One so scary it makes Charlie simultaneously want to scream, throw up, and leap from the moving car.
Josh knows about Maddy’s missing tooth because he’s the one who took it from her.
Which would make him worse than anything Charlie had previously thought of.
It would make him the Campus Killer.
INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT
Charlie remains motionless in the passenger seat, thinking the unthinkable.
She might be in a car with the man who killed Maddy.
A man who might also plan on killing her.
A man who had flat-out warned her such a scenario could happen.
Charlie stares out the windshield, her gaze fixed on the yellow beams of the headlights chasing away the last bits of fog as she recalls what Josh had told her earlier.
He’s still out there.
He might know who you are.
He might try to come for you next.
Charlie clings to the second word of that thought.
Might.
She has no proof Josh is the Campus Killer. Only a vague suspicion based on something he said.
No.
More than something.
Several things. All of them adding up to a suspicion that’s more than vague. Charlie already knows Josh has lied to her—and is continuing to do so. The amount of lies he’s told since leaving Olyphant probably outnumbers truth ten to one.
But that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.
It especially doesn’t mean he’s the man who killed Maddy.
This isn’t a movie. This isn’t Shadow of a Doubt. Just because she’s trying to think like Movie Charlie doesn’t mean they share the same situation. Movies are fake, after all. Something she intrinsically knows but always forgets when the lights dim and the projector whirs and Technicolor fills the screen. That’s why Charlie loves them so much. They’re a bit of magic brightening a reality that’s cold and gray and dull.
Mundane.
That’s the best way to describe daily existence, with its endless parade of drudgeries and disappointments. In real life, people don’t break into song. They don’t battle space monsters. And they certainly don’t unwittingly get into cars with serial killers.
“You’re pretty quiet over there, Charlie,” Josh says.
Charlie struggles to summon a response. She doesn’t want Josh to know she’s suspicious or afraid. If movies have taught her anything, it’s that predators can sense fear.
“I guess I am.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you? For the tooth thing? You know I didn’t mean anything by it. It wasn’t intentional.”
“I know.”
“So we’re good?” Josh says.
“We’re good,” Charlie says, even as she mentally lists all the things that are definitely not good about Josh, starting with the fact that Josh isn’t his real name. And how he lied about working at Olyphant. And how he knew about the Campus Killer yanking out Maddy’s tooth after stabbing her to death.
Charlie sneaks a glance at Josh, searching for any similarities between him and the dark figure she saw in the alley the night Maddy died. Anything she comes up with is vague at best. Maybe they’re the same height. Maybe they share a broadness of the shoulders. But it’s all conjecture. The truth is that there’s no way for Charlie to know if they’re one and the same.
The inside of the car has become unbearably hot, even as Charlie herself remains freezing cold. It’s a clash of extreme temperatures that makes her think she’s going to melt away any moment now. Her skin sliding off. Her organs turning to gel. A disappearing. The only things left behind a steaming pile of bones.
And teeth, of course.
Charlie suspects there’s a reason Josh’s game of Twenty Questions led to that. It’s possible he was trying to tell her who he is and what he’s done. A roundabout confession. Or perhaps a warning.
It’s also possible he meant nothing by it, although Charlie has her doubts. The odds of him settling on a tooth as the answer are as slim as her accepting a ride from the man who killed Maddy.
Yet those are the only two options. Either Josh is a harmless liar who so far has managed to say and do all the wrong things, or he’s the man who brutally murdered her best friend and two other women. Charlie can think of no other scenario between those unlikely poles.
Faced with such uncertainty, she understands one thing and one thing only.
She needs to get out of this car.
Immediately.
It doesn’t matter if Josh poses no real threat. The alternative—that he does—is too risky to consider. It’s best to err on the side of caution. To be smart, to be brave, to be careful.
Staying in this car with Josh isn’t any of those things.
They’ve descended into the Delaware Valley, a few miles from the Pennsylvania border. The fog is completely gone now, revealing a night sky pulsing with starlight, a river to their left, and three lanes of blacktop stretching toward the horizon in front of them.
Charlie remains focused on the highway ahead, unable to bring herself to look at Josh for even a second. Yet she remains hyper-aware of his presence, mere inches away. The sheer bulk of him. The way his presence fills the car. The steady rhythm of his breath. There’s no way to ignore him.
There’s no way to escape him, either, short of throwing herself out of the car, an idea Charlie keeps returning to again and again. Her right hand continues to grip the door handle, her fingers tight around it, ready to spring into action.
Charlie would do it, too, if she was certain such a leap wouldn’t kill her. But it definitely could. She guesses she has a fifty percent chance of survival. Maybe less, considering there are now more cars on the road. Charlie counts four behind them. Four vehicles that might not be able to veer out of the way if she does jump, their tires rumbling over her body like it was a speed bump.
It would be different if they were in the right lane, where Charlie could attempt to fling herself onto the road’s shoulder, where grass would slightly soften her landing. But Josh has steered the Grand Am into the center lane, his driving as even as his breathing. Keeping the car tightly inside the lane lines. Going an acceptable three miles over the speed limit. Doing nothing to draw the attention of other motorists.
One of the cars behind them changes lanes, moving into the right one. Its shift in position leaves a speck of brightness in the side mirror outside Charlie’s window.
Headlights.
Getting larger.
Charlie twists in her seat to get a better look at the car coming up on the right. The driver clearly intends to pass them eventually, even though it’s technically only legal to pass on the left. As the car keeps coming, Charlie spots something on top of its roof—a light bar stretching from one side of the car to the other. She then sees the words that have been applied to the vehicle’s body, right over the front tire.