Bex snatched the phone from the can and whirled on Schuster. “What did you do to him?”
“Look at the phone, Bex.” Schuster’s voice was steady, even.
“How do you have his phone?” Her voice cracked.
“He tossed it. Your father. Your father is the Wife Collector.” There was something soft, apologetic in his voice. “He was manipulating you the whole time.”
Bex shook her head, disbelieving. Schuster was the Wife Collector.
He gently took the phone from her hand, flicking it on. He held it out to her, but Bex refused to look.
“Those are the calls he made to you. That’s your number.”
“No.”
“He used you to get to her.”
Bex shook her head again, a new round of tears pooling in front of her eyes. “No. He came back for me.”
“He didn’t, Bex.”
She was about to respond when a primitive, pulse-stopping scream cut through the air.
Chelsea.
She took off running in the direction of her friend’s screams, running until her thighs ached.
She would save Chelsea.
She wouldn’t let another girl die.
“He’s just a man.”
Bex burst down the D hall just as her father was dragging Chelsea out of a classroom. She was screaming and kicking, striking out like a wet cat. Bex’s father had his hands on Chelsea’s neck as he slammed her up against one of the lockers, the thunking sound of her head against metal immediately stopping her shrieks. She went limp and he swiped his arms around her, sweeping her feet from under her.
“Leave her alone!”
Bex’s father’s head turned. “Oh, Bethy, this isn’t what it looks like. You don’t understand. It was Schuster. I had to get her away—”
Bex didn’t hear what he had to say. Her eyes were locked on the keychain hanging from his pocket. A tiny, slick silver bird twirled at the end of a lanyard, its pink, jeweled eyes catching the dim light.
Tourmalines.
Dr. Gold’s bracelet.
Chelsea whimpered. “Bex, please.”
Bex was pummeled by a memory.
Another girl with white-blond hair. She swept Beth Anne up and Beth Anne laughed, loving the tinkling sound of the woman’s laughter. Her mother’s laughter.
Then he came in. A black cloud in their sunshiny kitchen, with heavy black boots that left ugly scrapes across the white linoleum floor.
Beth Anne was pulled against her mother’s chest, where she was comforted by her mother’s soft, steady heartbeat and her fresh milk smell before she was wrenched away, yanked by an arm and roughly shoved into a dining table chair. She heard the slap of palm against skin, and when she looked up, her father was cradling his cheek, the dumbfounded look on his face slowly simmering to white-hot anger.
“You’re going to regret that.”
Bex snapped back to reality, rage surging through her.
“Let her go.”
A slow smile spread across Bex’s father’s face, his lips quirking up maniacally, making her blood run cold.
“Stay out of this, Bethy.”
She took a step forward. “I remember now.”
“Bex, stay back.” Detective Schuster was a hairbreadth behind but Bex shrugged him off, knowing that he had a gun trained on her father. She didn’t care.
“I was there that day in the kitchen.”
The grin that had looked so evil and so full of confidence faltered for a split second.
“Get out of here,” he spat.
“That’s what she told you,” Bex said.
She watched the hatred cut a red streak across her father’s face. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”
She could see Chelsea start to stiffen, could see her begin to blink her eyes, then squint. “Bex?”
“Let her go, Dad.”
The word caught in her throat, her bravado replaced by fear for Chelsea. He was her dad, and he was a murderer. She had put him away once. She would do it again.
“Give up.” In the floodlight around the school, Bex could see the police surrounding the building through the windows. Their guns were drawn. “It’s not your time to be free; it’s mine.”