Page 86 of Bad Intentions

I fumed, but that was all right. I had his number.

Al and Vic were going to the fair that very night and told me to come with them. Of course they would. They wanted to know more about what I’d been doing at Derek’s.

High ponytails, crop tops, jean miniskirts, and high-platform sneakers. Like corny twins from a Spice Girls fan club. I could never keep up in appearance, no matter how hard I tried. I worked for my money. But I needed to get out of this town. I didn’t know where, didn’t know how, but maybe—just maybe—I could use Derek to do that.

That afternoon at the fair was the usual boring entertainment. Big towns and cities had malls. We didn’t. The fair was the biggest event of the year, besides a Four-Wheel Jamboree.

Families came for the food, potato pancakes, and hoagies that they swore were the best in the world, though it was the same old stuff you could find in any diner and eating hole in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Kids came for the deep-fried ice cream and 4-H donkeys. Those with money came to the Expo Hall for steam mops and hot tubs. Younger adults came for the concert at the grandstand, previously tailgating or chugging booze from souvenir fair cups because Burnville’s was a dry fair.

I liked the rides, the bigger ones. I liked the unfamiliar faces that didn’t know who I was and what kind of family I came from.

Almost everyone who had graduated with us was here daily. What else was there to do in the summer?

Sammy from my high school and her cohort were there and ran into us. Laughing, chatting. “Oh my god, that guy!” she suddenly screeched.

“What guy?” Al asked.

“The new guy in town, Derek? Did you hear the latest? Shantsy hooked up with him.”

Never mind Al’s face, which went gray despite all the makeup. I was boiling. I wasn’t stupid. Of course Derek had hit on other girls. I just didn’t know that he’d be so quick.

“Anything goes these days,” Al said dismissively. “Birdie might’ve beaten her to it.”

She glanced at me, and so did Sammy, Sammy’s eyes widening at me. “Are you for real?”

Al and Vic could eat someone alive. But mostly, they liked to play with their food. Shortly, something else was whispered, something I didn’t catch, and the whole gang of girls burst out laughing, tapping each other, glancing at me.

My face caught on fire. At this point, I wasn’t interested in anything but dunking Al’s face into the boiling oil at the french fries stand.

She started typing something frantically on her phone. I had a guess to who, but I kept a straight face as we bought popcorn, then birch beer, then popped into the 4-H barn where no one could see us chug vodka out of the little party bottles that everyone snuck into the fair.

I knew a way to get back at them. Quietly. Unseen. Like the time I mixed Ajax powder into Al and Vic’s little cocaine stash. I’d dropped open safety pins into their purses. I’d squeezed superglue into their hair when they weren’t looking. There were plenty of things I’d done, but all of them were innocent compared to what I had to deal with from them. Friends, my ass.

This time, it wouldn’t be so innocent.

We all went to the Drop Tower, my favorite ride. Al knew it. So did Vic. So they were surprised when I said I had a headache, and I’d wait and hold their purses. While I did, mingling among the crowd, I took a safety pin from my purse, found condoms in Al’s purse, and poked holes in them.

Payback is a bitch.

46

JOSIE

“You did what?” I croak.

My head spins, but it’s not from whatever she injected me with. It’s the realization that there’s a sinister layer to my family’s story. And this woman is part of it. Did my grandmother know?

My face, fingers, legs, and toes are cold. The barn is dim. The stink of it makes me feel dirty. Even more so, what this woman is telling me. She’s dangerous. She managed to move a body. She tampered with it. She put it in my car. What sane human does that?

I feel like I’m in the Matrix, and the more steps I take into the dark, the more I learn about a dark reality that’s never existed before. Her. This woman in front of me.

We are outside town. There’s no one around, no one to save me. This psycho has screwed-up plans for me. I know it. She’s graduated from high school pranks to guns.

My eyes drop to the gun resting on her lap.

“Nifty, huh?” Mallory Blain chuckles.

I raise my eyes to meet hers.