[ xlvi. the murder ]

➸➸➸

WILLA DEVERAUX'S LUNGS BURNED as she skidded to a halt at the end of yet another alley, her chest rising and falling with every searing, painful breath.  Rain now poured down in sheets, mingling with sweat to coat her skin in a cold, clammy film. It dripped from her face, traced down her neck, and pooled in the sleeves of her drenched cashmere polo, the storm soaking her to the bone. What had begun as Kildare's typical humid evening had turned into a tempestuous downpour—a vicious, but familiar, farewell to summer as fall edged closer.

Now, standing at her destination, Willa squinted through the curtain of rain toward the dark structure of an unfinished building across Grand Street, where two things stood out like neon signs: Ward Cameron's expensive gray truck and Gavin Barnstead's practical black convertible.

Both vehicles were parked haphazardly on the empty street.  They were out of place.  And undeniably wrong. No one had any business being here this late in front of a locked-up work zone. Yet here they were, two cruel, evil men bound by murder, by mayhem, quietly scheming to bury their shared secret ever deeper.

And here Willa was. A sixteen-year-old girl on an ordinary Tuesday night. In a filthy alley alongside her teenage friends, determined to drag that very secret into the light.

"I can't see shit from here."

JJ Maybank's annoyed mutterings broke the silence behind her. His breath was warm against the back of her neck. Given his height on the Deveraux daughter, his soaked frame was pressed close—almost too close—against Willa's back as he squinted past her, trying to make out anything through the unrelenting torrent.

"Should we get closer?" Kiara whispered.  She was leaning against the damp brick wall beside Willa, her caramel skin slick with perspiration. Her gasps came in uneven bursts, matching Willa's own after their shared sprint.

"Hold on," came Pope's voice from below. He had dropped to his knees near the mouth of the alley, his hands delving into his already-soaked backpack. He shoved aside a sopping notebook and emerged with a bulky, ancient-looking camcorder.

Willa blinked at it. In their era of smartphones, the device looked almost laughably out of place—yet it was oddly fitting for Pope. If any of the Pogues were to carry such a thing, it would be him.  No matter, it had to have belonged to his parents first . . . and she already presumed they probably would not be thrilled to learn he had taken it, much less was risking damaging it.

JJ snorted and began to voice what Willa was already thinking. "Where'd you dig up that relic?" he asked. "Why don't you just use your phone?"

Straightening up, Pope powered the device on with a flick of his thumb. Its small screen buzzed to life. "Well, first of all, I like my antique electronics," he clipped as he raised the camcorder to his eye. "Second of all, this is a telephoto. It allows me to get a close image from far away."

"Won't the rain fry it?" Willa wondered aloud, squinting up at him as a fat raindrop splashed against her cheek.

"No," Pope reassured with a confident shake of his head. "This beauty's practically indestructible."

"Lord of the dorks," Kiara snickered under her breath.

"For definitive proof of witness payoff, we're going to need quality glass," the Heyward son defended, sending her a pointed look.

Suddenly, a brilliant lash of lightning slashed across the sky, illuminating the street in stark white.  "Hey, there they are!" JJ exclaimed.  All four teenagers snapped their heads back toward the construction site.  In that spark of clarity, Willa saw Gavin and Ward.  The two men stood on the ground floor of the gutted shop, barely shadows against the hollowed-out walls.  Their postures were tense, their heads close together as they spoke. Willa strained her eyes, trying to read their body language, but before she could make out anything more, the lightning faded. Darkness swallowed the site again.

But not before both men turned toward the open doorway.

Willa's stomach dropped. Gavin's and Ward's gazes swept the rain-soaked street, their expressions watchful. One of them seemed to look directly toward their alley.  Toward them.

"Shit! Get back!" JJ hissed.

Before Willa could fully react, his right arm snaked around her shoulders, locking tightly across her upper chest. He pulled her backward, nearly lifting her off her feet, the strength of his forearm pinning her against his torso.  Willa stumbled slightly, her hands reflexively clutching at his bare, rain-slicked arm for balance as he maneuvered them both deeper into the shadows.

JJ's back mutely smacked the brick wall, Willa's own impact softened beneath him, and across the way, Pope and Kiara had huddled closer together, crouched in similar darkness.

Willa could instantly feel the erratic cadence of JJ's jumping heartbeat pounding against her spine. His chin brushed the crown of her head when she shifted in his hold, both of them peering cautiously back toward the alley's mouth.  The cryptic scene across the street continued to blur in the downpour, but Willa spotted a faint movement. As if they had sensed an audience, Gavin and Ward had retreated deeper into the construction site.  Their shadowy forms disappeared up a staircase toward the second floor.

"They're moving upstairs," she announced.

"No, no, no," Pope muttered in frustration, fiddling with his camcorder. "I'm going to lose them."

"Then we need higher ground," Willa said decisively.

JJ took that as his cue.  He let go of her so abruptly that the loss of his warmth left her skin prickling, her body becoming cold again.  His boots splashed through the shallow puddles as he strode toward the far end of the alley, his hand lifting. "There," he said in a low voice, motioning toward a bolted ladder that stretched up the side of the building. "Come on."

Willa was the first to follow. Her soaked shoes slipped against the pavement as she hurried toward the ladder.  JJ climbed quickly, his hands and feet sure on the rungs despite the rain. Willa gritted her teeth and began her ascent next, her hands gripping the cold metal tightly as water streamed down her elbows.  Directly behind her, Pope was already climbing and, taking the rear, was Kiara who, even from the distance below, Willa could hear urgently whispering, "Hurry! We don't want to miss anything!"

When Willa finally hauled herself onto the exposed rooftop, the storm only seemed to intensify. The rain hammered against the flat surface, the roar of it drowning out all other relative sounds. She stood for a moment and glanced out over the expanse of downtown Kildare. It was odd to see the entirety of their island's nightlife from above. It was so empty, so dark. Odder still, once Willa remembered it was not even that late, and that most of the touristy shops did not close until nine—even on weeknights.

It was as though, somehow, Ward Cameron's very presence had drained the surrounding area of all life. A madman like that could command such power.

"Get down!"

JJ's sharp whisper snapped Willa out of her thoughts.  She dropped into a crouch, crawling toward the low parapet lining the roof. Her clothed knees scraped against the gritty concrete as she slid into position beside JJ. He was already scanning the construction site below, his blue eyes narrowed in focus.

Meanwhile, Willa instinctively reached for her phone, unsure exactly what she was even doing as her fingers clumsily unlocked the screen. The glowing numbers sent a fresh wave of panic coursing through her veins.

8:02 p.m.

Twenty-eight minutes until curfew.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

They needed to move fast. Expose Ward. Catch Gavin. Secure the weapon that killed Sheriff Peterkin.  If they could manage all that in twenty minutes, maybe Willa could still get home in time.

Fuck.

Who was she kidding?

Her parents were going to kill her.

Willa shoved the phone back into her pocket, shaking off the thought. There was no time to dwell on her own funeral. She needed to focus. Glancing to her left, she found Kiara and Pope crouched on her other side, rain streaking down their faces. The latter was hunched over his camcorder, still muttering curses as he tried to steady the lens. JJ noticed her focus shift.

"Are you rolling, Pope?" he prompted.

Pope flipped up his jacket hood, squinting into the viewfinder as raindrops clung stubbornly to the glass. "Yeah. I see them." He adjusted the zoom, fine-tuning the focus, seeing all that Willa, Kiara, and JJ could not see for themselves. "Ward just handed Gavin something. I think . . . it's a duffel bag."

"It's got to be a payoff," JJ concluded darkly.

Willa leaned forward, her chin scraping against the rough brick of the low wall.  Through intermittent flashes of lightning, she could just make out the two silhouettes of Gavin and Ward moving around on the second floor of the construction site.  Their gestures were agitated, but the roaring rain continued to block out any sound beyond the hammering of her own pulse.  She could not hear Ward. She could not hear Gavin. She could barely hear her own friends murmuring beside her.

"Gavin doesn't look happy about something," Pope reported stiffly. "It looks like he's yelling at Ward."

"Why?" Kiara wondered, shifting closer.

"Maybe Ward's not paying him enough," Willa guessed, picking up on JJ's earlier assumption. She could imagine it: a lesser-income man like Gavin, with rare leverage like this, squeezing multi-millionaire Ward Cameron for every cent he could.  After all, when you had someone by the throat, why not twist the knife for good measure? "He's being greedy."

Another crack of lightning overhead. In that brief burst of light, Willa finally, clearly, made out their faces. She could tell who stood where, and, more importantly, who seemed to hold the upper hand. Gavin, the one with the murder weapon, looked defiant, refusing to cave . . . at first. But as Ward rushed toward him, the smaller man's posture rapidly crumbled. Ward loomed over him now, getting right in his face. Though the endless thunder drowned out their words, Willa could see the palpable fury in Ward's ugly expression.  It was a ferocity she longed to hear.

"You got a microphone in that backpack, Pope?" she questioned dryly, only half-joking.

"I wish," he huffed back, his right eye staying glued to the camcorder. Suddenly, his voice pitched higher. "Whoa, whoa, whoa—they're starting to fight!"

The next flash of lightning revealed such said chaos.  Willa's breath caught as Ward and Gavin became interlocked in each other, grappling viciously. The duffel bag was discarded and forgotten between them as they struggled for dominance. Fists flew. Gavin's head snapped back as Ward headbutted him. A savage kick doubled him over.

"Ward's kicking the shit out of Gavin," Pope narrated, his breathing quickening.

"What do you think they're fighting over?" JJ leaned closer, craning his neck. Beside him, Willa had already mirrored the dangerous motion. If the low wall were not there, the Deveraux daughter and Maybank son might have toppled over the roof together. Hell, even with the brick barricade, they were getting a bit too close for comfort.

Nonetheless, Willa watched on, horror-struck and enticed, as Ward slammed Gavin onto a workbench, the man's head striking the corner of the steel table on his way to the ground.  In the next instant, Ward ripped a gun from the fallen man's waistband.

Kiara sucked in an alarmed breath. "That's the murder weapon."

"No, no, no," Willa fretted, her esophagus suddenly tight.  What she was seeing could not happen.  Ward could not just walk away with the gun. He could not get away with this. But as he stepped back from Gavin's crumpled form, Peterkin's murder weapon now securely in his grasp again, it seemed like he would. Ward was already making his way to the staircase, his retreat maddeningly calm, as if this was just another night's work for him, attacking and stealing as he pleased.

But Gavin was not done.

The battered man dragged himself upright, staggering like a corpse risen from the grave.  His hand shot out, his mouth moving with silent curses lost to the storm.  Willa's fingers dug into the brick wall, her heart thrumming against her ribs.  Whatever Gavin was saying, it was bold enough to make Ward stop.

And turn.

He raised the gun, steady as stone, and fired.

Once. Twice. Three times.

The gunshots shattered the night, so very, very loud.  An involuntary cry ripped from Willa's lips as each crack of the firearm lit up the construction site like macabre strobe lights, revealing Gavin's violently jerking body. The bullets tore into him with devastating force.  His blood sprayed.

And still, impossibly, Gavin managed to lunge at Ward, colliding with him in a final act of defiance. The still-smoking gun flew from Ward's hands, spinning into the darkness.  The two men grappled briefly once more, a deadly dance made almost immediately clumsy by Gavin's failing strength. It was over in seconds. With an almost effortless motion, Ward shoved him back, sending him crashing into the workbench again. This time, Gavin did not get up

Because he was dead.

Willa's frightened breath came in shallow gasps.  Her vision blurred as Ward stepped forward, standing over Gavin's now lifeless body.  He bent down slightly, ensuring there was no doubt. The murder was complete.

The lone word stuck in Willa's mind like a jagged thorn: murder.

Because . . . because . . . Willa had just watched a man die.

Not just die. But be killed. Executed, without hesitation or remorse.

Her body betrayed her first. A wobble in her hands spread through her limbs until she buckled backward onto the rooftop. Her back hit the wet surface and nausea churned deep in her stomach.  Flashes of the gun and Gavin's convulsing body replayed in her every ensuing blink.

JJ dropped down beside her next, hands clutching the red ballcap on his soaked head, while Kiara stumbled back, too, her blubbering lips muttering frantic disbelief.

"No," the Carrera daughter whimpered, her voice cracking. "No, no, no! That did not just happen!"

Willa's wide eyes found JJ's between the flashes of lightning.  Neither could speak, neither could reassure the other, their tensed jaws locked tight, their frigid bodies wound taut as tripwire. Someone had just died.  They had just witnessed a murder. They were witnesses to a murder.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

And yet, a much harsher expletive escaped Willa's growing turmoil instead. "Holy fuck."

"Tell me," JJ began breathlessly, turning to Pope, the only teenager who had yet to completely back away from the exposed roof, "that you just got all that."

The Heyward son nodded his head once, sharp and definite. "Enough to put this asshole away for life," he assured them.

"Good." JJ's short breaths came quicker. "Good."  His energy—his shock, perhaps—was beginning to betray his own panic. "I think we should go right now."

"Hold on," Pope instructed. "Ward's going downstairs. He's coming outside. I think he's looking for the gun."

Against her better judgment, Willa forced herself upright again, her knees shaking as she shuffled back to the roof's edge.  She dared a peek.  Down below, Ward Cameron prowled Grand Street, his face pale, black eyes scanning the puddle-filled pavement. He darted between shadows, his movements jerky, eager to find the weapon that Gavin had knocked away at the last second.

The blood-soaked, murderous man hurried on down the street, sticking low to the ground until he was only a distant figure—a rapid, panicked animal—that Willa could barely see anymore.

"Did he find it, Pope?" she eventually questioned.

"I don't think so . . ." Pope replied cautiously, still watching through his viewfinder. "Wait—there! It went down the drain. He didn't get the gun."

Willa exhaled shakily. "Thank God," she breathed. "We need to go. Now. Before he realizes we're up here and—"

"Kie, what the hell are you doing?!"

JJ's stunned cry cut her off.  Willa swung her head around and felt her stomach drop.  Kiara, who had been so quiet moments ago, so absorbed by the violence and unexpected grief of a stranger killed before her very eyes, was now standing, leaning wildly over the side of the roof. Her hands cupped around her mouth as she screamed into the night like a siren:

"What is wrong with you?! MURDERER!"

JJ was on Kiara in an instant, grabbing her around the waist and yanking her back to the ground. His other hand clamped firmly over her mouth. She flailed against him, muffled screams still spilling out, determined to be heard.  Still wandering below in the street, Ward froze.  He straightened from his search, his body eerily still as his head tilted upward, scanning the dark rooftops.

Willa's heart stopped.  If he saw them—if he recognized them—

Without thinking, she dove from sight and toward the struggling pair. She grabbed Kiara's thrashing arms. "Kie, stop!" she hissed. "He's going to hear you!"

Pope's charcoal eyes were burning depths of anger behind them. "Are you crazy?!" he chided her.

Kiara wrenched JJ's hand away from her mouth. "I don't care if he hears me!" she spat. "He's a murderer!"

"And now he's going to murder us!" JJ shouted back in her face.

"Guys. Guys!  He sees us!"  Pope stumbled back from the edge, his camcorder lowering. "We've got to go!"  He lunged toward the heap of swearing teenagers—JJ, Willa, and Kiara still struggling to untangle themselves—and plucked the Deveraux daughter onto her feet. JJ hauled Kiara up next, their argument momentarily forgotten. "Go, go, go! Hurry!"

They scrambled across the slippery roof. Willa reached the fire escape first, swinging her legs over and gripping the rungs of the ladder. She descended two at a time, rain slicking her fingers.  Twice, her hands slipped, and for one harrowing moment, she had dangled by a single rung, her feet scrabbling for purchase. Her stomach flipped violently, but she forced herself to keep moving down.

When her feet finally hit solid ground, Willa darted into the deepest, most secure shadows of the alley, pressing herself against the brick wall, lungs heaving. She barely had a second to steady herself when a whining yelp of pain from above drew her gaze skyward.

"Shit!"

Pope and JJ came crashing down the last section of the ladder, landing hard on the pavement.  Willa jumped out of the way just in time. "Are you both okay?!" she gasped.  JJ only groaned in response, clutching his wrist, and Willa grabbed him by the elbow, hauling him upright, and off Pope who slowly moved onto his knees, wincing in pain. "What the hell happened?" she demanded, her eyes darting suspiciously between the two boys.

Before either could really answer, Kiara jumped from the last few rungs.  Her quivering voice spilled out in a breathless rush, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Willa wheeled on Kiara.  Still angry, accusation was clear in her tone. "What did you—"

"No, no, no, no!"

Her blistering words were snatched clean from behind her teeth, and Willa glanced down to see that Pope had yet to pick himself up from the alley's wet ground.  He was hunched over, his back to his friends, cradling something in his lap.  Actually—Willa realized as she stepped closer—he was cradling several somethings.  A shattered something.

The camcorder.

Willa scoffed before she could stop herself. "Practically indestructible, huh?"

"You're kidding me!" JJ cried in despair, his own injuries abandoned. "You fumbled it?!"

Pope clambered aggressively to his feet, eyes blazing into the Maybank boy. "You kicked me in the face!"

"Kie stepped on my hand!" JJ argued back, pointing an accusatory finger at Kiara.

"I was trying to hurry!" the Carrera daughter claimed, face flushed.

Their shouting only escalated, snappy voices and nasty insults ricocheting off the narrow brick walls.  Willa's head whipped toward the alley entrance.  Ward could be anywhere now.  Hearing them.  Closing in.  She gritted her teeth in frustration.

"Enough!" she finally barked.  She scooped the shattered remnants of Pope's camcorder into her hands. "Blame each other later. We have to go!"

The group fell silent upon her order, tension still simmering between the four teenagers, but the urgency of their predicament left no room for real argument. They sprinted down the opposite end of the alley, away from Grand Street and the horror they had just left behind.  For several long minutes, the only sounds were the pounding of their light footsteps and the rhythm of their breaths turning ragged.  Never looking back, they darted through side streets and across empty avenues, their shadows stretching and warping under sporadic streetlights.

Willa's legs burned with her effort, but she refused to slow down, even for a second.  Over and over again, her rattled mind conjured terrifying images of Ward Cameron right at her heels, imagining that, somehow, he had already recovered his gun from the storm drain, and now had it aimed squarely at her back. She pushed harder, outrunning bullets, each step fueled by her blatant fear—and echoing gunfire still trapped in her ringing ears.

It was not until they reached a small park, nearly a mile away from the construction site, that Willa, JJ, Pope, and Kiara slowed, beginning to falter in their exhaustion. Rain dripped from their frizzy, ratted hair, their sweaty and dirty clothes clinging to their steaming skin as they gulped for humid air.

The Maybank boy leaned against a darkened lamppost, his hands on his knees. "Can someone . . ." he panted, "fill me in . . . on what the fuck just happened?"

Pope's only answer to him was a sneered snarl. He ripped the broken camcorder from Willa's trembling hands, glaring at its many pieces as if he could will it back together again. Willa reached out instinctively.

"Careful," she said softly. "Maybe we can still—"

"No!" Pope shouted back at her, furious. "It's busted!"

Willa backed away at his outburst, her chest tightening as she stared at the broken device. Hot, frustrated tears welled in her sage green eyes. Their proof—the one thing that could have sent Ward Cameron to prison and brought John B. home—was gone.

She stamped her foot onto the ground and spun away, desperate to control the mounting pressure threatening to overtake her. She bit back the scream clawing at her throat. She could not—she would not—let herself cry. The others could lose their minds if they wanted to. But she needed to keep it together. She needed to find a way to turn this situation around, to salvage something.

Maybe there was a chance they could recover the hard drive from the camcorder. Or maybe they could ask to trace the security cameras in the businesses around the construction site. Or maybe—

"Come on!  Pick up! Pick up! Please, pick up!"

Kiara's frantic voice shattered Willa's concentration.  She turned to see Kiara clutching her phone, auburn eyes darting nervously around the shadowed park.  The distant hum of a ringing line barely reached Willa's ears.  Before she could ask, JJ beat her to it.

"Who are you calling?" he questioned.

"Who do you think?" Kiara retorted, thrusting the phone's screen toward them. A familiar three-digit number glared back at them.

"The cops?!" Pope spluttered.

"Who else am I supposed to call?" Kiara fiercely returned.

"Why would you call the police?!" JJ angrily exploded. "They're on Ward's side!"

"Shoupe's not going to help us!" Willa added hotly. "Without the camcorder—!"

"Shut up!" Kiara's scream cut through Willa's sentence.  The words stung, leaving the Deveraux daughter stunned into silence as Kiara turned back to the phone.  She was past the point of reason, her focus singular and unwavering.  "Hello! Hello! Someone's been shot at the—at the Grand Street construction site!" she shouted into the receiver, her voice high with panic. "You need to hurry because he's—he's dying! I don't know if he's already dead or not! You guys need to hurry, please!"

Before anyone could fully comprehend what had just transpired, before the officer on the other end of the line could even muster a response or attempt to ask any questions, Kiara abruptly hung up the phone.  Willa's mind reeled at such brash, reckless behavior.  That one impulsive call, the frenzied hang-up—had made everything infinitely worse. In one moment, their chances of staying out of trouble had evaporated.  Now, they were all implicated. Every single one of them.

Slowly, one by one, JJ, Pope, and Willa turned their burning glares toward Kiara. But the Carrera daughter remained oblivious to the fury and disappointment directed at her. She stood there, motionless, her normally warm face now drained of color as she struggled to steady her breathing and compose herself.

"We need to go back," JJ said quietly.

No one disagreed. No one could disagree. They were in too deep now.  Willa's blood boiled, but she swallowed the rage down, clenching her fists so tightly that her nails bit into her palms. God was she livid.  She wanted to scream at Kiara, wanted to tear into her for the colossal mess she had just created. But the truth was, that ferocity could wait.  It would have to wait.

Later, she would have the time to be truly angry at her friend, to question her idiotic actions. Right now, she needed to go and find a dead body in the depths of a construction site, take in its endless blood and bullet-ridden carnage, and be prepared to explain to Shoupe how it got there—all while doing so with a straight face.

Willa took a deep, sobering inhale, turned on her heel, and started the trek back toward a dark, downtown Kildare. Her three friends followed closely behind her.  As she walked, habit returned to her, and she reached for her cell phone in her back pocket. This time, she felt nothing at all as she glanced toward the familiar screen.

8:23 p.m.

Willa shoved the damning device away once more.

And did not look at it again for the rest of the night.

➸➸➸

IT TOOK WARD CAMERON only forty-five minutes to get away with murder.

Willa Deveraux could scarcely wrap her mind around it—could hardly bring herself to believe it—but there was no denying what she saw from the second floor of the Grand Street construction site. Just an hour ago, she had watched Ward fire three bullets into Gavin's chest. She had seen Gavin fall, his body crumpling to the floor, blood pouring. She could still hear the shots in her ears.

But now?

Now, the scene below was utterly spotless. No blood. No body. No bullet casings. Even the duffel bag Ward had offered as hush money had vanished. As if none of it had ever happened. As if it had all been a sick, twisted figment of her imagination.

But Willa knew what she had seen.

Outrage surged through her veins, so white-hot it nearly turned her vision red. Or maybe that was the glare of the police lights below, flashing against the skeletal beams of the construction site. The once-empty street was crowded now—with squad cars, ambulances, and officers and paramedics milling about.  But Ward Cameron and Gavin Barnstead?  They were gone.

Every trace of them, wiped clean in less than an hour.

What the fuck?

What the actual fuck?

How had Ward done it? Who the hell was even capable of something like this?

"No, no, you have to believe us! Look, it was right here! This is where that manic claimed his next victim!"

Kiara's hysterical voice flooded Willa's distant senses, pulling her reluctantly from the freezing shock of the empty, damp floorboards.  The rain had stopped—maybe it had even washed away Gavin's blood—but the cold still clung to her, though now for an entirely different reason.  Kiara was pleading with Deputy—no, interim sheriff—Shoupe, now, and pointing to the exact spot where Gavin had fallen. Shoupe stood there, pen scribbling in his notepad as he took down their statements. But it was obvious, painfully so, from the moment they had begun to speak that he did not believe them. Not a single word.

And he would not believe them. Not ever. Because Shoupe was in Ward Cameron's pocket.

Maybe he had helped Ward hide the body.

Maybe when Kiara called it in, Shoupe was already on his way here.  Not to investigate, but to clean up.

Maybe—

Stop.

Willa exhaled tightly, trying to steady the endless tremors running down her spine.

Get a grip.

The four isolated teenagers would not find any help here. Willa knew that. Willa accepted that.

"Uh-huh."

Shoupe's voice dragged her back to the present all over again, his tone dripping with familiar skepticism. He followed Kiara's still-pointing finger, his eyes scanning the empty floorboards where Gavin's body was supposed to be. "His next victim?" he repeated.

"Yes," Kiara gritted, her teeth clenched so tight the word came out as a growl.

"Right . . ." Shoupe drawled on. "And you said this happened how long ago?"

"Forty-five minutes, Shoupe," JJ cut in before Kiara could answer. He was crouched on the floor to Willa's left, yanking openly at a board, testing how easily it could come loose. Like he half-expected Ward to have ripped out the entire section to scrub away Gavin's blood. But that was impossible, right?

"So," Shoupe said slowly, flipping through his notes, treating their situation like it was just another dull, insignificant case to him. "Ward Cameron just . . . popped one off and shot him, execution style? And then cleaned it all up in forty-five minutes?"

"Yes!" Kiara said again, nodding furiously. "We filmed the entire thing, too."

That caught Shoupe's attention. Willa, however, only felt her shoulders sag under the inevitability as the sheriff raised a bushy eyebrow. "You filmed it?"

"Yes, but . . . but we can't show it to you because I . . . I stepped on JJ's hand, and then he kicked Pope, and Pope dropped the camera—because it's a piece of shit—and it broke," Kiara confessed, her voice shrinking with every word.

Shoupe's eyes slid slowly toward the Deveraux daughter, who stood with her arms crossed. "And where were you in this circus act?" he asked her.

"Standing by. Like a normal human being," Willa deadpanned, rolling her eyes.

"Couldn't catch the camera, huh?" Shoupe jabbed. The mockery in his tone was like dashing salt in an open wound.

Willa's upper lip curled, her temper automatically flaring, eased to launch into a verbal onslaught all her own against the new sheriff and his constant arrogance.  But before she could unleash it, Pope intercepted her wrath. "It was a telephoto lens, Shoupe," he informed. "We needed to get a long-distance image, and . . . and I fell, and it broke, so the video is basically unusable. But—But we were there! And we were witnesses—"

"So the dog ate your homework?" Shoupe cut the rambling Heyward son off.

"No, Shoupe!" Kiara threw her hands up in exasperation. "I know it sounds—"

"Look, I don't know what you kids expect me to do with this," Shoupe interrupted once more, his dismissing gaze sweeping across the four teenagers standing in a line before him. It was still, somehow, only them in the half-built construction site. Below, officers and medics were combing aimlessly through the area for evidence.  Evidence that they seemingly would never find. "You dragged me out here in the middle of the night for a whole lot of nothing!"

"It's not nothing!" Kiara protested, her voice climbing in pitch.

Shoupe's expression hardened as he snapped back, "You're trying to feed me some crazy story about how Ward Cameron's on a random killing spree, and I'm not buying it!"

"We're not making this up!" JJ swore.

"It's not random!" Pope added desperately. "Gavin Barnstead was his pilot! Ward was paying him hush money because he was there on the tarmac that day."

Willa jumped in, eager to point out, "Gavin saw what Rafe did to Peterkin. That made him a target, and he knew it. That's why he kept the gun Rafe used—to blackmail Ward with it."

"And then Gavin called Ward here," JJ supported. "Ward tried to pay him off, but when Gavin wouldn't take the deal—"

"—Ward shot him," Willa finished. "Three bullets to the chest. Execution-style. Using the same gun that killed Peterkin."

The Deveraux daughter and the Maybank son glanced swiftly at one another, exchanging a small nod, and Kildare's interim sheriff began to study them closely.

Willa quickly met the man's scrutiny with a measured stare of her own. What did he see when he looked at them? The same relentless, spitfire teens from the Point—the two who nearly had become physical with him when he had delivered the devastating news about John B. and Sarah? Could he see their same anguish, their unshakable, headstrong tenacity? Surely, he could not ignore the raw emotion in their tones, the conviction that burned through their every synched word, just as it had that very dark night not so long ago.  Surely, he had to realize Willa and JJ could not be lying to him now.

Finally, Shoupe broke the unsteady silence. "How do you know all this?" he asked warily.

Kiara pointed toward Pope. "He did this thing with his phone," she answered. "He, like, put it in Gavin's car and—"

"I heard their whole conversation," Pope boldly admitted.

Shoupe blinked in disbelief. "You wiretapped him?"

"Is that bad?"

Willa glanced nervously at her friends as she saw the disapproving look forming on Shoupe's reddening face. Before any of them could try to explain themselves—before they could risk being arrested for a crime that had yet to even fully understand they committed—Shoupe lifted a single finger and silenced them all. "Stop. Just stop," he instructed, his voice thick with irritation. "I've had enough."

Without another word, he pivoted on his booted heel and started toward the stairs.

JJ immediately started after him. "Where are you going?" he demanded.  "You're seriously just going to look the other way?"

Shoupe did not look back. "You ever hear about the boy who cried wolf?" he called out scornfully.

"What?"

Kiara, also determined to follow an equally heated JJ, hurried after them, her frustration echoing through the empty construction site. Meanwhile, for a moment, Willa and Pope merely remained where they stood, side by side in the growing shadows. Willa's chest felt hollow, her heart beating dully.  Defeatedly.

She hated how welcomed the feeling of emptiness was becoming, how easily it fit inside herself.

"How . . . How could Ward get away with this?" she whispered, half to herself, half to the boy beside her.

Pope said nothing. He simply stared ahead, his jaw set tight as if wrestling with the same helplessness she felt.  Finally, he exhaled sharply, then turned and began heading toward the same set of stairs.  Willa watched him go, before ultimately turning her attention back to the empty space in front of her. Her feet moved almost of their own accord, guiding her to the exact spot where she knew, with absolute certainty, Gavin had been gunned down. Where Gavin had died.  She crouched down, her breath choking as she looked at the clean ground—the clean slate, more like.

How could he just be gone?

Gavin Barnstead had not been a good man by any means, but his life had been stolen from him so brutally, so senselessly. And Ward Cameron . . . he just kept getting away with it.  Every.  Damn.  Crime.

Willa slammed a clenched fist down upon where a bloodstain should be, the sting of her own anger reverberating in her bones. Then, she stood up abruptly, brushing soggy sawdust from her fingertips.  Without another glance at the spot where Gavin's life had ended, she stalked toward the stairs, her steps quick as she made her way back onto the street.

Outside, activity was winding down. Officers packed up evidence bags that held nothing substantial, medics folded away stretchers that had gone unused. Shoupe, too, was already making his way to his idly parked vehicle, but the two badgering teenagers on his heels were not letting up easily.

"Can't you just believe us for once?" JJ yelled.

"Why would we lie?!" Kiara cried in tandem, her hands flailing again as tears welled in her big, auburn eyes. "I know it sounds crazy! I know that! But please, don't go!" She was shouting now, taking up as much space as she could in the middle of the road. "Can you just do your job for, like, twenty fucking minutes?!"

"Hey!" Shoupe spun around and pointed a stern finger at her, but Kiara did not flinch at his newfound retaliation.  Her tears spilled freely now.  At such a sight, Shoupe's scowl seemed to soften slightly, as though her pain had momentarily pierced through his indifference. "I know you're upset, Kiara," he said.  His careful gaze shifted next to JJ, then to Willa and Pope, who had gathered on either side of him. "And I know you all think your friend was innocent," he further addressed.

"He is!" Kiara insisted as she, once again, defended John B. with every ounce of fight she had left.

Shoupe exhaled heavily, only shaking his head. "But you weren't there on the tarmac."

Willa's counter was immediate and cold.  "Neither were you, Shoupe."

Shoupe paused, turning his focus to the Deveraux daughter, his lips pressing into a grim line. "No, I wasn't. Not when it happened," he agreed. There was something else in his stiffened tone now—regret, resignation—that caught Willa off guard, but only slightly. Not enough to care genuinely.  "The only actual witnesses who are still above ground say the exact opposite, all right? And both of them have a hell of a lot more credibility than any of you right now."

"There is no both! Gavin's dead!" Willa continued to protest. "Ward's all that's left! The murderer is the only one left! And you know it!"

"Enough!" Shoupe boomed, silencing Willa, his beady eyes pinning her in place. "The more you run your mouth, the worse you're going to make this for all of us." He stepped backward toward his car, wrenching the door open. "Go home," he ordered, his voice flat, the command final.

Kiara still screamed after him. "At least look for him! Someone died tonight! There's a body out there, and you're just—" Her voice hitched. "You're just walking away!"

Shoupe climbed into the front seat without so much as a glance back.  Seconds later, his voice echoed over an installed bullhorn. "Get on home to your parents. Now." And then he was gone, the teal-colored cruiser peeling away down the empty street, leaving the four teenagers standing in the deafening silence of the freshly abandoned construction site.

It did not stay silent amongst them for long.

JJ turned irately toward Pope, bitterness twisting his features. "You just had to drop the camera," he accused.

Pope effectively ignored him, rolling his eyes.  Kiara, however, had no such restraint. Whirling on the Maybank boy, her wet face twisted. "It was your fault, JJ!"

The blonde scoffed. "Oh, here we go—"

"No, it was your fault, Kiara," Willa suddenly denounced, her voice razor-sharp. Her words were not meant to defend anyone.  They were meant for the obvious truth.  The sour anger and resentment she had held in for the last hour finally broke free. "What the fuck were you thinking shouting down at Ward like that? What good did you think it was going to do?"

Kiara's glassy eyes widened with surprise, and she immediately began to stumble over her words. "I—I had to do something!" she exclaimed. "He was going to get away—"

"And you handed him the perfect opportunity to do just that!" Willa shouted, advancing another step closer.  Kiara sucked in a rattling breath, her voice faltering as she tried to respond, attempted to defend herself again, but Willa would not give her a chance.  Even when Kiara's sobs started again, even when they grew louder, Willa pressed on, spittle flying. "It was you who drew him to us! You who stepped on JJ's hand! You ruined everything, Kiara!"

"Guys! Hey!" Pope hurriedly stepped between them, his broad shoulders separating the girls who were nearly chest-to-chest now. "Stop it! Both of you!" He glared at them, his dark expression torn through with sheer exhaustion, like he certainly did not have time for this, a teenage, female standoff. As they were forced apart, neither girl spoke nor snarled again, their bleary gazes drifting to the ground or the darkness around them—anywhere but at each other.

Then, Kiara finally stepped back entirely, her hurt evident in the way her shoulders slumped as she retreated toward JJ, who had otherwise simply stood silently, watching the screaming match unfold until it dissolved into an unsteady quiet. Feeling the Maybank boy's guarded eyes still on her, Willa remained rooted in place, internally fuming, arms crossed tightly over her heaving torso, her scorching organs feeling like they were about to burst.  Her fiery stare fixed solely at Pope.

"We're not out of this yet," he told all of them, though his tired eyes lingered the longest on the Deveraux daughter.

JJ frowned, confused. Likely in more ways than one. "What are you talking about?"

Pope took a slow, deliberate step backward. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, motioning toward the side of the street. Willa's narrowed, sage green eyes followed his direction until they landed on a metal grate barely visible in the night. Understanding dawned, biting in its approach.

The storm drain.

The very place where Ward Cameron had knelt when he had lost his murder weapon. What one man lost, another could find.

A small, weary grin tugged at the corner of the Heyward son's mouth as he glanced back to Kiara, JJ, and Willa. While each of them acknowledged the realization, none of them returned the sparkling gesture. Not even when Pope said, a statement as much as it was a challenge:

"We can still go get the gun."

~~~~~~~~~~

gahhh sorry for the long delay in a chapter, but i wanted to allow readers to get up after my rapid-fire updates!! but now that i'm back, wow, i really need to get the pogue crew reunited. sad, depressed, anxious willa is killing me. i need her happy. i also need her to not destroy all of the friendships she just made. butttttt i mean, obviously i had to have someone blow up on kiara for such a stupid decision.

and of course i needed the girls to fight a little before they nearly drown together in the next chapter, tee-hee. that is, if i send willa down into the storm drain, too. should i? should i? let me know what you want to see there!

so, how are we feeling about miss willa after this chapter??

on another note, this next bit important!! PLEASE go check out my 'graphic gallery' and 'playlist' chapters from the beginning of this book!! there's been some new updates, new added songs, and new beautiful edits added by some amazing creators!! i'd love to see what you all think!! and, as always, if you would ever like to make an edit of willa and her adventures (whether it be a moodboard, a gif, a drawing, a video, etc.) i'll happily take them all!! i love seeing my girl and her loves come to life!!

as always, i would love, love, LOVE to hear your thoughts on this chapter, on this book in general. it's the comments and feedback i receive that make me feel i'm doing this story justice. it also gives me a chance to connect more with you guys! i seriously love talking about my characters so, so much. so, please consider leaving a comment! even if it's just a tiny thing--it's always appreciated! xx

stay safe and well.

--B.