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She hesitated and slowly shook her head. “Not exactly. I said I thought it could have been him. Just like it could have been any man. It happened so fast, and my room was so dark. It was all a total blur. All I remember is waking up in agony and seeing a dark figure looming over me. After he finished with me, he left. I couldn’t see clearly, but it looked like a guy. Tall, bulky, short hair. That’s all I could tell the police.”
“That’s what Justin said too,” Tate said, meeting my eyes again. “He was sleeping on his stomach. Woke up when the killer was on top of him, stabbing him in the back. He rolled over to stop the bleeding—I think that’s actually what saved him from bleeding out—and he saw the killer leaving the room. He said it was too dark to tell much of anything. Plus he was in shock from the wounds. But he thought it looked like a guy.”
I sighed and rubbed my temples. “So you guys really still believe the police’s theory? That it was a random drifter who decided to commit a mass murder for no reason?”
Michaela nodded slowly. “Yes, I think they’re right. I think it was a very disturbed man who saw us having fun and desperately wanted to end it because it enraged him so much.” She paused and bit her bottom lip. “So you really still think Paxton could’ve done something that terrible?”
“When I first met him, I never would’ve thought he was capable of killing people like that,” I replied, casting my mind back to the past. “But after that night… yes. I think he was more than capable of it.”
Sienna
The day of - April 12th, 2019
3:46 p.m.
“Just a few more seconds and we’ll be free.” Michaela anxiously glanced behind us. “Don’t look suspicious.”
I grinned and nudged her with my elbow. “I think we’re fine. No one’s watching.”
Tate turned to glance over his shoulder at Forrester Academy’s main building. “Forty thousand a year and they let your kids walk straight out,” he said with a derisive snort. “Remind me not to send my future kids here.”
“As if anyone will have kids with you,” Michaela said with a mischievous giggle. “All you talk about is hockey and serial killers.”
Tate laughed and dangled his keys in front of her. “Does that mean you don’t want to come to the party, then?”
“Wait, no!” Michaela’s eyes widened. “I take it back! I love watching Forensic Files with you!”
“Fine. You’re still invited. But you’re paying for all the marshmallows.” Tate grinned and pressed on the key fob to unlock a black car at the end of the parking lot. “Your chariot awaits, my ladies.”
I opened the back door and dumped my bag in. “Whose car is this?”
“Dane’s. He got a ride with the others so we could take it.”
Michaela huffed as she reclined in the front seat. “It’s so unfair that only seniors are allowed cars at Forrester. Like, what if there’s an emergency?”
Tate turned his key in the ignition. “How would you even get a car here? Drive it all the way from DC?”
“Yeah, we could all do it together. Like a massive road trip.”
“Good luck convincing any of our parents to do that,” I said, watching Forrester fade into the distance as Tate headed down the road toward the closest town.
“No shit.” Tate snorted again. “The only reason Dane has his car here is because we split our time between Michigan and DC.”
“Whatever.” Michaela turned to look at me in the back seat. “You definitely got those forms signed, right?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. My dad’s secretary is super young and cool. She totally understood when I explained the plan to her, and she’s amazing at forging signatures.”
“Are you sure she’s not going to rat us out?”
I nodded. “If she was going to, the school would’ve called our parents by now. They never would’ve let us leave.”
“Exactly.” Tate flashed a lazy smile at Michaela. “Stop worrying so much. The school definitely thinks we’ve gone home and our parents definitely think we’re still at school. So we have the whole weekend to ourselves. No adults.”
I took a deep breath and leaned back in my seat, pulse racing with anticipation. The next two days promised to be amazing. Tate’s older brother Dane had sneakily copied a key to their family’s lake house thirty miles from Forrester Academy—the boarding school we all attended together—and he’d decided to have a weekend-long rager with his closest friends in senior year.
Tate had managed to wrangle an invite for himself, Michaela, and me, even though we were only sophomores, as long as we promised not to spill the beans to his parents. We’d also been tasked with bringing ingredients for s’mores, burgers, and hot dogs. That was fair, considering the seniors were providing all of the booze. It was also a very small price to pay to spend the weekend with Paxton Cole, my sort-of boyfriend.
I was hoping he’d make things official this weekend by properly asking me to be his girlfriend, but at the same time, I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. He was two years older than me and heading off to college once the school year ended, so as much as it made my heart ache, I knew I couldn’t expect too much from him.
