Chapter 24 Carrie #2
Carrie hung back, not wanting to get too close. It was easier to pretend Russ was another prop. “What does this mean?” she said timorously. Fear lanced through her. What were they going to do now? Who else was out there who could possibly be a killer?
Besides any of the men clustered around Russ’s body.
She tamped down her anxiety. She had to stay calm. Be brave. Be a Final Girl.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “After Michael ran out the back, I went after him while the rest of you were out front.”
“Russ must’ve come to and hid in the cellar because he had nowhere else to go,” Jason said.
Michael nodded, but Patrick stared at the body like he was seeing it for the first time. “Wait a minute. That’s the blanket from the sofa.”
Carrie frowned. She hadn’t noticed the wool blanket’s distinctive striping.
Patrick wet his lips and jabbed a finger at Michael. “The rest of us split up to look for you, but you came back, stabbed Russ, and hid him with the blanket!”
Michael’s eyes narrowed. “You’re being awfully persistent, trying to persuade the others that I’m the killer. Methinks he doth protest too much. How do we know it’s not you?”
“That’s preposterous,” Patrick sputtered, but Carrie seized on to the thread, as thin as it was. Michael was right. Patrick had just as much opportunity to be the killer.
“What happened to Jen, Patrick?” she said shakily.
Patrick ran a hand through his hair, flustered. “I don’t know. We got separated. Come on, guys. You forget I was chased by the Slasher, too.”
“Did anyone else witness this?” Michael glanced at Jason and Carrie.
Jason shook his head, reluctantly. Carrie bit her lip and put some distance between herself and Patrick. She would have never believed he could be a suspect. But the pieces were falling into place. Not the places she’d thought they’d fit, but they made a damning picture.
“I went to the cabin first, before I found Tiffany,” she said, her voice trembling. “I saw you through the window. You were standing under Freddy’s body, holding a knife.”
“He was already dead when I came in! I picked up the knife because I recognized it as mine.”
“See, you even admit it!” Michael said.
“They’re chef’s knives!”
“Why would you bring your own knives to the cabin?” Carrie squeaked.
Sweat beaded at Patrick’s temples. “I was planning to surprise you all.”
“Goal achieved,” Michael said.
“With dinner! I was going to cook a nice dinner. I—” Patrick scrubbed a hand down his face. “I’ve been taking classes in French cooking at a culinary school.”
Carrie stared at him. Prim and proper Patrick, putting down the spreadsheets and getting his hands messy? Flipping burgers on a barbecue was one thing, but haute cuisine was another.
“When would I have taken the knife that killed Russ anyway?” Patrick protested.
“Maybe during all the times you were in the kitchen?” Michael said, puffing out his chest. “Maybe your newfound love of cooking is just a front! An excuse to handle all those knives!”
“Mikey, don’t be ridiculous.” Jason held his hands out defensively, even now the peacemaker.
He never wanted to think the worst of anyone.
Carrie had once found that attractive, but had realized it was why he’d stayed with Tiffany for so long.
He’d always been in denial about her cruel side.
“That’s as ludicrous as Carrie being the Slasher. ”
“Freddy and I saw the man with the axe in the woods. It definitely wasn’t me,” Carrie said.
“And she was on the beach with Jen when Tiffany almost drowned,” Patrick said, glaring at Michael. “As was I. Unlike you.”
Gooseflesh rippled over Carrie’s skin as she realized what Patrick had forgotten. “Jason wasn’t on shore, either,” she said, slowly.
Jason looked hurt. “You don’t think I’d try to kill Tiff?”
Carrie buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said truthfully.
Michael squared his shoulders like he was about the throw a punch at Jason. “Someone unlocked the shed and took the axe. Maybe you got the keys from your mom.”
Carrie drew in a sharp breath. Michael’s resentment of Jason was almost pathological, but what the heck was he doing? Accusing him just because he could? It was the wrong position to take. All this finger-pointing was wasting time, when there was a real killer afoot.
“You’re the only one with a reason to kill Tiffany. Maybe you finally woke up and realized she was a lying slut,” Michael said with a sneer.
“Don’t speak about her like that,” Jason snapped. He suddenly lunged for Michael, hands outstretched, revealing a righteous fury Carrie had never seen before.
Patrick stepped between them, yelling at them to stop. Michael poked a finger right into Patrick’s chest. Patrick shoved him back, which led to Jason roaring and pulling Patrick away from Michael. Patrick looked stricken for a second, and then his hands balled into fists.
Carrie’s therapist had said confrontation was healthy. But what the boys were doing was mere sniping. Wasting their energy trading blame while there was an axe murderer running loose. She’d have to listen to them bicker in this cellar forever if she didn’t do something.
Dragging Tiffany’s mutilated body out of the water had exhausted her, and all the shouting was hurting her head.
She just wanted this all to be over. To finally leave this darned cabin and find safety.
The cellar unsettled her. The cool temperature, the musty scent, and the garish red of the Slasher’s plaid jackets all made her relive the staggering shame and humiliation that had followed her greatest mistake.
No, she had to reframe those feelings. It hadn’t been a mistake.
She’d done nothing wrong. She’d only been a schoolgirl with a crush, as innocent as Jordan Knox in Slasher, and her peers had punished her for it.
Jason’s apology only made him feel better about sharing The Photo, while she’d had to live with the fallout.
She’d discussed this with her therapist and they’d come to the conclusion that her trauma stemmed from the fact that the others would never face any consequences from their actions.
They would never realize how much they’d crushed her spirit.
And how will they ever learn, then? her therapist had said.
How would they ever recognize the magnitude of their careless behavior if they never paid for it?
How would people know how wrong they were for turning her into a pariah?
You couldn’t sit around doing nothing and hope others would see the light. Wishful thinking was exactly that—useless thoughts. You had to be the change you wanted to see in the world. Talking about trauma was very helpful, but at the end of the day, real progress was made out in the field.
Or in the woods.
I am a strong woman who can’t be hurt anymore.
“What did you say, Carrie?” Jason said.
Carrie hadn’t realized she’d been speaking out loud. She turned her head to face him, and the tickle in her nose finally reached the tipping point.
She sneezed.
This darned cabin always made her sneeze.
She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, the boys looking at her expectantly.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” She took the thin leather gloves her therapist had recommended out from her jeans pockets and pulled them on.
The hands might be a giveaway, he’d said.
“I’ve had enough of this. This is why you’re such bad friends. ”
She sighed, shoulders rising and falling like she was a tired mother disappointed in her children, and drew the axe out from where she’d hidden it.