16

The bloodstain spread over the back of the driver’s seat, about the size of a sand dollar. Violet stood on the running board, head poked through the broken-out passenger window, and tried to spot other clues. The truck looked normal inside, other than that brown stain. Her legs nearly buckled, and she locked her knees. Keep it together. Whatever happened here, it was over now.

“Somebody died in this truck,” Khloe whispered from behind her.

“I think you have to lose more blood than that to die.”

“Okay, so blood loss didn’t kill him, the car wreck did. He was driving and someone shot him straight through his body and—”

“The windshield would be broken, then. Besides, there’s no bullet hole in the seat.” Violet hopped down from the running board.

Khloe padded over the grass as if someone might overhear her steps. She wobbled on tiptoe and leaned toward the truck window but kept her hands balled at her sides.

“Okay, so they shot him in the back. And when he fainted and drove off the road and died, they hid the truck here.”

“Khloe, who are we saying shot this person in the back?”

“I can’t see Belinda doing it, so probably her husband. Or Marcus. He’s kind of scary.”

But a gunshot wound wasn’t the only thing that could make a person bleed from his back … while driving and then wrecking his vehicle … Okay, yeah, gunshot did seem most likely.

Her thumb rubbed a charm on her bracelet. The starfish, painted red. Bright red.

She had to stop these people. She had to get to a phone.

“Vi? What’re we going to do?”

Violet turned a circle, three-hundred-sixty degrees of indecision. The glassless window, the sunlight glaring on the chrome bumper blurred as if her eyes refused to see the evidence. She rotated slowly until she faced the edge of the clearing. The tree-fringed path pushed deeper into real forest.

“Something bad happened, obviously. And if Belinda finds out that we know, she might …”

If Belinda would protect someone, even knowing they’d killed a person, then surely she’d have no problem threatening two teenagers who knew too much. Violet shuffled toward the trail that ended at the clearing. After ten feet, Khloe’s hand clawed into her shoulder.

“Is that … a …?” Khloe’s voice pitched upward. “Omygosh, it is.”

To one side of the trail stretched a slightly raised section of dirt. Nettles and a lone white wildflower had sprouted, and the ground had settled almost level, two feet wide and maybe six feet long.

Violet shivered in the thick heat and crossed her arms. “It’s a grave. They buried someone out here.” Killed and buried?

A blue jay squawked from nearby as if to prod her forward. Look closer. Make sure. No way.

“It’s just some dirt,” Khloe said. “Belinda didn’t kill anyone.”

“I’m not saying Belinda did it. Maybe the Christians did it and put the body out here.”

“To frame her?”

“Or because it’s somewhere nobody would look. Maybe Belinda doesn’t even know.”

They crept nearer until they stood over the low mound. Mute seconds slid by. Violet bent to pluck the flower. The root system lost its grip on the loose soil, and she suddenly held the entire plant. She twisted the slender stem around her finger and pulled it tight. It pressed a ring onto her skin.

Khloe shook her head. “It’s dirt. It’s an anthill or something.”

“Six feet long and wide enough for a person?”

“It’s not a grave. It’s not.”

Violet’s ice-capped thoughts were starting to thaw. “We have to call the cops.”

The words seemed to paralyze Khloe. She didn’t blink.

Violet put a hand on her back. “There’s no way around it. If someone buried a body here…”

The end of the mission beckoned like a lighthouse. And there had to be justice now too, for whatever body lay eroding beneath the dirt. She’d call 911 right this minute if she had a phone.

“Violet, no. We can’t. We don’t know anything. Come on, we’ve got to go back before Belinda realizes we’re gone.”

“You’d do literally anything to stay out of re-ed, wouldn’t you? Like, literally.”

Khloe gnawed her lip and stared at the dirt.

They’d only been out here a few minutes, but that doorbell could have heralded the UPS man. Belinda could be on her way down that dark tunnel right now to give them the all-clear. And if the Christian resistance had hired her because she didn’t look like a psychopath but was willing to do their dirty work …

That’s really incredibly unlikely.

Still, she could call someone, send someone to find them. Someone with a car, while they plodded on foot. Someone who knew the woods better than they did. Where would they end up, if they started in any direction? Running off now, especially without a phone, would be stupid.

“Okay. We’ll go back. But I’m going to find out what happened, Khloe, and if they killed somebody, then—”

Khloe’s head shook, and her ponytail bounced around her face. Violet grabbed her shoulders, and she twisted away.

“Stop it. You want to get killed by a bunch of Christians?”

Khloe stilled her thrashing, but her whole body quivered. “They’re not like that. My dad’s not like that.”

Maybe not.

Khloe grabbed Violet into a hug that, from anyone else, would crush ribs. “No cops, not yet.”

Even if that wasn’t a body, Violet had to report to the Constabulary. Soon. Tell Khloe the truth.

Violet pulled away from the embrace and stalked toward the shed. Her legs trembled again. She looked away from the mound of earth as she passed it, but the truck drew her eyes. Shiny, blue, and crumpled up on one side as if punched by a giant.

If only Austin’s friend could see this.