spider ready to attack her. “If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.”
“I’m gonna have to agree with you on that.”
The head of the doll with my features is hanging from the top shelf inside the locker. The body of the doll is nowhere in sight, and whoever staged this scary scene stained the blonde hair of the doll with a red substance.
Jodie picks up the doll’s head.
“No, don’t touch it.” I warn, but it’s too late. She’s holding the doll’s head in her hands.
“Why not?”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe there are fingerprints.”
My best friend shakes her head. “And how are we gonna lift fingerprints from this and know who they belong to? Are you thinking about calling the cops?”
I don’t know what I’m thinking to be entirely honest.
Before I can answer Jodie’s question, my phone vibrates against the metal shelf of the locker.
I look at it as if the electronic device had teeth that could bite my fingers off.
“Are you gonna check your messages or what?” Jodie asks.
Maybe it’s Colsen. I think, grabbing the phone with trembling fingers.
Or maybe is my mom. She doesn’t usually watch sports, but she might have watched the game in the hopes of seeing me dance if she knew it was being televised.
But I know it isn’t Colsen or my mom. Deep in my gut, I know it’s the same unknown number that has been taunting me for a couple of weeks now.
Unknown: You have two choices. Break it off with them or go to the police and confess what you did in South Carolina. If you don’t, you’re going to end up like your little doll. I’m watching you. Tick Tock, bitch.
“What is it?” Jodie cranes her neck to look at my phone, but I place the screen face down against my chest.
“Nothing.”
Her hands go to her hips. “I’m sorry, but I have to call bullshit. It isn’t nothing. The second you read it, you went even paler than before.”
I exhale a shuddering breath and show her the phone. My hands are trembling so much that I almost drop it.
“What the fuck?” She says for the second time in the space of a couple of minutes. “Who sent you this?”
“I don’t know.” I should have told Jodie about the threatening messages from the start. And when I fess up about it and about the stalker in the dark hoodie, she’s pissed.
I don’t blame her. At least not entirely.
“It’s Nash.” She decides.
“You can’t know that for sure.” I argue, but Jodie has made up her mind.
She checks reasons off her fingers. “First off, you got the first message after hanging out with him. He’s been asking you questions about our last night in Hemlock Beach, insisting that he saw you at the Gamma party.
He showed up in the basement. He was obviously the one who was chasing you, unless you have two secret stalkers. ”
What she’s saying makes sense. “I don’t see it, Jo-Jo.
If Nash wanted to hurt me, he would have done so by now, don’t you think?
Why lift me onto a washer machine and fucking me when he could have followed through with his threats?
We were alone in the basement and he’s much bigger and stronger than me.
If he had wanted to hurt me, I would have had no chance. ”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s playing with you first. Like a cat with a mouse. Who knows what goes through the mind of a stalker? We’ve seen it in so many serial killer documentaries. Sometimes these people have a twisted mind and they enjoy playing with their prey before they finish it off.”
“I don’t know. Call me crazy, but when I’m with Nash, I don’t feel in danger.” It’s hard to explain, but when he touches me, it feels right. I don’t think I would feel that way if Nash wanted to hurt me.
“Gen was there too.” I argue. “And if anything, she’s the only person who’s been trying to get rid of me since we signed up for the tryouts. And she’s almost as tall as Nash. So she would look similar to him in a dark hoodie and sweatpants.”
Jodie shakes her head. “True. Maybe they’re working together?
Fuck knows. But this is bad, Taryn. I told you to stay away from Nash the second he showed up here at camp, remember?
” From her tone it’s more than obvious that she’s made up her mind about the situation.
“Even if for some crazy reason Nash isn’t the person who’s threatening you, he’s still the only one who could put us at the Gamma house the night of Tim’s murder.
Staying away from him should be a no brainer. ”
“There were hundreds of people at that party. Any one of them could remember seeing us there.”
“True,” she concedes. “But if anyone had, don’t you think we would know? The police would have found us by now.”
Fuck. She’s right. “Maybe trying out for the Shooting Stars wasn’t a good idea. We’re on TV, for fuck’s sake.” I panic. “We should have laid low and just disappeared. Maybe we should have ditched our phones too.”
Jodie pulls me into a tight hug. “Taryn, calm down. I think that ditching our phones would have made us look more suspicious. And being on TV is good. We need to act like we have nothing to hide. The only stuff that could tie us to that crime scene has been ditched in several places between Texas and Arizona. If the police got any DNA from the crime scene, the only thing that could bring them to you is if you got arrested and they collected your DNA. I think whoever is sending you these texts and is chasing you have no proof, or they would have gone to the police. They’re just fucking with you.
Just stay away from Nash. He’s a psycho. ”
I don’t know what to think anymore. “Do you really think they aren’t gonna go to the police?”
Jodie shrugs. “I don’t know what to think. But I’m glad you told me. You’ve been carrying all this on your own; you must have been terrified.”
I throw myself into my best friend’s arms. “I was.”
“You know I won’t let anything happen to you, right?” She murmurs. “Until we figure out who’s messing with you, the only way to make this stop is to do what they say.”
“Come again?” I blink, confused.
Jodie pulls up the texts on my phone. “The texts keep demanding that you end things with them. I think you should. If they get what they want, they’ll have no reason to keep stalking you, right?”
“But I don’t want to break up with Tucker and Colsen. I’m falling in love with them.”
“What are you talking about?” She laughs.
“You can’t keep dating two guys, anyway.
Sooner or later you’ll have to choose just one.
And they’re best friends. Whoever you choose, you’ll hurt the other one and possibly ruin their friendship.
Besides, if you want to be a Shooting Star, there’s no way you can keep seeing them without getting caught.
Star Cove is a small town, and people talk.
It took one night out for you to get into trouble.
We were lucky that there was that clerical error.
If the no fraternization clause had been included in the housing agreement, you’d have been kicked out. ”
She’s right. But just the idea of breaking things off with Colsen and Tucker makes me feel sick to my stomach.
“So that’s your solution? Give in to the blackmail?”
Jodie takes my hand in hers and squeezes it.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. But my priority is to keep you safe.
The situation is escalating. We went from text messages to you being chased to this.
” She picks up the doll’s head with a shudder.
“What if next time you can’t outrun your stalker?
Or if rather than hurting a doll that looks like you, they decide to hurt you? ”
“So that’s it? I let whoever is doing this to me win? I break up with the guys and then what? Keep looking over my shoulder? What if my stalker decided they want me to leave town? Or to go to the sheriff’s station and confess?
Jodie sighs. “Look, I’m not saying this is forever. We need to figure out who’s been sending you those texts. There’s only one way to know who is doing this. We need to see Nash’s phone and possibly Gen’s.”
“I don’t know. If you were texting threats to someone, wouldn’t you delete the evidence?”
She shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe not. How many times serial killers have been caught because they liked keeping trophies to relive their crimes?”
I hadn’t thought about that. There was one time Gen and Nash seemed deep in conversation. I remember seeing them talking on my way to dinner.
My heart squeezes painfully in my chest. It’s not like I didn’t think that Nash could be behind those texts, but something about it doesn’t feel right.
If that were the case, how could I feel this irresistible attraction for him?
When we were in the laundry room, Nash was holding my arms over my head, pinning me under his body, and it felt right. I didn’t feel like I was in danger.
Is it possible that my sixth sense is so off? Am I one of those women who lose every brain cell in front of a perfect six-pack?
“I don’t know, Jo-Jo.” I sigh. “I don’t think it’s Nash.”
Jodie insists. “You said it yourself that you saw him before or after you either received one of those texts or before the guy in the dark hoodie appeared. Who else could it really be? He knows you from college, and he saw you at the Gamma party.”
“But what about Gen? She hates me, and to be honest, the tone of the messages and even this thing with the beheaded doll feels like something a woman would do.”
“Maybe. And I want to help you figure it out. In the meantime, though, stay away from the hockey team, Taryn. Let’s focus on making the final thirty-two, but you need to watch your back.
Hopefully, we’ll either find out who’s stalking you or whoever is doing this will be satisfied that you did what they wanted and move on. ”
I understand where Jodie is coming from. And I trust her. If anyone can help me figure out who’s been messing with me, it’s my bestie.
But I don’t want to break up with Tucker and Colsen.
There are just over two weeks to the end of training camp, and maybe I can ask them to cool things down until the end.
If the person who’s stalking me is a Cove Knight or a cheerleader, not being in forced proximity could make them decide to leave me alone.
As I head into the shower, another idea hits me. Maybe I should tell the guys about this. About everything. Telling Jodie about the texts helped me feel better. And can I have a real relationship without them knowing what brought me to Star Cove?
Telling them is risky. They could decide to go to the cops or they might be disgusted by my actions and want nothing to do with me. The truth is that if the roles were reversed, I would want them to be totally honest with me.
It’s a risk I need to take if I want a relationship based on honesty.