Which means the music hadn’t been continuous.
Josh had indeed turned off the stereo.
Charlie watched him do it. It hadn’t all been in her head, like he led her to believe. It was real. It happened.
And if that was real, then what immediately followed might also be real. Including Twenty Questions.
Let’s play, Josh had said.
Those questions might not have been just her thoughts. They might not have been only dialogue in her mind.
There’s a chance that she truly spoke them. Which means there’s also a chance Josh answered them until she winnowed it down to a single object that on the surface is so innocent but turns out to be terrifying with the proper context.
A tooth.
“You’re just what?” Josh says, reminding Charlie that she never finished her sentence.
“Tired,” she says. “So tired.”
The word clouds the window. Just a tad. In that wisp of fog on the glass, Charlie can make out the edge of what appears to be a letter.
Her eyes go wide.
In shock.
In fear.
Her heart does the opposite. It contracts, shrinking into her chest the way a turtle retreats into its shell, trying to avoid the threat it senses is coming. But Charlie knows it’s too late. The threat is already here.
She confirms it by saying three more words heavy on the sibilant syllables.
“Just so exhausted.”
The fog on the window grows. An expanding gray circle.
Inside it, clearly scrawled by her unsteady finger, is a single word. Written backward. Readable to someone on the outside looking in.
HELP
INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT
Charlie stares at the word, her right eye twitching, as if it no longer wants to look at it. It’s the twitch that tells her this isn’t a movie in her mind.
That doesn’t keep her from wishing, hoping, praying, begging that she’s wrong. If there’s one single right time to have what she’s experiencing not be real, now is that moment. But the snow is still smacking the windshield and the wipers are still moving and Josh is still behind the wheel and the fog on the window is still receding and the word is still clinging to the glass and Charlie knows that all of it is real.
It’s always been real.
Josh lied to her. About everything.
And she let him. Hell, she helped him do it. By doubting her own mind. By appearing so obviously fragile. By making him think he could do and say anything and she’d believe it. It’s literally the plot of a movie.
Gaslight.
Even though she’s seen it several times, it still didn’t stop her from completely falling for it in real life. She’d be furious if she wasn’t so scared. But anger takes a back seat to fear. Because there’s only one reason Charlie can think of for why Josh would do such a thing.
He’s the Campus Killer.
Not could be. Not may be.
He simply is. Charlie has no doubt about that now. Her gut, which so far tonight has been a better guide than her brain, tells her he has to be. He knows about the tooth, which right there is enough to convict him in her mind. Then there’s the fact that he told her he’s lived near Olyphant for the past four years, which is how long the Campus Killer’s been at large.
Angela Dunleavy. Four years ago.
Taylor Morrison. Two and a half years ago.
Madeline Forrester. Two months ago.
Stabbed. Killed. A pulled tooth their killer’s trophy.
Charlie has no illusion that he won’t try to do the same to her. He will. It’s the reason she’s here. This is no gob-smacking coincidence. It was intentional on Josh’s part. He sought her out.
He might try to come for you next.
And so he has.
Even worse is how Charlie made it so easy for him. All he needed to do was show up at the ride board, flash that movie-star smile, and offer to drive her away from her pain and guilt. Charlie did the rest.
She considers the possibility that it would have happened anyway. That eventually she would have ended up in this precise situation no matter what she did. Earlier she thought that she deserved such a scenario. Maybe fate agreed and had this all planned out. Payback for failing to save Maddy.
What’s important now isn’t how it happened, or why. It’s that Charlie needs to find a way out of the situation. If there is a way out. She suspects this is what a mouse must feel as the trap starts to snap shut. Too late to run. Too late to change your actions. Far too late to undo your own undoing. Just a grim acceptance right before the crunch.
“You’re quiet again,” Josh says, acting all innocent. As if nothing is wrong. As if he’s not a complete monster. “You sure you’re not getting carsick?”
Charlie feels sick, although it’s not from the car. But she doesn’t mind letting Josh think that. It’s better than him thinking she knows all the horrible things he’s done. That she’s terrified by that knowledge. That it has her so scared she’s shocked she hasn’t puked.
Yet a wild, dangerous part of her wants to tell him she knows who he is and what he’s done. Clearly, Josh is toying with her. The lies. The music. The flirting. It’s all because he enjoys playing with her emotions. Why not come clean now and deny him that satisfaction?
Because then there’ll be nothing left to do but kill her.
Charlie fears—with a quivering depth she didn’t know was possible—that the reason Josh lured her into his car and onto the highway is because it makes it easier for him. All he needs to do is swerve onto the side of the road, slit her throat, and shove her out of the car. He wouldn’t even have to turn off the engine. And by the time someone noticed Charlie bleeding to death on the rumble strip, Josh would be miles away.
The scared, sensible part of her knows it’s best not to reveal anything.
The smartest, bravest, most careful course of action is to pretend she doesn’t know a thing. Maybe he won’t try to harm her until he’s certain she knows who he really is. Maybe he’s patient and vowed to wait as long as it takes. Maybe Charlie can pretend long enough to get away.
But where?
That’s the problem.
There’s no place to get away to. They’re in the middle of the Poconos, with no other cars in sight. The Grand Am speeds down the center lane of the highway, going seventy in spite of the snow. Charlie knows she can’t leap from the car, no matter that her hand is back on the door handle and her legs are now twitching as much as her eye and that even her shrunken, terrified heart seems to beg her to do it with every frantic beat.