"You killed Lauren while we were dating! Would you have killed me if I'd gotten into a better school?"
His eyes snapped to mine. "I never would have hurt you."
"I trusted you, Cal! I believed you were the one. I wanted to protect you and make you happy. I hated how your dad treated you, and even when you took your anger at him out on me, I never blamed you. I thought I could make you better. I thought you were a good person who just needed to be loved!"
"You can still trust me,” he said, missing the point completely. "I'll always be your Cal."
"Are you even hearing yourself? People are going to find out about this. You could go to prison. Your dad-"
Calvin's hands knotted up tightly again. "Don't bring him into this. If you want to help, leave him out of it."
"I don't think I can help you anymore!"
His eyes flashed, but behind the quick anger, I saw deep sadness. "I was never good enough. Not for him, not for you, especially not for him. He would have killed me, Britt. If I'd told him I didn't get into college, he would have killed me rather than deal with the humiliation. So I had to lie to everyone about Stanford and hide here at Idlewilde. I didn't want to, and I definitely didn't want to kill Lauren. I didn't plan her death. I was hiking one night and came across Shaun taking pictures of her. She was wearing a Cardinals ball cap and something in me snapped. She was wasted and that only made me angrier. Stanford had accepted a drunk, but not me. I wanted to take Stanford from her, but I couldn't. So when Shaun went to the toolshed, I took . . . her life."
"oh, Cal,” I whispered, looking at him with pity and disgust. Shaun had come back from the shed to find Lauren dead; he panicked and hid her body in the toolbox. He'd taken her locket, knowing it was valuable, something Cal would have overlooked money had never been an issue for him. It was easy to see how Jude had mistaken Shaun for the killer.
But Cal was the killer. My expression turned revolted.
Calvin saw the way I looked at him, and something inside him seemed to break. His face transformed and something inside him seemed to break. His face transformed into a cold, untouchable mask. In that instant, he truly seemed to become someone else. I had never seen him look so hardened or unfeeling. He took a step toward me.
"Don't come near me, Calvin,” I said shrilly. He took another step.
My shoulders ached from holding the gun upright for so long, and I realized I'd locked my elbows and was losing feeling farther down, in my hands. At the realization, they began to shake in earnest.
Calvin advanced again. Another step and he'd be close enough to take me down.
"Stay back, Calvin!"
Calvin rushed at me, and in that upended moment, it was instinct that propelled me to act. I squeezed the trigger, jerking the gun forcefully like Calvin had predicted. A hollow click filled the air, and Calvin stuttered at the noise, the whites of his eyes bulging around his green irises as he tripped onto one knee in shock.
Had I shot him? Where was the blood? Had I missed?
Laughing with quiet menace, Calvin stayed on his knee an extra moment before rising to his full height. There was a coldness in his eyes that robbed me of breath. There was nothing of my Calvin left. He looked exactly like his dad.
I squeezed the trigger again. And again. Each time, a dull, empty click slapped my ears.
"Damn unlucky for you,” he said, ripping the gun out of my hands. He grasped me roughly by the elbow, dragging me across the room toward the front door. I dug in my heels and wrenched from side to side. I knew what he was going to do next, because it was the worst possible way he could hurt me. I wasn't wearing a coat. I wasn't even wearing boots.
"Korbie!" I screamed. Would she hear? If she didn't stop her brother
"Calvin? What's going on?"
Calvin jerked around, startled by the sound of his sister's voice on the stairs. Her sleepy gaze flickered between her brother and me.
"Why are you hurting Britt?" she asked.
"Korbie." Tears fell down my face. "Calvin killed those girls. The girls who went missing last year. He killed Shaun. And who knows who else. He's going to kill me too. You have to stop him. Go for help."
Calvin spoke calmly. "She's lying, Korb. Obviously she's lying. She's delusional, a completely normal reaction to the hypothermia and dehydration she suffered out there in the forest. Go back to bed. I've got this. I'm going to give her a sleeping pill and put her to bed."
"Korbie,” I sobbed. "I'm telling the truth. Check the kitchen cabinets and the garbage bin out back. He's been living here all winter. He never went to Stanford."
Korbie frowned, eyeing me like I'd lost my mind. "I know you're pissed at Calvin for breaking up with you, but that doesn't mean he's a killer. Calvin's right. You need sleep."
I made a frantic sound and tugged fiercely against Calvin's grip. "Let me go! Let me go!"
"Come here, Korbie,” Calvin said, gritting his teeth as he wrestled me more securely into his hold, "and help me get her into bed." Squashing his mouth to my ear, he hissed, "Did you really think my sister would go against me?"
"Go for help! Get the police!" I yelled to Korbie. With growing panic, I watched her descend the stairs.
"It's okay, Britt,” she said. "I know how you feel. I felt the same way when Calvin found me at the cabin. I was dehydrated and I saw things that weren't real. I thought Calvin was Shaun."
"Get the police!"I screamed. "For once, just do what I say! This has nothing to do with me and Calvin!"
"Pin her legs together,” Calvin instructed his sister.
Korbie knelt down beside me, and that's when Calvin slammed the butt of the gun against the base of her skull. Without a sound, Korbie sank to the ground.
"Korbie!" I yelled. But she was out cold.
"When she wakes up, I'll tell her you kicked her in the head,” Calvin grunted, dragging me toward the front door.
"You won't do this to me!" I shrieked hysterically, fighting to free myself. His arms, locked around me, seemed to grind into my bones. "You won't hurt me, Calvin!"
Calvin opened the door and thrust me onto the porch. I tripped over the threshold, sprawling hands-first into the snow.
"Stay close,” he said. "Mason doesn't care about his own life, but maybe he cares about yours. I'll call you back in after he tells me where he hid the map."
"Cal-,” I begged, throwing myself forward at his feet. He shut the door in my face.
Through a haze of disbelief, I heard the dead bolt roll into place.