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Yeah, I’m sure you do.
“And now there’s a serial killer in Blue Creek. What the hell is going on here? Stalkers, serial killers, sassy drag queens? What’s next, sexy aliens?”
I offered Billie a chuckle. It was a decent joke but would have landed way better if it were delivered by someone less psychotic. Still, laughter worked like cannonballs through a fortress, and I needed as many cannonballs as possible.
“Back to the stalker,” I said, watching for any clear shifts in Billie’s expression. “I’ve been tying some strings together, and it’s been leading me closer and closer to the answer. I know the stalker is a Blue Creek native, and I know they’re closer to Elijah than we previously thought.”
Billie narrowed his eyes. “That all sounds really promising. Almost like you don’t even need my help.”
“But I do,” I said, keeping the ball in the air. I looked over his shoulder and spotted the final nail in Billie’s coffin.
It was a black, shiny bob, the wig hanging between a pair of long, wavy blond wigs. I almost missed it. The same wig that was worn by the person caught on the grocery store’s security cameras walking away from the severed pig’s head. “I’m sure you want to see this come to an end, too.”
“Of course I do. My drag daughter’s been through hell and back.”
“Elijah’s certainly been through a lot. The messages he received were scary, and they’ve only grown worse. It started escalating after the stalker taped a blank CD to his door.”
Billie cocked his head. He had shaved his eyebrows and hadn’t drawn any on, so his forehead did most of the expressive heavy lifting. “Blank CD? Wasn’t it an album with all of Blue Divine’s songs burned on it?”
Ding, ding, ding.
“You know what, you’re right. Which leads me to ask: how do you know about the album, Billie?” I asked, the question coming off my lips like a gunshot from a shotgun. This was it. He’d walked directly into my trap. I knew Elijah hadn’t talked to anyone about the album. I’d specifically asked him to keep it under strict wraps.
Of course Billie would want to correct me. Looking around at his studio told me just how much pride he took in his work, and that extended to the pride he held in his stalking.
“The album? I, well, Eli told me, obviously. We talk all the time.”
“If I called him right now and asked, he would say yes? That he told you about the album with all of his original lip-sync songs on it?”
Billie nodded slowly, a smile creeping even slower across his face.
What happened next happened fast. Much faster than the smile or the nod, and much deadly than either. Billie gave a cackle and yanked his hand out of his pocket, a short but lethally sharp kitchen knife catching the last rays of the setting sun. He jumped in the air like a rabid monkey leaping with its newfound tool gripped in a white-knuckled fist. Instinct kicked in, my arm flying up to block my face from the blade slicing through the air.
A searing heat cut across my forearm. Billie landed on his feet, and I landed a punch straight into his gut. He doubled over with a tortured grunt. My forearm bled from the inches-long gash, but the pain had been temporarily silenced by adrenaline.
I stepped back, crouching into a defensive position, eyes on the blade still held tight in Billie’s grip. He stood, his hazel eyes taking on a maniacal sheen to them.
That was when I realized my mistake.
The step I took placed me directly underneath the chandelier, and Billie stood right next to the single cable that held it up. He saw what I saw, and the maniacal glow blazed even brighter.
“Ever seen a death drop before?” he asked.
Billie cut the rope, and the chandelier plunged toward my head.
29
Elijah King
It was so obvious. From the beginning, so painfully obvious. And so painful to realize, too. Billie was my stalker, the person who’d been tormenting me since the start of my drag career. The one person I had to thank for starting it all was also the same person I had to thank for sleepless night after sleepless night. I trusted him. I had thought I knew him, at least well enough to rule him out as a crazy and obsessive stalker.
Turns out, I didn’t even know the unbroken surface of him, much less whatever sea monsters lurked underneath.
I sat in Ryan’s dad’s living room, chewing through my nails even though the nail polish left a bitter taste in my mouth. My leg bounced to the racing beat of my heart. His dad still hadn’t come back from his errands, leaving me boiling in a stew of anxiety all by myself. Maybe if he had been there, he could have stopped me from my next stupid decision, but alas, no one was around to talk me out of it. My inner saboteur worked overtime to fuel my fear as I stood up and went for the set of keys sitting in a tray on the table.
