Page 59 of Bad Intentions

I walk outside, toward the far side of the parking lot, which has cleared out almost completely.

I’m nearly at my car when my phone dings with a message. This must be Rika. I smile, swiping the screen.

Unknown: What are you hiding in the trunk, Josie?

I stop and reread the message.

Nothing, I say to myself, but suddenly my heart starts thumping against my chest.

I approach my car like there’s a bomb about to go off inside it. It’s dark. I should’ve parked closer to the bar, where the cameras are, but the lot was fuller when I got here.

Now, I shine my phone’s flashlight at my car, searching for signs of anyone having tampered with my trunk. It wouldn’t take much. It’s an old car, with a key, no digital fob. You don’t need to be a genius to break into it.

I hold my breath as I stick the key in the trunk and pop it open.

A strange smell wafts at me along with the ice-cold air.

I shine my phone inside it, and the ground falls out from under me.

Inside is a body.

33

KAREN

“Mom! M-Mom! Something horrible happened. Oh my god. Oh my god. Mom, Mom, Mom, you need to come here.” Alysha’s voice on the phone sounded like she was in hysterics.

“What? What are you talking about?” I asked, putting my palm up in the air to keep Steve and Donna quiet.

“It’s…bad. Mom, it’s really bad,” she sobbed. “There’s blood everywhere.”

My insides turned into a knot. “What’s happening?” I met Donna’s worried eyes.

“I don’t know how, Mom. I d-don’t know how this happened. Please, come! Please! Please!”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At the bar. At your bar.”

The bar was closed. No one was supposed to be there. I knew Alysha had taken the spare key out of the house multiple times, snuck booze from the bar. I had security cameras, had caught her once. She’d sworn she wouldn’t do it again, and she had no way to steal the spare I kept in the bar office.

If she was at the bar, that meant something must be really wrong.

“Stay put. I’ll be there,” I told her and hung up. “Something’s going on,” I told Donna and Steve. “I have to go, but you need to stay here, watch him. Watch him closely. Make sure he doesn’t leave the house. Doesn’t go anywhere. I have no time for this guy right now. Keep me posted. He can’t get away.”

This was silly, of course, me telling the chief of police how to do his job. But Derek couldn’t leave that house without handcuffs.

“We got it, K. Go,” Donna said.

I drove at full speed to the bar. No way to see much from the outside. Only two windows facing the sides were not blacked out, like others. I didn’t have the time to spy. The lights were on, and something was happening inside.

The first bad sign was that the camera outside the back door had no tiny light shining underneath its lens—that meant it was off.

The next bad sign was the tone of the voices when I went in through the kitchen. Alysha and Victoria screamed at each other like banshees. I couldn’t see them at first, so I went around the bar counter, saw them on their knees, both looked up at me, spooked, and another person was lying on the floor.

Dougie Hartzel.

It was dim, the only illumination coming from the lights above the bar counter. I sure didn’t expect that.