Page 33 of The Executioners Three

Instead, she stared out the window and hugged her aching wrist against her chest. She wondered distantly if Mrs. Iglesias, the school nurse, would let her have some ice.

Right as the song’s third playthrough came to an end (because apparently Kyle didn’t know how to turn off the CD repeat function), Kyle revved his Jeep into the Berm High parking lot. Cat fluttered a wave for the security guard, who didn’t look up from his bodice ripper.

Seconds later, Kyle zoomed into a spot at the back of the lot. It was right as he cut the engine that a cop car pulled in too.

“Balls.” Kyle dropped low in his seat. “It’s the sheriff.”

“Oh, fartknockers,” Cat agreed, dropping down with him.

Freddie also ducked low, although she wasn’t sure there was much point. Either Bowman was there to deal with skipping students or she wasn’t. And judging by the way she was pulling her car to a stop in front of the school, Freddie had to guess her business was unrelated to their Ferris Bueller-ing.

Still, just to play it safe, Freddie said: “If we sneak behind the cars, we can get to those dumpsters. Then it’s not far to the loading dock that goes into the auditorium. We should be able to get into the school unseen.”

“Good call,” Cat agreed, and in a flurry of stealthy speed, everyone scuttled out of the car. They convened beside the still-warm engine—and Freddie hunkered close to its clicking, steaming heat.

Which was when Cat seemed to remember Freddie had fallen. “Oh no! Your hand. It’s bleeding!”

“It’s fine.” Freddie shook her head. “I just tripped and landed badly. That’s all.”

Kyle’s puppy eyes drooped. “You shoulda said something. We could have gone by the drugstore and gotten you a wrap.”

Freddie smiled—a real smile because Kyle looked genuinely distraught by her pain. “Perhaps you could toss me a Band-Aid?” she quoted. “Or some antibacterial cream!”

This earned her some laughs, and both Cat and Kyle relaxed.

“Also,” Freddie went on, “can we please celebrate how we got the crickets delivered and retrieved the prank book?”

“That we did!” Kyle cheered, scooting in close to Freddie. He whipped his arm around her and gave her an awkward half-squatting embrace. “All thanks to you, Prank Wizard.”

Freddie’s smile spread. She really did like being called that, and although she wasn’t entirely sure she liked having Kyle’s arm around her—especially when her left wrist was swelling up—she did appreciate the look of admiration in his eyes.

“Come on,” she said. “Follow me.” She abandoned the warmth of the exhaust and hurried toward the dumpsters. Cat and Kyle raced behind. Halfway to the dumpsters, though, Freddie made the mistake of glancing toward the front of the school. Just to check where Sheriff Bowman had gone…

Bowman was standing at the school’s corner and looking right at Freddie. As soon as their eyes met, Bowman brought a walkie-talkie to her mouth. Her lips moved. Her legs started stalking Freddie’s way.

Oh, crap. It would seem Bowman was there for the Ferris Bueller-ing.

“Go,” Freddie hissed with a frantic wave at the dumpsters. “Get behind and go to the loading dock. I’ll hold off Bowman.”

As one, Cat and Kyle spotted the sheriff—and as one, they swore.

“Hurry,” Freddie insisted.

“But you gotta come too,” Kyle said.

“I can distract her,” Freddie insisted with way more confidence than she actually felt. “I’ve known her a long time.”

“But why is she even looking for us?” Cat’s voice was shrill with panic. “People cut school all the time, and no one cares!”

“I don’t know.” It was true: Freddie didn’t know—though her gut was starting to curdle with a sickening sense that things were about to get really bad, really fast. “Just go, okay? There’s not much time.”

“Right,” Cat exhaled. “Thank you, Freddie. You’re a real friend.” She shot off toward the nearest dumpster. Kyle, however, didn’t move. He simply looked at Freddie. Swallowed once, Adam’s apple bobbing, before finally leaning in.

Freddie realized half a second too late that he was going to kiss her—and half a second too late, she realized that she didn’t want that at all.

She twisted her head sideways. Kyle’s lips connected with her cheek.

“Oof,” he mumbled.

“Eep,” she replied, and it was like a kettle boiling over. Fiery shame took hold of Freddie’s muscles, and in a graceless burst of speed, she sprinted away from Kyle—no goodbyes, no looking back—and ran straight for Sheriff Bowman.

Bowman was halfway across the parking lot when Freddie finally cut into her path. And Freddie realized the instant she caught sight of Bowman’s face close up that she had made a huge mistake.

Because Bowman was wearing betrayal in her blue eyes.

Freddie couldn’t stop now, though. She had offered to sacrifice herself for Cat and Kyle; she had to follow through. She came to a stumbling stop beside a turquoise Ford Ranger. Two booming heartbeats later, Sheriff Bowman reached her. “Where have you been, Gellar?”

It was not a promising introduction, and one by one, Freddie felt all of her organs squeeze. Oh—and there were her secrets too, just bubbling to the surface and begging for release.

“I get to the high school,” Bowman continued, “and what do I learn? You haven’t come in today. Does your mother know you were skipping?”

“No, ma’am,” Freddie tried, but Bowman was only just getting started.

“I have half a mind to arrest you, you know that?” She sighed, running a hand through her hair in a very Theo way. “Honestly, if this happens one more time, Gellar, I’ll have to put you in handcuffs. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Freddie murmured—because she didn’t. Since when was skipping school illegal?

Bowman still wasn’t finished, though. “I told you not to mess around. I told you to stay out of trouble. Was I not clear enough on Saturday? No, wait.” She shook her head, a disappointed movement. “I know I was clear enough, but you didn’t listen. Instead, you went and made trouble again.”

Freddie recoiled. There was only one thing Bowman could be talking about, and it did not deserve a reaction like this. “It was just a prank, Sheriff. No one can get hurt from—”

“A prank ?” Bowman scoffed. “Frederica Gellar, it’s called obstruction of justice and worth up to twenty years in prison.”

Freddie’s jaw went slack. She felt like she’d been slapped. “Prison?”

“You lied to me.” Bowman waved in the direction of town.

“You sent me and my deputies on a wild-goose chase and then you had the nerve to give me fake film too, even though you must have known I would catch you! You must have known I would walk into that forest and find nothing, and that I would get those photos developed and find them empty—”

“Wait, what ?”

“—but you still pranked me anyway. Did you think it would be funny, Gellar? Or is this a cry for help?”

Freddie’s hands shot up defensively. “Sheriff, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you mean the photos were empty?”

“You know damned well what I mean!” Bowman snapped this, her disappointment giving way to anger. “You took photos of an empty forest!”

“But I didn’t!” Freddie cried. “I took photos of a water bottle, exactly like I told you—”

“Stop lying to me, Gellar.”

“No!” Freddie was practically shouting now. None of this made any sense, and shame welled behind her eyeballs.

Shame, outrage, and something prickly she didn’t like.

“Ask Divya! She was with me, Sheriff!”

Bowman sighed again, and in an instant, her anger withered into something more like disgust. “Come on, Gellar. Enough of this. Don’t throw your best friend under the bus.”

“But Divya saw the bottle too! She did .”

“No, she didn’t.” Bowman’s thumb tapped against her thigh. “I already spoke to her, and unlike you, she told me straight: she did not see a thing.”

Freddie’s breath cut off. She rocked back, her eyelids screwing shut.

This couldn’t be happening. Divya wouldn’t betray her like that.

No, no . Freddie dug her knuckles into her eyes and tried to think back to the woods.

To what she’d seen and where the bike had been parked and where Divya had been standing…

“Oh no,” she breathed, horror gathering in her belly. It was 100 percent possible that Divya hadn’t seen anything. And Divya couldn’t lie—Freddie knew that and couldn’t blame her for it.

“That’s right.” Bowman shook her head. “Look, Gellar, you know how much I care about you—and how much I cared about your father. But I can’t keep looking the other way when you make trouble. This time, you’ve gone too far.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Freddie tried to say, but Bowman wasn’t listening.

“The worst is,” she went on, thumb tapping harder and harder by the second, “I can’t tell if you’re really just being a silly kid or if you’re actually turning into Frank. Either way, there have to be consequences.”

“Sheriff,” Freddie begged, hands rising.

“I didn’t do anything. I swear. I didn’t prank you and I’m not…

I’m not my dad. There really was a water bottle in the woods, Sheriff.

I swear to you. On my life, on my mom’s life—on Divya’s!

And there really were photos on Xena. And,” she added, words spewing out now, “there were photos of Kyle Friedman’s basement and our prank at the mausoleum.

Did you find any of those? If they weren’t on there, then it wasn’t my film! ”

“Please stop, Gellar.”

“But I mean it, Sheriff! I swear ! Someone must have changed the film!”

Bowman wagged her head, disbelieving and deeply let down. “Sure they did. Someone broke into my police station and switched out the film. Do you even hear yourself? You sound worse than Frank did.”

There was that reference to her dad again, and Freddie wanted to scream.

Obviously she already knew Frank Carter had been tough to work with and a terrible boss.

That he hadn’t known when to let things go, and it had ruined his relationships with the people around him.

But Freddie felt like there was other critical context she was missing here, all thanks to the stupid unspoken rule she suddenly wished she’d never adhered to.

“Get to school,” Bowman said. She planted her hands on her hips. “And do not get in the way again, Gellar. We have two feds in town now, and they won’t be as lenient as I am. Do you understand?”

Oh, Freddie understood. Loud and clear. She was in deep trouble, and there wasn’t a single thing she could do about it.

“Yes, ma’am,” Freddie forced out, staring hard at the pavement.

Tamp down thoughts. Tamp down feelings. Focus on the task at hand.

“I understand, Sheriff.” Then, without another word, Freddie pushed past Bowman and strode toward the school’s front door.

As she walked, a fledgling plan unfurled.

She didn’t need her gut to recognize a murderer behind the scenes, covering up their crimes.

A flesh-and-blood serial killer, who had been operating for over two decades. Who was either inspired by The Curse of Allard Fortin or trying to re-create it. And since Freddie was the only person around who seemed to realize or care about what was going on, then it fell to her to save the day.

The truth was out there, and she was damned well going to find it.