Slasher Summer(31)
Patrick took his phone out of his pocket and checked it for the hundredth time. “We can’t even google it.”
Tiffany checked her phone, too, fighting tears even though she knew it would have no service. Was Clive worrying because he hadn’t heard from her in hours? Were her Instagram followers concerned because she hadn’t posted anything since modeling her new bikini before she’d left for the cabin? Her phone wasn’t just a connection to safety, but a connection to her friends and admirers. Without that tether, what did she have? She was a tree falling in the forest without anyone to hear it, except this ragtag group of old high school friends and her stubborn ex.
And possibly a park ranger with a knife and a grudge.
“Michael would probably know,” Carrie said, in that plaintive goody-two-shoes voice that made Tiffany sick. A voice that said, I’m so helpless. Tiffany could never figure out if it was an intentional affectation, or if Carrie’s overbearing mother had weakened her spine. “He was so brave, trying to protect us.”
Tiffany hid a snort. Mikey had tried to protect Carrie, not the rest of them. Because he’d thought Russ was her ex and wanted to get into her pants, as per usual. If Carrie only knew what Mikey had done in the past to protect her—
Well, if Mikey succeeded in winning her over, those sneaky little rats deserved each other.
Jason smiled grimly. “That’s further incentive to find him.”
“Okay, gang. It’s pretty simple.” Patrick held up his compass. “The cabin is south, by the lake. Jen and I will head northwest, Freddy and Carrie, you head northeast. Jason and Tiffany, you can check around the lakeshore. He might’ve headed for the cottages to the east. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”
“And then we can go? Whether or not we find Mikey?” Freddy said.
“And then we can go,” Jason said.
Jen twirled her knife with alarming skill and tugged on Patrick’s sleeve. “Come along, Velma,” she said.
“Be safe,” Jason said to Patrick, probably as troubled as Tiffany was by the gusto with which Jen was wielding her knife. Then he cleared his throat and said, more loudly, “Be safe, everyone.”
Patrick nodded and he and Jen tromped off, their dark figures slipping between the trees.
Carrie took out her phone, checked the time, and then tapped Freddy’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Freddy.” He nodded, hoisting the bread knife like an Olympic torch before they walked away.
Though not before Carrie took a long backward glance at Jason. That bitch still couldn’t get over that Jason would never be hers. Tiffany decided to be the bigger person, however. She was above petty jealousy and there was nothing to be jealous of. Tiffany outshone girls like Carrie nine times out of ten.
There was always that tenth time, though, if Tiffany wasn’t careful.
Carrie’s anxious doe eyes skimmed over her. Tiffany gave her an encouraging, queenly smile. Carrie gave Tiffany a small smile in return, and then she and Freddy disappeared into the woods, in the opposite direction to Patrick and Jen.
Tiffany realized then she was clutching the little paring knife so tightly the plastic handle had probably fused to her palm with her sweat. She took a deep, shaky breath. The ominous feeling she’d never see the Jumpscare Society all together again settled over her like a cobweb, twitchy and unsettling. Even though she’d totally expected they’d go their separate ways after this weekend.
Save for Jason, needless to say. The boy—now man—whose name she’d doodled all over her high school notebooks. She’d written Mrs. Tiffany Ackerman so many times that sometimes she forgot it wasn’t her real name. He was her soulmate. Antony to her Cleopatra. Richard Burton to her Liz Taylor. Ben Affleck to her JLo. They always found their way back to each other, no matter what, and tonight was no different.
She was pleased to finally get him alone, although she wished the circumstances were different. Still, a little danger would be good for making him snap out of his stubborn mood. He might have to literally come to her rescue, if Russ attacked them. Though she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But the trick to drawing men, in Tiffany’s experience, was to make them believe she needed them. That at the end of the day, despite her confident exterior, she was a delicate flower who needed a big strong man to take care of her. Having Tiffany Podemski on his arm was the biggest ego boost a man could get.
She looked up through her eyelashes at Jason, fluttering them helplessly. It wasn’t hard to pretend to be helpless, because she really was frightened of Ranger Russ. Jason’s blue eyes were shadowed in the dark, and his boyishly handsome face, which she’d always thought of as an open book, was closed to her. Closed and guarded. Like he knew something she didn’t.
The threat of Russ suddenly seemed far away. Shit. Had Mikey finally told Jason about her and Billy? It might explain why he’d pulled away this past year.
Jason knew she dated other guys during their breakups. They’d always been to make him jealous, but his older brother was different. Jason had tried to live up to Billy’s example for so long, under pressure from their father, and Tiffany knew how sore he was about it.
Jason would never forgive her if he knew she’d slept with Billy after her junior year of high school, when he’d come home from college that summer. Billy had just seemed so much more mature, and so she’d picked a fight with Jason and run straight into his brother’s arms. It was only that one time, anyway. And the blow job in his car. And getting to third base in her Jeep near the observatory on the outskirts of town, where they’d been interrupted by Mikey knocking on the steamed-up windows. Who knew people actually went to the observatory to stargaze instead of hook up? He was such a geek.