Jalen was lying curled on his side in the center of the large walk-in fridge. A knife handle, stabbing through a piece of paper, protruded from his chest.
He’d not been safely hiding in the refrigerator. He’d been dead all this time.
Plum wanted to cry or scream. They hadn’t been able to avoid the killer at all, even with all their careful plans.
“That’s, um, is that . . . that’s paper,” Peach stammered.
“A poem, yes,” Warix answered, his voice equally thin.
“That’s a lot of blood,” Shelley said. The astrological poet looked more wan than usual.
“Deep breath,” Sofia coached. Henrietta clucked sympathetically. Or at least it sounded sympathetic to Plum.
Their group stood unmoving in the open door of the fridge. Arctic air blew out.
The pool of blood spreading down the podcaster’s shirt was impressive.
“Who’s gonna . . . ?” Dude began.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Plum moved into the fridge and knelt. She put a hand on the paper, trying to decide if it was safe to rip it off the knife.
“What’s it say?” Cici asked.
Jalen liked bloody ground.
Well, now it’s all around.
His podcast was yucky,
it’s true he was sucky.
Still, that’s not why I killed him.
I did it for the mocking that fulfilled him.
Now you can’t run or hide.
It’s time the next one died.
Shelley snorted, then glanced around. “Sorry.” She waved a hand. “It’s not funny. Not funny at all.” She tittered again. “It rhymes though! All the way through!”
“Yeah, our killer’s getting better,” Jude agreed. “At poems,” he amended.
“It was Brittlyn,” Cici spat. “She’s still missing. Maybe she was the one you ran into.”
“I don’t think so . . .” Jude began.
“Why not?” Cici asked.
“The person felt . . . bigger than that. I thought it was Dude.” Jude said.
“But it wasn’t me,” Dude interjected. His dark eyebrows pressed upward toward his spiked hair.
“It might not have been a man at all, you just thought that because that’s what you expected,” Cici urged.
“Maybe.” Jude didn’t seem convinced. “Pretty sure he was big though.”
“None of this matters.” Dude waved his hands in frustration. “What I mean is, it matters but not much. It doesn’t change anything. Right now, no one’s at the watch tent, no one’s at the fire, no one’s doing their jobs and—”
There was a sudden moan, eerie and gasping.
Peach shrieked. It reverberated off the metal walls of the refrigerator. Peach grabbed at Cici and pulled the beauty expert in front of her.
Jalen suddenly sat up. He rubbed the back of his head, gazing at them blearily. He blinked, winced, and looked down at the knife protruding from his chest. “I’ve been stabbed!” he stated. “Someone get a picture for the podcast notes.”