Page 131 of Wicked Little Secret
“How could you keep this from me?” I demanded in a rumble.
Josalyn shook her head, on the brink of tears. “Theron, I warned you to stay away. This was none of your concern.”
“None of my concern!?” I shout. “You’re my concern!”
“Leave me alone! I don’t need you!”
She rushed past me on her way to the door. I clenched shut my eyes and urged my fists to stop shaking, urged the rage inside me to go away.
But I couldn’t let this go. I couldn’t look the other way like I had in the past.
How could she?!
I black out once I hit the roads. They’re empty and dark, my windshield wipers whizzing across the front window to keep the raindrops at bay. I drive for miles, far across Castlebury, in search of the location I know will be safe.
The place where I can dispose of Samson Wicker and then forget this night ever happened.
It wouldn’t be the first time…
Half an hour later, I pull up thick in the forest that surrounds the university. I heave Wicker’s body from the trunk along with the snow shovel I keep in my car. I’m lost in a daze, digging up a hole deep enough to bury him in.
His pale, lifeless body flops into the hole and Icover him shovel by shovel. Soon he disappears, embedded deep under the wet earth.
I’m drenched once it’s all said and done, soaked by sweat and the rainfall. I leave the burial site behind, scrubbing a hand over my face as I head back toward my car. Darkness surrounds me. Only the smell of sodden earth andtap-tap-tapof rain fills my ears and nose.
…until out of the stillness comes the soft pad of footsteps. The bright white light from a cell phone. I squint in the direction it’s coming from.
Nyssa steps out of the blanket of darkness looking unlike I have ever seen her. Accusation lives in her expression, her face lacking its usual warmth.
I blink in the rain and vaguely wonder if I’m hallucinating.
“Nyssa… how did you…?”
“You… killed Samson?” she says slowly, her eyes widening.
Shit. Shit!
I shake my rumpled wet hair away from my brow, aware how crazed I must look soaked through with a shovel in my hand so late at night, in the middle of nowhere. “It’s a very long story. But allow me to explain.”
“So it’s true,” she says. “It was you.”
“What’s me? You think I… that I’m…? Nyssa!”
But as I stagger toward her, she retreats back into the wooded shadows. Bright light falls directly on me as three police cars emerge from the other end. They’ve turned off road into the forest as if given the exact coordinates to look for. Their high beams burn my retinas and I have no choice but to lift up my arm to block the light.
The police cars roll to a stop over the rocks and dirt. A stern voice issues a command over a megaphone.
“Stay where you are.”
My stomach bottoms out as the gravity of the moment weighs on me.
This is bad. Very bad. The worst possible thing that could happen…
The police car doors spring open and out step four officers starting toward me.
I glance over at the trees Nyssa had been standing between.
She’s gone, having vanished into the darkness.