“We should be looking for a woman,” I say.
“It’s a great start,” Beck says, winking at me. Butterflies flap in my stomach. Beck slaps my shoulder blade. “Look at you go, detective!”
I bask in the warmth of the moment. That little girl gave us more than any adult we could’ve talked to. And it happened because I was able to think on my feet and get information out of a good source. Maybe I’m not so terrible at this after all.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” I reply because I can’t take a compliment. “I’d guess half this town is women.”
The truth digs into my bone marrow. That little girl and I saw the same bloody woman. I can’t prove it yet, but I know we saw Paisley, Harlow, and Opal’s killer.
Now we just have to figure out who it is.
And if she’s still here.
Beck stops suddenly. I bump into her.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Uhh, look at the car,” Beck says.
A dark puddle leaks from under the car, seeping under the tires and settling into the gravel. I blink, and it almost seems deep red. But no. I keep blinking, until I realize it’s gasoline.
Beck’s fuel line is broken.
Fourteen
Beck and I are the luckiest people in Kingston, California—in one regard. There’s a mechanic shop within two blocks of the national park, something we passed while walking around town and remembered the location of. With our signal as bad as it is, any other situation and we would’ve been royally fucked.
We still are, but at least we’re sitting inside the waiting room of Gerry’s Mechanic Shop waiting for Gerry himself to tell us how long it’ll take to replace a fuel line after he personally towed the car to his store. The shop is small but overwhelmingly bright, huge windows lining the walls and offering a view into the mechanic shop as Gerry, a white man with a monster truck shirt, and his younger assistant tinker with Beck’s car. The assistant speaks in Spanish and Gerry nods along, responding in English. The only other person here is an older white woman at the cashier. There’s no air-conditioning, and Gerry placed the plastic black seats right up against the windows, so I feel every inch of heat. Like we’re being cooked alive.
Beck fans herself with an old wilderness magazine, gaze steely onthe mechanics as they work. I can’t get myself to do the same. No, the only place I can look is the one door leading in and out of this place. I watch as figures go by, muscles tense waiting for someone to turn in here with whatever they used to cut the fuel line, ready to cut our bodies to ribbons.
Because a fuel line severing doesn’t justhappen.
“Are you ready to give a police report?” I ask Beck.
Beck leans back in her seat and looks over at me. “Do you think they’ll make us?”
“Rebecca Horne, could you come to the counter, please?” the cashier calls out. Beck had to use her real ID because of some paperwork thing and I can’t help but wince every time they say her name.
Beck rockets to her feet and strides over. I peel myself off too, ignoring the burn as my thighs unstick from the plastic. Beck immediately grabs a pen out of a cup on the counter.
“Whattaya got for me?” Beck asks. The cashier—Cheryl—slides over some paperwork.
While Beck writes, I look around at Cheryl’s space. She’s got some photos of her adult children on her desk and a calendar with a nature shot and tiny writing in the days in June.
My heart rockets to life.
She also has a framed poem on the wall. THE WITCH OF KINGSTON PARK.
And right beside that hangs a framed drawing, the one of the bare-chested woman with the goat legs. The same one Paisley mentioned in the first video.
Maybe we aren’t dead in the water yet. “There’s a witch in Kingston?” I ask, hoping my voice is even.
Cheryl looks up from her typing and nods. “Old local legend. Ikeep telling the businesses that we can use it to help bolster tourism. There aren’t any witch things on the West Coast, much less in Southern California. We could be making Salem money and then could finally rebuild those last few businesses that went down during the fires.”
She pulls out a basket full of…hand carved figurines of that same witch.
“You want to buy one? Let me show Mayor Jamison I’m right?” she asks with a mischievous smile.
