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I shudder at the word. So much horror resides in those two tiny syllables.
“It’s been hard, Quincy. There were times I came so close to slipping. But then I’d think of you and manage to stop myself. I couldn’t risk losing you. You’ve made me behave myself.”
“And Lisa?” I say. “What about her?”
Coop hangs his head, looking truly regretful. “That was out of necessity.”
Because she suspected something. Probably after Tina arrived seeking answers about Pine Cottage. Lisa looked into it because that’s the kind of person she was—big on details. And she kept looking after Tina left. She found those articles about the murders in the woods, wrote a few emails, pieced it together that Joe likely wasn’t physically capable of killing everyone at Pine Cottage. Not someone as big as Rodney or as athletic as Craig. Coop was the only person there that night strong enough to overtake them.
That’s why Lisa emailed me right before she was killed. She wanted to warn me about Coop.
“You knew her, didn’t you?” I ask. “That’s why she invited you in, gave you wine, trusted you.”
“She didn’t trust me,” Coop says. “Not that night. She was trying to get me to confess.”
“But she trusted you once.”
Coop offers the slightest of nods. “Years ago.”
“Were you lovers?”
Another nod. Almost imperceptible.
I’m not surprised. I think again of the photo in Lisa’s room. The way Coop’s arm had been so casually thrown over her shoulders suggested ease and intimacy.
“When?” I say.
“Not long after what happened here. I asked Nancy to put us in touch. Once I realized I had created a Final Girl, I wanted to meet the others. I wanted to see if they were as strong as you.”
Coop puts a matter-of-fact spin on it, as if the whole twisted idea makes perfect sense. As if I, of all people, should understand the urge to compare and contrast us.
“Lisa was impressive, I’ll give her that,” he says. “All she wanted was to help you. I can’t count the number of times she asked me how you were coping, if you needed help. I feel bad about what happened to her. Her concern for you was admirable, Quincy. Noble. Not like Samantha.”
I try not to show my shock. I don’t want to give Coop the satisfaction. But he sees it anyway and gives a half smile, proud of himself.
“Yes, I met Samantha Boyd,” he says. “The real one. Not this cheap imitator.”
He dips his chin in the direction of Tina’s body and purses his lips. For a sickening moment, I think he’s going to spit on her. I close my eyes to avoid seeing it if he does.
“You knew all along she wasn’t Sam?”
“I knew,” Coop says. “I knew it the second I saw that picture of you two in the newspaper. There’s a bit of a resemblance, sure. But I knew she couldn’t be the real Samantha Boyd. What I didn’t know was what to do about it.”
My mind flashes back to last night, when I came home and found the two of them together. I recall the way Coop’s hand was on her neck. It looked like a caress. It could have been a clench. He had planned on killing Tina too. Perhaps right there in the guest room.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t,” Coop says. “Not without making it known that Samantha Boyd was dead.”
I groan, my pain and sorrow finally too much to keep hidden. I keep on groaning, getting louder, trying to block Coop’s confession. But I’ve heard too much already. I now know that Coop also killed Samantha Boyd. She didn’t drop off the grid. He had erased her from it.
“Why?” I moan.
“Because she wasn’t like you, Quincy. She didn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as you. I flew all the way down to a shit town in Florida just to see her. And what I found was a weak, chubby piece of trash. Nothing like the Samantha Boyd I’d pictured. I couldn’t believe this was the girl who’d survived what happened at that motel. She was scared and meek and nothing at all like you. And so eager to please. Christ, she practically threw herself at me. At least Lisa showed some restraint.”
Suddenly, it all clicks into place. All those details. Like a necklace of beads. One stacking on top of the other, forming a full circle.
Coop had slept with all three of us.