detective repeated his name, recognition dawning. “The same Archer Vega who was dating Brittany Pots before her murder?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” Ollie said.
I shrugged, because at this point, I was starting to wonder if it was all worth it. If, me being one step ahead of whoever was after me was all a ruse, if it was pointless after all. How many lives were worth mine? How many more Midpark kids would die before all of this was over?
Ollie spoke to the detective, “I had someone follow her to the party, to keep an eye on her. He can vouch for her alibi, as well. He followed her from my house to the party, and from the party back to my house. Do you have a time of death yet?”
“Medical examiner is working on it,” Detective Wilde said, tapping his fingers along the table as he leaned back. “Give me his name, and I’ll check him out, too.” He must have a good memory, for he had no tiny notepad, no pen or paper to jot it down.
“Jacob Hall,” Ollie said. “I assume you know him.”
The detective blinked, clearly not having expected that answer. “Of course I do. He used to be a part of the force, when Celeste escaped her captor. How is she doing, by the way?”
“Good” was all Ollie said on that matter.
“He did not leave with a sparkling record,” Detective Wilde went on, “but it’s something.”
I was asked a few more questions before Ollie and I were allowed to go, and I did my best to answer. This…I had no idea what happened, truly. This came as a shock to me, and my mind didn’t know how to process it. You’d think, after everything, this wouldn’t terrify me to my core, but it did.
I was such a hypocrite. I had gotten used to the fact that Vaughn and Dante had gotten their hands bloodied, but now Deetra and Chelsea? Neither one of them claimed Brittany, and I knew if they’d have done it, they would’ve told me.
No, this meant there was another killer out there, someone who wanted to make me look bad. But who?
I spent the day in a daze. Ollie called Jacob, informed him of what happened, and sent him to the police station to speak with Detective Wilde. Mom was frantic, swearing up and down that I’d never leave the house again—to which I was starting to agree. As much as I didn’t want to be locked up here, it seemed like each and every time I went out, people ended up dead.
Granted, I wouldn’t shed a tear over those people, but still.
I lay in my room, texting anyone I could. Archer, Vaughn, Dante, even Jacob. Jacob didn’t answer me much, because he was at the station, but I couldn’t help to wonder when they’d bring Archer in. And Dante, because he’d been there, too.
Shit.
I even texted Bobbi, freaking the fuck out. I could not sit still, could not do anything but worry. Worry, worry, worry, I probably lost a good decade or two of my life to worry and stress so far; the longer this went on, the more seriously I debated the fact of if I’d get out of Midpark alive.
Right now, it certainly didn’t look like it. The end of this story would be me, bleeding out, finally seeing the face of the killer who’d framed me for Brittany’s death and given me her finger as a gift.
It was as I was in the middle of texting Bobbi back—telling her the news, since it sounded like her dad hadn’t yet—when my phone screen lit up with Dante’s name.
I sat up, answering it right away: “Hello?”
“Babe,” Dante spoke hurriedly, “I wanted it to be a surprise, but—” For a split second there, I actually thought he was going to admit that he’d done it after all, that his psycho tendencies had gotten to be too much for him last night, and he’d killed both Chelsea and Deetra in a fit of rage because they’d said something horrible about me, as they often did. “—I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill them.”
My lungs let out a sigh. That was a relief to hear, and yet also more troubling, because it meant their killer was still out there, somewhere, wearing a face no one knew.
“I did, uh, do something else, though.”
If I could’ve slapped him for being stupid, I would’ve. “Do I even want to know?”