Page 63 of Bad Intentions

My phone pings.

Unknown: Running away?

I show the message to Rika.

“Hold on, Boots,” she says, then guns the engine.

In five minutes, we are parked on the outskirts of Burnville, beneath some trees on a dark side street.

“Where did you learn to drive like this?” I ask.

“Running away from cops.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Didn’t work, though.”

“Are you referring to your grand theft auto?”

“Yep.”

I wish I could laugh right now, but my heart is pounding.

Rika picks up her phone and dials someone. “Hey,” she says softly. “We have a problem… Yes, a big one…”

“Who are you calling?” I ask in panic, acutely aware that there’s a dead person in my trunk, and now I can smell it inside. The smell seems to be everywhere. If that man was hit the night I witnessed it and died right there, it’s been—oh, god—days! It felt like cold emanated from it. Did someone keep it frozen?

“I can’t tell you on the phone, but we need help,” Rika says calmly on the phone. “At least your opinion. There’s a lot. I can’t explain. Yes… Me and Josie Boots. Yes, she’s in trouble. Yes, in ten… Got it.”

She hangs up and starts driving.

“Who was that?” I ask.

“My nana.”

“Your what?” I gape at her. “What nana? Where?”

“Boots, this is not the time. Calm down. Keep yourself together, okay? We’ll find the best way to deal with this. If we have to call the police, at least we need a story.”

“There’s no story.”

“There has to be a story. Think. Something you might’ve missed. Something he said.”

I take a deep breath and blurt out the truth, “I went to meet him before.”

Rika slams on the brakes, the car halting abruptly. Slowly, she turns her wide eyes at me. “You what?”

“That night, when that guy texted me about a meetup, I did go.”

And then I tell her everything, down to every little detail.

“Wow,” Rika whispers and sits quietly for some time. “That changes things. You think the guy has been dead all this time?”

“I don’t know.”

Rika resumes driving, and I close my eyes, thinking that my family’s past finally caught up with me in the worst way possible.

“You fleeing the hit-and-run scene could be considered a crime,” says Rika as she drives. “Depending on the circumstances. But if you returned to report it, and he wasn’t there, then it’s not a crime. But! If the guy has been dead all this time, then he might not have been stabbed. Or was stabbed afterward.”