She nods once, sharp. “I didn’t mean to hit her that hard. I just… I was done.”
The wind shifts off the lake and carries that damp, metallic stink that’s been clinging to everything lately. Blood and panic. I glance down to Brittany’s finger, capped in blood.
“She went down,” Brittany whispers. “She was breathing. I checked. I ran to get help.”
“And,” I say.
“When I got back,” she says, and her voice fractures, “she was gone.”
Fucking Bethany. Probably ran off ready to hand the club over to Sherrif Dix. Or maybe something got her. Or someone. For one long second, I don’t move.
Because reacting wrong right now would ruin everything. If I say the wrong thing, if I grab her too hard, if I look too angry, it becomes a story. It becomes proof. It becomes the kind of scene Hell feeds on.
“Show me,” I say instead.
We move fast. Not running. Not panicked. Fast enough to matter.
The shoreline looks peaceful from a distance, and it makes me want to smash something. Herrington keeps putting on that innocent face while it swallows people whole.
I see the board first. Then the disturbed patch of gravel. Then the faint smear of red in the dirt near the dock post, like someone wiped a finger through it.
No body.
No drag marks.
No obvious signs of a struggle beyond what Brittany described. That part doesn’t make me feel better. It makes it worse. It means whoever moved her did it clean, or Bethany got up and walked off before Brittany came back, or the lake did what the lake’s been doing.
I crouch and touch the gravel.
Still damp. Not from rain. From weight and movement. I glance at the mud near the waterline. It’s churned but not deeply gouged. No clear trail leading into the trees. No obvious track of somebody hauling dead weight.
Just disruption.
Ambiguous.
I hate ambiguity.
“You’re sure she was breathing,” I ask without looking up.
“Yes,” Brittany says, voice high. “I checked. I swear.”
I believe her.
That’s the part that hits hardest.
Bethany’s body ain’t here. Her head hasn’t been here for a while now. And if she turns up hurt later, Brittany’s the easiest target in the world. A Home wrecker with a temper. A club whore that everybody already decided they can talk about like she ain’t human.
Behind us, a shout rises from camp. Royal’s voice carries sharp over the noise, clipped like he’s already fighting three problems at once.
We don’t have time.
If Bethany walked off and resurfaces screaming assault, the story fractures the club in half. If she didn’t walk off, if she went into the water, if something dragged her, then we’re already behind and the lake’s laughing at us.
I stand and scan the treeline. Nothing moves. Not even birds.
“You didn’t push her in,” I say quietly.
Brittany’s head snaps up. “What?”
