With unspoken sentiment simmering beneath them.
Rafe left Brady because he doesn’t care about him.
But Rafe didn’t leave me.
Rafe rescued me, which can only mean…
He folds his arms and leans against one of Jude’s bedposts. “Going to the police, trying to convince them of what really happened, will do nothing but waste our time and make your poor father even more worried than he already is.”
I stand between them—Jude and Rafe—longing for one, hating the other. All too aware that his logicissound. What Rafe is saying makes sense, as much as I don’t want it to. Going to the police won’t help Brady or Caleb. They are with Vorat now.
The town Hollow Walker is escalating quickly.
The question is why? And how do we stop him?
39
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Someone shakes my shoulder—light but persistent, like a pesky fly.
With a groan, I turn over in bed.
“Selah,” Twig says.
I squint against a flood of daylight. The tree branches framed inside my window are covered in white. A snowblower runs outside. By Dad, presumably, who was really upset last night. Maybe more upset than I’ve ever seen him before. Of course he was. His daughter dropped off the radar. Given the escalating disappearance rate for teenage girls in this town, I should have known how panicked it would make him.
I told him it was a foolish lapse of judgement. Iwas so excited that Jude came home early from his trip, I went to his house and completely forgot to leave a note. I felt so small, so ridiculously inconsiderate, standing there in the spotlight of his stunned disbelief. The memory of it makes me want to burrow underneath my covers and never come out again.
But Twig is here, in my bedroom. “A third girl is missing.”
“What?” I croak.
“Lola Hayes.”
I sit up too quickly, my ribs smarting in protest.
“It’s all over the news,” he says. “Her mom is talking to reporters, accusing the police department of malpractice. Chief Perry just made a statement.”
I peek at my bedside clock.
It’s 10 a.m.
Last night, the news was buzzing about Brady Keller and Caleb Briggs falling through the ice and failing to resurface. So why is Twig talking to me about Lola Hayes? “What about the quarry?”
“That’s on the news, too. All of it. It’s the perfect storm. Everything that’s already happened, plus Brady and Caleb, plus Lola? We have reached critical mass.” At the blank expression on my face, he continues, “You know who I’m talking about,right? Black eyeliner. Skull necklaces. She was always smoking with that older guy behind the maintenance shed in the trailer park.”
And vaping in the bathroom.
I picture her with her bare foot propped on the sink while she painted her big toe black.
Twig sits on the bench seat inside my window. “Nobody’s seen her since she left school yesterday. I guess her mom reported it to the police when she got home from work last night, but the police were preoccupied at the quarry. They didn’t send out any sort of alert, and now her mom’s talking with reporters, threatening litigation.”
Her mom.
Who listens to Blake Shelton.
Twig sets his elbows on his knees and asks me about last night. I take a drink of water and tell him the whole story. By the time I’m finished, the town of Foggy Hollow has gone absolutely viral.
