The man rips off his mask. Blond hair, tan skin, a weatherbeaten, outdoorsy face. She can’t make out the color of his eyes but she can feel the coldness of them right down to her bones.Damn these fumes, Caro thinks.Where have I seenhimbefore?
“You don’t recognize me.” He’s laughing. “That’s funny. Because I know all ofyouso well.” He drops the mask on the floor. “I’ve been in your meetings,” he says. “In your phones. Your computers. Your houses, your rooms. Your girls are beautiful,” he tells Ash, and bile rises in her throat.
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Hope says. She holds out her hand for the flare gun and Caro gives it to her. “Why do you think we’re here?” She smiles at him. “We didn’t come to disappear. We came here to drawyouout.” She lifts her chin. “And we sure as hell didn’t come to die.”
70
THEY STAND IN THEgas-drenched church, Hope holding the gun.
He terrorized them. He killed Eve Herriman. And those are only the things they know about.
They’ve come so far. Through the canyon, out of it again, to the top of the cliff, all the way to this town of ghosts.
Too far to walk away now.
“Ty,”Ash says. “You’re the food truck guy.”
He laughs again. “Right. The food truck guy.” He spits out the words.
Hope thinks,He’s going to take us with him.
“Ty,” Ash says. “Ty.You don’t have to do any of this.” She keeps saying his name. She’s trying to humanize him, because she wants to go home to her girls. Can they talk to him? It was not supposed to go like this, and for a moment she isso pissedat Hope for going off script and disappearing in the canyon.
“I’m sorry,” Hope says, as if she’s reading Ash’s mind. “I thought I was keeping you safe, but here we are, and I hate myself for putting you both in this much danger.”
Caro has Page. She’s slung the young woman over her shoulder. She is worried how long she can stay upright. Page is slender, but she is dense, wiry with muscle, and Caro is breathing fumes and bleeding steadily.
“You should,” Ty says. “They’re all going to die because of you.”
“In my defense, I legitimately almost died in the flash flood, which I did not plan,” Hope says. “But there’s still no excuse.” She glances at Caro, at Ash. “I’ll take care of this,” she says. “Youwillmake it out alive.”
Ty laughs. “It sounds like you’re saying lines from a movie.”
“You’re not going to get away with this,” Caro says, realizing that shealsosounds like she’s speaking lines from a movie.This can’t be real. It absolutely is.
“I have before,” Ty says, and his smile chills them all to the core.
“Eve,” Ash says softly, and he nods.
“Why?” Caro asks. “Why us? Why Eve Herriman?”
“Because this is what he does,” Hope says. “He terrorizes and kills. He wants women he can’t have. They start out liking him, thinking he’s handsome and charming and real, but almost immediately they see him for what he is. They feel the rot that’s at his core and he can’t have that.”
“Shut up,”Ty snarls.
Stop,Caro and Ash think.Why is she baiting him?
“Even when you killed them,” Hope says, “you didn’t count. Their lives ended because of you but you still didn’t matter to them. You can’t, when there’s nothing to you.”
She’s merciless, Caro thinks.
She’s being so dangerous, Ash thinks.
“Let’s each shoot once,” Caro says. “Pass the gun and then we’ll never know whose shot actually killed him.” She can’t believe she is saying this, but Page is so heavy and they have to go. She has to go. Her hands hurt so much and her body is so tired. Her knees buckle a bit, but no one seems to notice.
“Very Agatha,” Hope says approvingly.
“We’re out of time,” Ash says.
