If I’d had the courage to confront her on my own, to show her the messages and end our relationship, she would still be alive.
Instead, I’d wanted my dad to get rid of her—and he had.
Bzzz.
I leap up from the floor. What was that? Is someone outside? Another buzz. I whirl around, searching for the source of the noise. It doesn’t sound like it’s coming from the forest. It almost sounds like—
My gaze drops to the floor. As the buzzing continues, I slowly make my way across the shack until one of the boards creaks. I bounce my weight, feel the give beneath my sneakers, then drop to my knees and pry the screws loose. Underneath yawns a narrow gap.
I press myself flat against the floor, reach in as far as I can. Nothing, nothing, nothing—but then, my fingers bump against something. I stretch even further, until the wood digs hard enough into my shoulder to bruise, and grab ahold of the object, pulling it free.
A cell phone.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, because it’s not just any cell phone. It’sSteffani’scell phone. The one she supposedly took with her when she left the lodge. I silence the alarm, and the buzzing stops. “Holy shit.”
This could be where the murderer keeps his trophies, just like the cranny in our bathroom wall. I put the phone aside, reach back into the crawl space. My fingers wriggle against the dirt until they catch on something else. It’s much heavier than I expected; my wrist twinges with the effort of dislodging it. I ease myself backward, pulling the object all the way out.
It’s a fertility statue. The back of its bulbous head has been smashed in. Blood is smeared up and down the ceramic, especially in the empty gap where a shard used to be. “Holy shit,” I whisper one more time, because I’m willing to bet anything on that shard being the one we found lodged in the back of Zach’s skull.
I’ve found the murder weapon.
I’m also touching it with my bare hands, which isn’t good, especially when everyone considers me the main suspect. I gently lay the statue on the floor. Connor knew about this shack. He was the one who locked me in here, after all. He had Steffani’s broken necklace in his desk drawer. He claimed she stole her phone back before she left, but here it is: buried alongside the murder weapon.
I turn back to the phone. There’s no password; Connor must’ve disabled any security when he confiscated the device. He’s still at the lodge, which means the club members are all in danger. I pull up the keypad and am considering whom to call when I notice the message in the corner of the screen:NO SIM. That’s right. Connor removed the SIM card and threw it into the bonfire, which means I can’t call anyone except the police. Should I call them? Not only would bringing the police up here betray the club members’ privacy, they would immediately accuse me of killing Zach—and with the negatives, the bloodstains, and my fingerprints all over the murder weapon, they’dhave an open-and-shut case. If only I could find something that would clear my name before they arrive.
I quickly click on Steffani’s voicemail messages. Maybe there’s something here that will tell us where she’s gone or what happened to her. I tap the first one: “Hey, it’s Mal from NBC—” The phone almost fumbles out of my hands. “Just wanted to check in and see how the contact worked out for you. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”
NBC. Why would Steffani be reaching out to them? Was she contacting other news outlets to help with her father—in caseTo Catch a Killerfell through? I play through the rest of the messages. Most of them are from her friends:
“Hey, give me a call when you get this.”
“No one knows where you are.”
“Are you there? We’re really worried about you.”
I click on the final one. “Hey,” a woman says, drawling the word into three separate syllables, each imbued with vocal fry. “I’m not sure where you are, but your dad’s been looking everywhere for you, and he’s going crazy—like, totally fucking off the wall. He just left the apartment, and I thought you should know—
“He said he’s coming to get you.”
32STEFFANI
I stare at the photo tacked to the refrigerator: a girl with long, pin-straight hair. She’s sitting on the front steps of the cabin, a sun-bleached quilt wrapped around her shoulders, a mug of coffee nestled in her hands. Her wool socks are rolled down around the tops of her hiking boots. She’s grinning, but it looks like someone yelled, “Smile!” right before snapping the photo, and she only did it because it was expected.
She looks like the man who kidnapped me—same dark hair, same dark eyes. A sister, maybe, or a cousin.
I catch a ripple of my reflection in the stainless-steel door. Come to think of it, she looks a little like me, too.
“I have to step out for a bit.” When I turn around, the man is standing in the doorway, keys dangling from his fingers. He glances over my shoulder at the photo, and I wait for him to tell me who she is. “Do you need anything before I leave?”
He’s leaving me alone? With no locked doors, with a—I check the kitchen wall to make sure that, yes, I really saw a phone, a fucking landline phone, hanging on its receiver. I could call the police. Tell them how he drugged me, locked me in the shack. How he planned to kill me tonight.
Except then I’d lose out on my only chance to free myself from my dad; I’d be right back where I started. Not going to happen.
“Ice cream?”
He smiles. “In the freezer.”
The front door slams behind him.
