Nineteen
As soon as I say the words out loud, Beck disappears into the tent and emerges with the button we found. She settles back onto a log by the fire.
“Are you sure?” Beck asks as she squints at the button.
After our night in the tent together, I don’t feel as weird taking the rest of the log seat to look at the button with her. Our thighs touch. It’s red hot between us, but I don’t feel anything beyond the vibration of both our legs bobbing.
“It definitely is,” I say, knocking pebbles into the fire with a poker still crusted with last night’s marshmallows on it. My stomach growls, but I can’t imagine finding any food appealing with what’s on my mind. “What’s going on?”
Beck stares at me, so close I can see how chapped her lips are. “Do we think Vanessa even exists? What if that was just her excuse to check us out?”
I run the toe of my shoe through the dirt. “We could check that with Natalie pretty easily.”
But Beck doesn’t answer right away.
“What if we break into her van instead?” Beck says it without a bit of hesitation, but the shock all but knocks the wind out of me.
“Beck, we can’t—”
Beck turns her whole body toward me. “Emma, we need evidence. This girl could have the only evidence we’re ever gonna get about Paisley, Opal, and Harlow.
Let’s go in there and if we happen to find something related to Paisley, then great.
If we don’t, then Ivy’s a dead end. Either way, we can ask Natalie about Vanessa and go from there.
But trust me; we can do this. We have to. ”
I sigh. What if Beck’s right? What if this is the only way to get more information about what Ivy knows?
Maybe one would call it unwise for a lamb to go into a wolf’s den.
But we don’t have time to be scared. We don’t have time to hesitate.
Ivy is the closest thing we have to the bloody woman.
If we don’t act now, it’s up to my imagination to picture what could happen to us a second night—and I have a pretty fucked-up imagination.
“Once she leaves her van, we go,” I say.
If we’re not careful, we could end up in some deep legal hot water. Maybe even real jail, when it comes to Beck. It leaves an uneasy feeling in my chest, but we have no choice.
“Alright. Let’s do it.”
We end up waiting twenty minutes, watching the parking lot for Ivy to leave her van. Enough time to force protein bars down our throats and change into fresh clothing. Nerves have killed my appetite, but I need the brain fuel.
Once the coast is clear, we make our move.
I keep my distance from Ivy’s black van, like I’m approaching a bear in the woods.
As if there’s a distance one can keep where you can’t be blamed for any criminal activity.
I force a deep breath; we’re really going to do this. We’re really going to break into a car.
Unease fills me as I walk closer to examine it. The feeling of borrowed time sits heavy as I go over my options.
The van is modern, so it has an electronic lock.
Not exactly surprising, as I haven’t seen a car with one of those old-fashioned golf-tee-looking locks since I visited Bubbe and Zayde in Monterey for Passover.
But it makes our method pretty straightforward.
There are more electronic-adjacent ways to hack your way into opening a door, but this’ll have to do for now.
“We need a wedge and a really long, thin stick,” I say. “All we have to do is get the stick in there and press the unlock button.”
Beck rubs her chin. “Okay, we have the metal s’mores sticks, but what about the wedge?”
I look over at the welcome center. “A doorstop is the easiest one.”
I swear Beck’s eyes light up. “Give me a second.”
Beck runs off, out of the parking lot and into town. She’s back within a few minutes, out of breath and with a doorstop in hand.
“Okay, so I can’t go back to the general store,” Beck says, a laugh escaping her.
For a moment, her enthusiasm and impulsivity reminds me of Owen.
How despite our brains being knowledge sponges, he shed all the caution that I grew.
How he’d come into the house laughing about pranks he pulled on his teammates, never mind the dire consequences the next day.
It’s stupid behavior, but it’s impossible not to envy the ease with which things brush past him.
The way Beck can still let things brush past her.
“Great,” I say, taking the wedge. “Thank you.”
If Ivy’s going to search for Vanessa, she’ll be gone a while. But we should work as quickly as we can.
I move to the car to start jamming it open.
“Gotta ask,” Beck says. “Where did you learn to do this?” She leans against the back door as I work on the driver’s side window.
I shrug. “True crime documentaries. A lot of them aren’t about murder.”
I dig the wedge between the window and the frame.
Try to, anyway.
Regardless of how much pressure I apply, the wedge doesn’t get in deep enough to make a hole for the poker. The first sign of an issue has my brain firing off catastrophe thoughts. I grit my teeth and will myself to stop, but they’re so goddamn loud.
I press my hand to the car, taking in the heat it’s absorbed. I have to stay on the task at hand. I have to stay out of my head.
But then I see inside the van.
And there’s Ivy’s hiking backpack, still sitting in the driver’s seat. My heart drops to my stomach.
She hasn’t gone out to hike. She must’ve left to go to the bathroom or to grab something in town.
She could be back any minute.
And I can’t get this wedge in. “Help with this! I don’t think Ivy’s gone into the woods.”
Beck’s expression falls. “Fuck.”
Beck shoves the wedge in like a roided-up man. I scan the area, but there’s no sign of Ivy.
The wedge sticks.
“Alright,” Beck says, her voice barely coming out as she catches her breath. “Go get ’em.”
I hold the wedge in one hand and insert the skewer with the other.
It’s too short.
I try to take a breath, but I can’t get enough air in.
“Shit,” I say. “It can’t reach.”
“Get it down into the tips of your fingers.”
I slide it down, millimeter by millimeter.
It’s still not enough.
Beck’s gaze on me, I slide it down so much it’s digging under my short nails. My fingers tremble as the skewer just brushes the unlock button but doesn’t apply enough pressure. My finger muscles suddenly ache like they’re ready to snap from the position they’re in.
I force a spasm of movement down, though.
And the skewer slips out of my fingers, into the car. The air rushes out of my lungs as it settles on the driver’s seat, the burnt end making a black mark on the cream interior.
“Oh my god,” I say. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”
“What?”
But Beck doesn’t have to wait long to get it.
How could I have been so stupid? I should’ve let Beck jimmy the skewer down.
Shit, now we need a new skewer. And Ivy could be back any second.
If she’s the killer, if she was willing to kill Paisley, Harlow, and Opal, she’d have no hesitation when it came to us.
I wish we knew what they did that made someone want to murder them. I wish—
“Get out of the way, Emma!”
When I look back, Beck’s got a rock in her hands.
Beck’s got a what—?
Beck shoves me aside, just forceful enough to get me out of her swing range.
She winds back and slams the rock against the window.
It lands with a thud that shudders through my body. “Beck!”
She slams the rock again.
The window snakes into a spiderweb of cracks.
She slams the rock one more time.
The window shatters.
And Beck Horne just reaches in and removes the skewer. As my jaw hangs open, she throws the skewer over to me like it’s nothing. She unlocks the car.
“Beck!” I say. “That’s her only method of travel!”
“If she’s not a murderer, I’ll drop her my info.”
“She’s going to think—!”
“She’s not going to think anything,” Beck says. “If we look inside and run.”
There’s no way Ivy or Natalie didn’t hear that.
We have maybe a minute at most.
“I’ll check the front, you check the back,” I say.
I barely register the actual interior of the van as Beck climbs back there.
It’s got wood paneled walls, deep blue linens, shelves full of plants and mementos, and a table for a workspace.
Fairy lights and Tibetan prayer flags hang from one side of the van to the other.
But I focus on the front, leaning in to check under the seat, the mid-console.
Glass brushes against my flesh through my shirt, stinging but ignorable.
All I have to be aware of is wetness. I can’t leave blood at a crime scene.
Nothing under the seat. Only masks, ChapStick, cords, and individual bags of granola bars in the mid-console.
I go around to the other side.
Nothing under the passenger’s side. The glove box full of registration, a manual, paper maps, medical records. A bag of weed in a ziplock. The most compact copy of Catcher in the Rye I’ve ever seen.
Nothing.
“It’s all normal shit back here,” Beck says.
We need to get out of here.
“What the fuck?!” someone calls from outside.
Ivy’s voice.
My vision goes blurry as the panic rolls through me. I can barely feel my fingertips as I sift through the detritus. So much sensation runs through me that it’s like I’ve been caught in the mud when I need to run.
We have only seconds.
“Em, we gotta go,” Beck says.
But something overtakes me, causing the flustering to fade. An intuition I’ve never felt before.
I open the sunglasses compartment.
A phone drops out.
A phone wrapped in a Lisa Frank case with a SHOP USED sticker on it.
My heart drops to my shoes.
“Beck…” I say. “This is Harlow’s phone.”