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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’tShadow 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 definitelynotgood 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 similaritiesbetween 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.