Her eyes refused to open again until she heard Patsy's approach through the woods. Watching her friend step into the clearing, she greeted her with a spontaneous smile. "Hi," she called softly. "I am so glad you called . This is the most relaxed I’ve felt in days."
Stopping, I blink at Hayley in bemusement. The friendliness of her greeting jolts me. It confuses me and makes me want to fall back on the seductive yearning to be included in her confidences I have nurtured for so long. Maybe I should give it another try. Maybe Joe was right when he said our problems have nothing to do with an outside party. Maybe…
No. Seductive is the word for this home wrecking twat. Hayley Prescott is not my friend. The absolute truth of that was driven home by my conversation with Joe. Hayley is like one of those Pre-Raphaelite sorceresses, long-necked and wild-haired, with a reserved poise and a surface prettiness that fools the uninformed into believing she would never do anything underhanded. Inside, though, lives a fucking bitch scheming to beguile and ensnare.
And I have made up my mind. I know what needs to be done if I am ever to get Joe back.
Looking at her poised there like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, I notice the log my erstwhile friend sits on is the one from which I shot Ty Holloway right off his feet. Amusement unfurling, I feel my lips curve up.
I am not the stupid one here. I am the powerful one, the one who knows where the bodies are buried. I laugh out loud, for in this case that isn’t just an expression, is it?
"What's so funny?"
I like this feeling, this possessing a juicy secret no one else knows. I hug it to my breast. "It is just all so... deliciously perfect," I murmur.
"True, that." Hayley rises to her feet, twisting to brush needles and bark dust from the seat of her pants. "We just don't get enough of these fabulous days, do we?"
I am tempted to demonstrate my contempt at how wrong her interpretation is, but I control myself. It just sank in I do not have a plan. I, who am always prepared for every contingency, stand here planless for perhaps the first time in my life. I have no idea what I’m going to do next.
Okay, that is not precisely true.
I do know I am going to kill Hayley Granger Prescott.
Twenty-One
Hayley stretched. For the first time since Holloway’s shit-fest of an article hit the fan she felt as though she could catch an honest-to-god deep-to-the-bottom-of-her-lungs breath. The hike up from Mavis Point trailhead had left her pleasantly tired, sunshine lay soft as a benediction upon her shoulders and the evergreen trees surrounding the open space she and Patsy occupied smelled divine. Smelled like home. Hands on her hips, elbows out and feet planted wide, she twisted from her waist to the right, enjoying the stretch along her upper body.
When she reversed to twist to the left she saw something behind the log from the corner of her eye. She pivoted her left foot back to get a better view.
And felt something whiz past her chest to thunk into a tree ten feet beyond the log.
Startled, she jumped back. Her foot rolled over a baseball-sized rock and without a scrap of dignity she performed a crazed but mercifully brief dance before landing on her butt. Right on top of another rock.
Wincing, she fished it out from beneath her hip. Before she could toss it aside, motion caught her eye. She looked up. And gawked, the hand holding the rock dropping limply to her lap.
Because an arrow, still quivering, was buried a good inch deep in the tree trunk. She whipped around to stare at her friend. “What the hell? You damn near shot me!”
To her amazement, Patsy merely shrugged. “Yes, it is clear I’ve let my practice slide a bit too much lately,” she said in a cool voice. “My aim is too consistently off true…even if only a smidge.”
“You meant to shoot me?” But, no. She must have misunderstood.
Patsy’s prompt don’t-be-an-idiot look strengthened the belief and she sucked in a relieved breath.
Only to have it catch in her throat when her old schoolmate said, “Duh. Of course I did.”
“What?” Hayley shook her head. “I mean, I heard you. But… why?”
“Oh, do not play coy!” Patsy spat. “God! I idolized you! You stood up to my bitch of a mother for me. I would have done anything for you.”
“I did?” Hayley frantically shuffled through old memories.
“You remember. You came to our house that day and heard her call me stupid.”
“She did that way too often.”
“No shit. But I am talking about the day you told her off but good. And you said I was one of the smartest people you knew.”
“You are.”
“Yeah, right,” Patsy scorched her with a look. “Because when I gave you every opportunity to get your horrible experience off your chest by talking to me about it, you were sooo open to taking advantage of my intellect.”
“Patsy, I haven’t talked to anyone about it.” Or no more than she could help, anyway.
“Don’t give me that. I bet you talked to your oh-so-beloved Kurstin about it.”
“No. I have not.” She resisted the urge to cross her fingers as she lied without a qualm. “Nor to Jon-Michael either.”
Patsy glared at her. “Which does not change the fact you should have talked to me.” Then she barked out a laugh.
The sound was so dark, so chilling…and an exact match to the cold, cold eyes Hayley couldn’t believe belonged to the Patsy she knew. She shuddered and would have sworn under oath she felt her gut take the Polar Plunge. Glancing covertly around the clearing, she looked for the best route—any route—out of here. Patsy had lowered the bow and, oh, crap, another arrow she must have nocked into the bowstring while Hayley was busy falling on her ass. But she didn’t need her psychology degree to see the other woman was not in her right mind.
And far beyond what her knowledge of the field could reach. Hayley feared it would take years on a psychiatrist’s couch to get Patsy back on track. And she did not have years.
Surreptitiously, with the old adage about not bringing a knife to a gunfight singing through her head, she wrapped her hand around the rock she’d dropped in her lap. And fervently hoped something was better than nothing.
She climbed to her feet to be ready to take advantage of the tiniest opportunity to get away from Psycho Patsy.
“You know what?” the other woman said. “I did do something for you. I am still a good friend.” Her look made it clear Hayley didn’t deserve such dedicated friendship. “Even after you blew me off time after time, even after you constantly shoved me aside so you could go do stuff with your precious Kurstin, I still did you a giant favor.” She waved a hand in the direction of the fallen log Hayley had been sitting on. “I told you this before but I don’t think you really got it. I took care of the Ty problem.”
No, no, no, no, NO! For the first time in her life, Hayley realized a person’s blood truly could run cold. God knew hers had turned to ice. Because now the churned up forest floor on the other side of the log made sense. It was a grave.
Except, wait. If Ty had been in the ditch-like hole, she was pretty sure he was no longer. She shot it a sideways glance.
“No body.” Dammit, she could not believe she’d said that out loud!