No, a little flat-bottomed jonboat with a trolling motor. It’s like putting a silencer on a small-caliber pistol. Theo Mondragon’s probably sitting in the bow right now, his hand on that steering handle, the wind in his tight hair, his five o’clock shadow raspy, his eyes brimming with the most expensive wine.
Does he have a spotting scope up on that tallest part of the yacht? Has he been tracking the party?
Jade can’t say there’s not a sliver of a chance.
And, right now, Letha, she’s in a between-place, she’s unaccounted-for, it’s her first big night out on her own.
Anything can happen.
Jade slows a few feet back in the trees, eases the Michael mask out, fits it over her face just in case, fluffing her purple-tinged hair out over the elastic band. Watching like this, a mask just feels better. It’s not the first time she’s done it, of course—she treats parties like anthropology field work, taking mental notes the whole time—but it’s the first time she’s doing it for a reason that might make sense later.
The bonfire blazing in the yard is the jumbo-size version of her dad’s yearslong fire pit in the backyard, that he makes her scrape out some Sundays.
The Jeep is already there.
Jade creeps over, holds her hand close to the tailpipe, feeling for heat, then finally thins her lips, just clamps right on.
It’s only warm.
Letha’s in the house, then. With all the music, all the loud talking, all the squeals.
Good for her. She deserves this. Be a kid before it’s too late, this is the last summer for it.
Jade feels around for the right tree to stand behind, for the right dip to crouch in, for the right pile of junk to mask her pale coveralls, and it doesn’t match the mask, but she can’t help doing the sound effects a bit: ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma.
She’s not here to carve through the party, though. Let them have their fun, she doesn’t care. She’s here because—because what if Theo Mondragon is about to drag his Saturday night special jonboat up onto the shore?
Jade would never kill anyone just because. With reason, though, yeah. Twice-over, with interest, and more than a little attitude, maybe even something a little extra, for style points.
Her plan is to wait until Theo Mondragon throws Letha down in the tall grass. Then Jade’ll step into frame, having filched a piece of rebar up from the scrap pile, limbered an axe up from a stump. There’s always an axe around when you need it. If there’s one thing horror movies have taught her, it’s that.
For now, though, she just lips her new cigarette, knows better than to spark up.
Already couples are traipsing out to the cars, steaming up the windows. Meaning all the beds inside must be occupied.
Normally, in a town the size of Proofrock, there’d be even money that she’d have gone to seventh-grade homecoming with one of those naked backs in the front seat, that she’d have a secret matching tattoo with the prom queen who’s just bare feet-on-glass, that she’d have written love notes to whoever’s in that car with the squeaky springs. Guy or girl.
There’s nothing normal about Jennifer Daniels, though.
By seventh grade she was already the death metal girl, the D&D girl, the devilchild, practically was the walking, talking cover for Sleepaway Camp II. She knew all the songs the other kids’ parents knew, had memorized all the movies those parents had screamed to in their own junior high, and she could reel them out on command, from the slightest provocation, like weaving a cloak of protection around her, and pulling tight.
Anyway, she doesn’t need the stupid rituals of parties like these, does she? All the laughter is nervous and forced, all the come-ons and invitations so inelegant.
It’s better to just watch, she tells herself. It’s better to hide in the trees, part the leaves, take notes in her head, not missing a single thing, because you never know what’s going to matter.
And then when it’s time, she’ll step out with that sharp piece of rebar, step out and drive it through a thick fatherly chest, and the blood is going to mist across her graduating class’s faces, and they’re going to thank her, because this night could have gone the complete other way.
Jade can see it all in her head, from every angle.
Hours later the bonfire is down to embers, though, and nothing’s happened yet, except in her head. There’s less cars, but there’s no dragon silhouette taking shape in the shadows.
She taps her knuckle on her hard plastic cheek like a metronome, to anchor herself in the moment, to stay awake, and, finally, thirty minutes before midnight, ten minutes after telling herself screw it, the side door off the garage opens, spills thready blue light.