Ashley pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders. She hated this: hated Deputy Golden, hated Snakebite, hated the hot wind, hated the churning dread in her gut. She sat on the same picnic table she’d been sitting on with Logan only half an hour ago, but now everything was different. The bench was sweaty, the wind was hot, her fingertips were numb. Dry tears made the skin on her cheeks tight. Her throat was raw from yelling, filling her mouth with the tang of iron. The sky was only night now, stripped of the last dregs of sunset the moment John shoved Logan’s head under the water.
And she’d done nothing.
“Yeah, that’s everything,” Ashley said.
She didn’t mention the escape plans. She didn’t mention the grave. She didn’t mention the kiss. She didn’t need to. This was Snakebite—if John Paris had seen it, then everyone already knew.
She didn’t mention the voice she’d heard, softer than the wind. While Logan fought for air, a voice whispered over the water. Come back to the place where this all started. It was a low groan, just like the one she’d heard on the TV. Just like she’d heard at the cabin.
Sheriff Paris was parked on the other side of the highway. He delicately loaded Logan into the back of his cruiser wrapped in a wool blanket and gave Ashley a quick, uncomfortable wave. Even from the shore, Ashley could see the blood crusted on Logan’s cheek, the black hair matted to her neck, her smeared eyeliner. She’d warned Ashley a thousand times that Snakebite was wrong. Now, it had almost killed her.
Paris promised that John and Paul would pay for what they’d done here, but given that they had been allowed to drive themselves home, Ashley seriously doubted it.
Logan had been right all along.
There was something wrong with this place.
“Can I go home?” Ashley asked. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes until the backs of her eyelids spotted with color. “I just wanna go home.”
“Ah, um … you seem pretty shook up.” Deputy Golden checked his watch. “Paris didn’t think you’d be okay to drive yourself. And with some of the legal stuff, he just wanted to make sure nothing bad happened.”
Ashley’s eyes narrowed. She prayed he wasn’t saying what she thought he was saying. “I’m eighteen. I’m a legal adult.”
Deputy Golden gave her a thin grimace, then glanced over his shoulder. As Paris pulled away from the lake and drove down the highway, a white Land Rover parked along the shoulder in its place. It wasn’t just any mammoth-size vehicle; Tammy Barton’s car was complete with a WORLD’S BEST MOM decal and a license plate frame that read OWYHEE COUNTY FARMER’S UNION. She threw the beast of a car into park, climbed out, and thundered down the gravel shoulder toward the picnic bench.
Ashley braced herself.
“Is she okay?” Tammy demanded.
“Yeah, she wasn’t hurt,” Deputy Golden said. “Paris is taking the other one back to the station, but Ashley’s free to go.”
“She’s not being arrested?”
Ashley gripped her blanket. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Tammy turned on her with a fire in her eyes Ashley had never seen before. This wasn’t like with Bug. Her mother wasn’t just happy she was alive. Tammy turned back to Deputy Golden and softened. “Well, I appreciate the call. We’ll head home. Call me if you need anything else.”
“Will do.”
Tammy motioned Ashley toward the car and Ashley followed.
The ride back to Barton Ranch was quiet as the night outside. Ashley sank into the passenger seat and watched the hills streak past her. Usually, they listened to Christian hits on the radio with the air conditioner on full blast, but tonight, the car was silent. Even the sound of Tammy’s breathing was subdued. This Tammy Barton was the one Ashley feared. She wasn’t soft and supportive. She seethed with a smoldering anger that was slowly working its way to the surface. Ashley felt it like a brand against her skin.