Sydney stared at Emma in disbelief. “But—but—how did it get here?” she sputtered. “What is that thing doing in my car?”
“I don’t know!” Emma wailed. “I—I didn’t put it there last night!”
“What do you mean?” Sydney demanded. “What did you do with it last night? Didn’t you hide it?”
“Let me think!”
Emma squeezed her eyes shut. “After I hit Jason, I tossed the shovel down,” she said slowly. “I—I forgot all about it. I never went back and picked it up.”
“So how did it get into my car?” Sydney demanded.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know!” Emma cried. She glanced back at the shovel, then gasped. “Sydney, someone must have seen us!”
Another ripple of fear shot up Sydney’s spine.
“You heard voices, right?” Emma asked. “When I came back from burying Jason in the lake, you told me you heard people talking, remember?”
“I remember.” Sydney clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.
“I thought you were just freaked,” Emma continued. “But I was wrong. You were right, Syd. Someone else must have been in the woods.”
Someone watching us, Sydney thought with a shudder. Hiding and watching.
“Whoever it was found the shovel, Syd!” Emma cried. “And they put it in your car to threaten us!”
“Threaten us? Why?” Sydney whispered hoarsely. “I mean, do you think they saw what happened with Jason? Or did they just find the shovel after they saw us running away? Why did they put it in my car? What do they want?” She couldn’t keep the panic from raising her voice high and shrill.
“We’ll have to wait and find out, I guess,” Emma replied with a shudder. “I’m scared, Syd.”
Me, too, Sydney thought. But I’m not just scared. I’m terrified. She glanced into the car again.
The shovel still lay there, smearing mud and blood onto the seat cushion.
With a cry, she grabbed the shovel, dragged it out of the car, and shut it in the trunk.
“What should we do now?” she asked breathlessly, climbing into the driver’s seat.
“I’m not sure,” Emma replied. She wiped the mud off her seat and got into the car. “But we’re both too scared to think right now. We might do something dumb. Let’s go to your house and try to calm down. Then we can talk about what to do.”
“Okay.” Sydney’s hand shook badly as she jabbed the key at the ignition.
She finally got it in on the third try, and the engine roared to life.
As she peeled out of the parking lot, she hit a speed bump so hard that her head banged the car roof.
“Slow down!” Emma warned. “The last thing you want right now is a speeding ticket!”
She’s right, Sydney knew. If I got stopped now, I’d totally fall apart.
Easing up on the gas, she glanced at Emma. “Should we take the shovel and hide it someplace?” she asked. “Should we bury it, maybe? Or wash all the blood off and then take it back to my house?”
Emma shook her head. “Someone might be watching us, remember?”
Sydney’s stomach flipped over. Her heart pounding, she raised her eyes to the rearview mirror.
That blue car trailing behind her—had it been there all along?
Keeping her eyes on the mirror, Sydney drove north on Park Drive.
Sweat broke out on her forehead. She gripped the wheel and forced herself not to push the gas pedal to the floor.
One block.
Two blocks.
The blue car stuck with her.
Sydney turned into the North Hills section of Shadyside.
The blue car followed.
Who is it? she wondered. Someone who saw us in the woods? “Emma?” she finally murmured. “Check out the blue car behind us.”
Emma quickly turned in her seat. “What blue car?”
Sydney glanced in the mirror.
Behind her stretched an empty road.
“It was there!” Sydney insisted.
“I believe you,” Emma told her. “Did it tailgate you or something?”
“No. I just thought it was following us. I—I guess I’m feeling totally paranoid.” Breathing a sigh of relief, Sydney drove carefully through North Hills.
Ten minutes later, she pulled her car into the garage. She and Emma entered her house.
Her parents weren’t home, thank goodness.
The day’s mail lay on the foyer table. It had been separated into three piles—Sydney’s, her mother’s, and her father’s.
Sydney grabbed her pile, then led Emma into the kitchen and took two cans of soda from the refrigerator. “Come on. Let’s go to my room before anybody else gets home. The last thing I want to do is answer questions about how my day was and how I did on the history test!”
In her bedroom, Sydney tossed down her backpack and mail. The mail scattered across the rug. A magazine. A bill for the insurance on her car. And a plain white envelope with no return address.
Curious, she picked up the envelope. She put her soda can on the night table, then sat on the bed and ripped open the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of white paper, folded in half.
As Sydney unfolded it and read the typewritten words, a wave of dizziness washed over her.
“What’s wrong?” Emma asked. “Your face just got totally white.”
Still dizzy, Sydney licked her lips and clutched the letter tightly.
“Syd? What’s wrong?” Emma repeated. “What does it say?”
Sydney cleared her throat. “I saw you in the woods,” she read in a trembling voice. “I know your name. It’s Murderer.”