No. The horror won’t end until she puts a bullet between the Full Moon Killer’s eyes.
***
When the front door closes and her mother steps outside, Jennifer’s nerves twitch. Hunter sits on the bed, back resting against the headboard, knees drawn toward his chest as he pages through news stories. She knows he’s reading about the North Carolina murders, about the two rapists who terrorized Smith Town and left Hunter beaten and bloodied. Soon, he’ll discover the truth about Bethany. None of the media sites will include the victims’ names, but Hunter will venture down the rabbit hole of comment sections and message boards until he stumbles upon a poster who craves attention and places their desires over the rights of the victims.
Or Hunter will break Mom’s rules and text a former teammate. Most of the players acted hostile toward Hunter, but he got along with a few. Kaitlyn knows about the rape, so the entire school must have heard by now.
Jennifer needs to be the one who tells him. The results will be tragic if it comes from someone else. She doesn’t doubt Hunter will get to North Carolina. And he won’t visit Genoa Cove with the sole purpose of consoling Bethany. He’ll do something unpredictable, something crazy. Maybe sneak a gun into the jail and get himself arrested. Or worse.
Her throat goes dry when she opens her mouth. Hunter catches her staring and lifts his palms and shoulders.
“What did I do?”
“Nothing,” Jennifer says, frazzled and searching for the right words.
Who is she kidding? The right words don’t exist.
Jennifer eases down on the edge of the bed. All 110 pounds of her, she’s the only person between Hunter and the door.
“I sneaked out again last night.”
Hunter sits forward and shifts his body to look at her.
“Dumb. Mom will drive Laurie’s truck over your phone if she finds out. I hope it was worth it.”
Hunter’s hypocrisy bristles her. He’s contacted Bethany twice since they came to Georgia. She swallows the anger burning in her chest. As if the ban on contacting her friends isn’t bad enough, she harbors Bethany’s dark secret.
“I talked to Kaitlyn, Hunter.” Before he rolls his eyes and loses interest, and before she loses her nerve, Jennifer hurries on. “She told me something about Aaron and Bethany.”
Footsteps clonk up the stairs. Jennifer holds her breath until the bathroom door closes. Hunter’s glare causes Jennifer to misplace her words. He doesn’t know what she’s about to tell him, but he senses the impending doom, reads it on her face. Unable to hold the words inside any longer, she tells Hunter.
Jennifer can’t tell if she disclosed the truth in a manner gentle enough to prevent Hunter from exploding. His eyes go glassy, and he stares at the wall as if an alternate reality only he can see exists in the hallway.
A long time passes with neither speaking. When her worry grows, she touches his arm. Hunter flinches as if Jennifer prodded him with a live wire.
“I’m sorry.”
Hunter opens his mouth. Pauses. His fingers curl and uncurl.
“How long have you known?”
“Since last night.”
“You should have woken me up as soon as you knew.”
“How would that have worked with Mom in the room with us?”
Hunter wears a tight-lipped grimace.
“I’m going back to North Carolina.”
Here it comes. This is the response Jennifer expected. The bloom of his cheeks tells her his blood pressure is high, that he’s a heartbeat away from stealing the car keys and driving to Genoa Cove.
“You can’t take Mom’s car.”
“Why not? We’re stuck here until God knows when. It’s not like she needs the car, and Mom won’t press charges if I’m the one who took it.”
“Hunter.”
He leaps off the bed, and she blocks him before he reaches the door.
“Get out of my way, Jennifer.”
“You’re acting crazy. Call Bethany, yes. Talk to her. Help her. But I know you’re going after Aaron and Sam, and that’s a terrible mistake. What do you think will happen if you walk into jail with a concealed weapon? They’ll arrest you, Hunter.”
Hunter’s eye twitches. Shit, that’s his plan. He wants the police to arrest him so he can get at Aaron and Sam. Jennifer grabs the doorknob.
“You can’t go back to North Carolina,” Jennifer says, raising her voice so Mom or Laurie will hear.
He glares at her from the corner of his eye.
“That was stupid.”
Jennifer’s eyes turn glassy.
“Not if it means keeping you from getting hurt. I love you. You’re my brother.”
Her words disarm him, and a small amount of tension rolls off his chest. For now. It won’t take long for Hunter’s mind to return to Bethany. Panic and anger will set in, and Jennifer won’t be able to keep him from driving away in the dead of night. She’ll stay up all night and ensure he doesn’t slip past her. But her plan isn’t sustainable. Someone needs to talk sense into Hunter, set his mind at ease and keep him from falling off the deep end.
Bethany. Jennifer barely knows Hunter’s girlfriend, but Bethany’s number is in Jennifer’s phone. Good plan, except Jennifer will need to admit she knows about the rape. A sick worm curls inside her stomach.
But she’ll do it. As soon as she figures out how to sneak past her mother again.
***
After cleaning the dinner dishes, Darcy spreads her laptop on the kitchen table and waits for the aging machine to boot up. Hunter and Jennifer barely spoke during dinner, and now they’re upstairs in the bedroom, criminally silent. They’re hiding something. While she waits for the computer to load, Darcy moves to the bottom of the staircase and listens.
“Just like a government agent. Always assume guilt.”
Laurie grins at Darcy from the couch, a Jack Ketchum book open on her lap. Laurie always loved dark horror, but Darcy wonders how she can read a horror novel when a real life menace hunts them.
“It’s too quiet up there,” Darcy says, tilting her head up the stairs. “When you have kids of your own, you’ll see. Quiet means trouble.”
Laurie unfolds the novel.
“Okay, Mom.”
At the kitchen table, Darcy clicks the Internet browser and runs a search for Gil Waggoner. The search engine spits numerous identical names back at her, and Darcy narrows the search to Georgia and Scarlet River.
Bingo.
Waggoner ran into trouble with the law as a teenager when the sheriff’s department caught him defacing the Baptist church. With spray paint. Could be a coincidence, but Darcy makes a note of the infraction and continues. Two drunk and disorderly convictions in Scarlet River, one ten years ago, another two years ago. Darcy locates the incident with the minor Tipton mentioned, the girl’s name withheld.
It’s clear Waggoner is trouble, but nothing screams that he’s the kidnapper or affiliated with Michael Rivers.
Except his lecherous stare as he followed Jennifer through the supermarket. And the time line.
For eight years, Waggoner turned squeaky clean. Not likely for a man with his track record. Darcy runs a second search and determines Waggoner moved to Shatterstruck, Wyoming ten years ago. He returned to Scarlet River eight years later.
The Georgia child abductions and murders stopped around the time Waggoner moved to Wyoming. Darcy makes another note to have Hensel query the missing children’s database for spikes in activity around Wyoming while Waggoner lived in the area. Waggoner might have abducted Nina Steyer and taken her to Wyoming. Google reveals Shatterstruck’s population is a shade over 700, small enough for Waggoner to conceal a kidnapped girl for eight years.