The Body Finder

CHAPTER 20

THE NEXT MORNING WAS STRANGE FOR VIOLET. She was nervous about going to school. She even got up and checked the school’s website, hoping that classes had been canceled due to both the discovery of Hailey McDonald’s body and the still-unexplained disappearance of Mackenzie Sherwin over the weekend.

No such luck, and Violet knew that the school would, instead, be overrun once again by the grief counselors, as they tried to soothe the raw nerves of a student body that mourned for not one but two of their own.

But that wasn’t why she was nervous.

She was anxious about seeing Jay again. At school. In front of their friends. And in front of their non-friends, among whom Lissie and Grady were definitely now included.

As it turned out, Violet hadn’t seen Jay since Saturday night. He’d called her on Sunday to tell her that he was going with his mom to his grandparents’ house, which was two hours away. So this morning Violet wasn’t sure what to expect. She kind of hoped to keep it a secret, this new relationship of theirs, at least for a little while…until she could sort it all out in her head. But she had no idea what Jay had in mind.

It was odd for her, pulling into Jay’s driveway that morning, the same way she had countless times before. She saw the door open, but instead of Jay, his mom poked her head out the door and waved enthusiastically at Violet. Jay pushed past his mom, who was smiling conspiratorially at Violet and practically ignoring her own son.

Violet waved back, feeling sheepish. She knows, Violet thought. Jay’s mom knows.

Jay had no intention of letting her keep it a secret.

The low hum of butterflies she’d been feeling all morning became a violent flutter.

Jay slid in, as casual as ever, and kicked his backpack out of the way at his feet. He stretched back in the seat and grinned at her. “Ready?” he asked, as if sensing her hesitation and teasing her about it.

She slumped down a little in defeat and put the car in reverse. “Do I have a choice?” She tried not to, but she knew she was pouting.

He chuckled and cupped her chin in his hand affectionately, stroking her jaw with his thumb. And then he flashed his dazzling smile at her.

“Not if I have any say about it,” he answered, laughing.

School went exactly as Violet thought it would: weird. It wasn’t her best, and it wasn’t her worst, day ever. It was just weird.

Jay was true to his word, deciding not to hold anything back. And it started the second they got out of the car, when he claimed her hand and refused to let go, even when Violet tugged and pulled to try to get it away from him. He ignored her mute protests and held on tight, smiling more to himself than to her, and paraded her right into the school like that.

Not that they’d never held hands before, because they had. But this was entirely different, and Jay was hell-bent on making sure that everyone knew it. And just in case anyone wondered what the hand-holding actually meant, he made sure to clear things up for them by planting a big, albeit very satisfying, kiss on her lips, right in the middle of the hallway. Violet didn’t try to pull away from that; in fact, she was dismayed to find herself leaning into him, craving more, and not caring-at least at that moment-who might see them together.

Unfortunately that person turned out to be Chelsea. Chelsea, of all people, along with Claire, who happened to walk up at that very inopportune instant.

“Well, well, well,” Chelsea said in an oh-so-innocent voice. “Look what we have here, Claire-bear. It’s old-Jay and Violet.” The unconcealed smile was embedded deep in her voice. “Only, and correct me if I’m wrong, this looks a little more than friendly, don’t you think?”

“I never kiss my friends like that,” Claire replied, blank-faced and serious, oblivious to sarcasm.

Jay’s answer was to pull Violet closer, wrapping his arm around her waist. Violet cringed.

Chelsea cocked her head at Claire. “I was just trying to make a point.”

Claire looked confused. “What point?”

“Seriously, Claire? That Violet and Jay are dating now.” She glanced away from poor confused Claire and flashed a gloating look to the couple in front of her. “It’s about time, by the way. I think everyone will thank you for putting us all out of our misery. I, for one, was completely fed up with watching you two lovesick puppies pining over each other. Seriously, it was disgusting.”

She grabbed Claire by the sleeve of her snug, body-hugging hoodie and led her down the hallway, toward their first-period class. Violet watched in stunned silence, processing everything that Chelsea had said to them, as Claire bounded along in Chelsea’s commanding wake.

Jay decided that it was his turn to gloat. “You pined for me?” he asked, stupid grin and all.

Violet hit him on the arm. “Shut up!” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure she was talking about you anyway.”

Chelsea’s lack of surprise over the spreading news that Violet and Jay were dating was almost exactly the same as everyone else’s, only most people had the decency to keep their knowing comments to themselves. Apparently Violet was the only one who hadn’t seen it coming, and that included Jay, who claimed that they-as a couple-had been inevitable.

The only thing that took some of the attention off the new Jay-Violet pairing was the fact that most of their classmates were talking about Hailey McDonald’s death and Mackenzie Sherwin’s disappearance. But the biggest news of the day, the buzz at school that overshadowed almost everything else, revolved around the capture of the man responsible for killing so many girls.

That didn’t mean no one noticed Violet and Jay. They definitely got their fair share of attention. But it wasn’t until lunchtime that Violet became acutely, and uncomfortably, aware of just how much notice they were getting.

Grady had made it easy on her, steering clear at every possible meeting point. Violet wasn’t sure whether he was avoiding her or, more likely, Jay. But where he had previously been wagging his tail and waiting for her, now he was noticeably absent. And thankfully so.

But Lissie Adams had no such qualms about remaining in the background, unnoticed. Unlike Grady, who had everything to be ashamed of, Lissie was obviously pissed off that she’d been cast aside by Jay. And it was easy enough to decipher that she blamed Violet.

Violet was sitting at her usual lunch table with Claire and Jules. Chelsea and Jay hadn’t shown up yet, and Violet was being bombarded by questions from Claire about how she and Jay had hooked up. She wanted details, every last juicy one of them. Violet did her best to redirect the conversation, which wasn’t particularly hard when she was talking to Claire, who was infinitely more interested in talking about herself than anyone else. But unfortunately Jules wasn’t about to let Violet off the hook so easily, and instead of letting Claire be sidetracked by Violet’s deflections, she kept steering Claire back on topic.

“So, Violet, is Jay a good kisser?” Jules asked.

“Yeah,” Claire sighed dreamily. “I bet he’s a good kisser. Is he?”

Violet glared at Jules, who was having a hard time chewing her mouthful of sandwich while she laughed.

“What’d I miss?” Chelsea asked as she sat down next to Jules, practically pushing Claire out of her way. Claire barely noticed.

Jules answered for them. “Violet was just going to tell us if Jay is a good kisser.” She grinned at Violet with bread stuck all in her teeth.

“I think I’d like to hear the answer to that question.” The voice from behind Violet felt like dull razor blades scratching down her spine.

Violet closed her eyes, trying to decide how she should handle this. She finally plastered on her best fake smile and stood up to face Lissie Adams, and her little lapdog “best friend,” who was always tagging along behind her. Lissie was glaring at Violet.

“Hi, Lissie,” Violet sighed, for lack of anything more intelligent to say, as she waited to see what the older girl wanted from her.

She didn’t have to wait long. Lissie’s perfectly perky mask had been cracked, and she was practically seething venom at Violet. “Do you think you’re better than me? Because you’re not. And just because you managed to convince Jay to go to Homecoming with you, by doing God-knows-what, that doesn’t make you any better than you were last week.”

Chelsea stood up from her seat. “Screw you, Lissie. You want to say something to my friend, then you’re saying it to me too. You can either get your liposuctioned ass outta here, or we can take this outside.”

Violet put up her hand to stop Chelsea before things went too far. “It’s okay, Chels, she can say whatever she wants.” And then she looked back at Lissie, who was still glaring at Violet like she wanted to strangle her. “I didn’t set out to steal your date, Lissie. It’s just…” She paused, trying to get the words right. “It’s complicated with Jay and me.” That wasn’t exactly as smooth as she’d hoped for. “Anyway, I’m sorry if I messed up Homecoming for you, but you can’t really think this is my fault.”

Lissie opened her mouth, but then she seemed to freeze in place, and a perfectly bland smile replaced her vicious sneer. Violet didn’t need her “special abilities” to know from the insipid look on Lissie’s face that Jay had joined them and was standing right behind her now.

His voice was deceptively casual. “Hi, Lissie.” He was standing so close to Violet that he was practically pressed against her back.

Lissie looked suddenly self-conscious, something she probably wasn’t accustomed to, and she cocked her head to the side, her voice brimming with phony flirtatiousness. “Hey, Jay. Violet and I were just talking about the dance.”

Jay had the good sense to sound genuinely remorseful. “Yeah, about that, I feel really bad, Lissie.”

Lissie batted a hand at the air, blowing off his apology. “Don’t be silly. I already told you it’s no big deal.” She leaned forward and seemed to forget that Violet was standing right there. Her voice became throaty and was overflowing with suggestion. “Like I said, maybe some other time.” She flashed a seductive smile over Violet’s shoulder to where Jay was standing, and then she sauntered away, wagging her hips provocatively back and forth.

Violet stiffened. And then she cringed. She hated the brittle stab of jealousy she felt.

Jay, the mind reader, whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry about her. If she wasn’t such a bitch I might have felt sorry for her. But all in all, she made it pretty easy.”

Violet smiled, and then relaxed, enjoying the warmth of him against her back.

“God, I hate her kind,” Chelsea muttered as Violet tore herself away from Jay to sit down again.

The rest of lunch was fine, but Violet was even more aware of the fact that curiosity wasn’t the only interest that she and Jay were piquing today. And that Lissie wasn’t the only one who seemed to be put out that they were a couple. She began to notice little looks, sometimes not so subtle ones, from the other girls around her. They ranged from envy to resentful anger and fell everywhere in between. Violet probably should have been uncomfortable from all the negative vibes being thrown her way, but she wasn’t. How could she be, when every time she looked at Jay, and he was grinning back at her with more than a small dose of desire in his eyes, little thrills shot through her like electrical shock waves?

When she wasn’t thinking about Jay, Violet was consumed with frustration that there were still no answers regarding Mackenzie Sherwin’s disappearance. And even though she wasn’t tortured by the same physical discomforts that had seized her in the wake of encountering Carys Kneer-the girl from the lake-she was haunted by the disturbing knowledge that Mackenzie was still out there somewhere. And that no one knew whether she was alive or dead.

In the meantime, Violet’s skin was growing thicker by the day, as she grew immune to the gossipy whispers and the fleeting-and sometimes not so fleeting-daggers that were shot her way by the other girls who envied her new status as Jay’s girlfriend.

She did her best to avoid running into Lissie, or any of her “backup dancers,” as Chelsea liked to call the blonde automatons that followed Lissie around all day. But by Wednesday, rumor had it that Lissie already had another date for the dance, and the word was that she had dumped Jay rather than the other way around.

Jay didn’t seem to care what anyone said, and he made it more than clear who he would rather be with.

Grady, on the other hand, she still hadn’t dealt with. He seemed to be avoiding her like the plague. He sent a few more apologetic text messages, and Violet responded to them, letting him know that even though she thought he’d acted like a jerk, she wasn’t going to hold it against him. What she didn’t say was that Jay was still mad at him. But Grady probably knew that, which was why he was giving Violet as wide a berth as was humanly possible.

She and Jay settled into a nice pattern. School during the day and then doing homework at her house afterward. And, of course, “doing homework” meant making out in Violet’s room until both of them were tense with frustration and they had to take a break from each other just to get their sanity back. That was when the real homework was done.

She kept waiting for her parents to notice how much time they were spending in her bedroom and to say something, but they never did. Not that she was complaining; their ignorance meant she and Jay could continue with their extracurricular activities without interruption.

But on Thursday afternoon, after only about an hour of “studying,” Violet’s mom tapped on the door.

Violet shot up, not wanting her mom to walk in and catch them all tangled up together. Jay hopped off the bed as quietly as possible, and Violet rushed to the door, cracking it open to see her mom on the other side holding out the phone.

“Jay’s mom wants to talk to him.”

“Er, thanks, Mom,” Violet mumbled, taking the phone and trying not to sound incredibly guilty. She hoped that her messy hair wasn’t a dead giveaway to what they’d been doing.

Violet’s mom gave her a curious look, and Violet was sure that her mom was finally going to say something, but then she seemed to change her mind, and she left them alone again.

Violet handed the phone to Jay, who seemed remarkably composed considering they’d almost lost their closed-door privileges.

They’d lost them before, once when they were eight and Violet’s mom had walked in to find them playing a game of “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours,” which at that point consisted of Violet flashing her flat-as-a-pancake chest at Jay. Her mom had come in while the bottom of Violet’s shirt was pulled up in front of her face. They never got far enough for him to show his.

Violet listened to Jay’s end of the conversation and knew, even before he’d hung up, that he had to go home. His mom needed his help at the house.

Jay didn’t bother explaining, he knew he didn’t need to, he just got up and crossed the room, pulling her as close as he could and kissing her with unrestrained tenderness…which led to barely restrained passion. She ended up clutching his shirt just to keep her balance. What was it with her?

He said he’d come back if he could, and then he was gone. His absence was almost tangible, and Violet missed him almost immediately, and then she chastised herself for being one of those girls. You know, the ones who can’t function without their boyfriends around, and when they weren’t together, that was all they could talk about. It was gross, really, and she definitely did not want to join their club.

She really didn’t have much homework-not real homework-and she decided that it might be a good time, with nothing better to do, to go for a run. After all, she hadn’t really taken advantage of her newfound freedom since the killer had been captured. She glanced outside to make sure it hadn’t started raining, always a possibility in the Northwest, and she decided to go for it, stripping out of her jeans and into a pair of track pants and a sweatshirt. She redid her ponytail, which was a total mess after rolling around on her bed with Jay for the past hour, and she slipped on her running shoes.

She stopped at her mom’s studio to tell her where she was going, invigorated by the idea of getting some fresh air and exercise, especially after being on lockdown for the past few weeks.

And then she made her way out of the driveway and toward the familiar path, glad-for the moment, anyway-that Jay’s mom had called him away.

PREDATOR

HE COULDN’T BELIEVE HIS LUCK.

The chief’s niece was leaving her house. All by herself.

He’d been watching her for several days, waiting for an opportunity when she was alone, but it never came. Day in and day out, someone was always with her. Her boyfriend never seemed to leave her side, and when he did, her parents were home.

It had begun to wear on his nerves, and then this…his lucky break.

He moved after her, keeping close to the trees, where he blended best, hidden from her view. He maintained a good distance, not wanting to frighten her. At least not yet, while she was still so close to home…so close to help. He needed to isolate her, to move her away from safety, and then he would strike, eliminating her.

His practiced feet moved stealthily, noiselessly, and despite her steady pace, he had no trouble keeping up with her.

He was exhilarated to be on the prowl again.