Page 87 of Worse Than Wicked
Mabel nods, chewing thoughtfully. “It’s not a bad idea. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. If we posted something, maybe the others would start to come out. Some of the girls might feel safe to come forward now that he’s gone.”
“Exactly,” I say. “If his wife is smart, she’ll foresee something like that. She probably already has some inkling. Shelives with him. Most creeps can’t turn off the creepiness full time. Even if she’s in denial now, I’m sure she’s seen something that she can look back on once she knows. But she also wants to believe that if her husband is a pedo, at least he’s good enough to be ashamed of it. So she’ll believe he left on his own, out of guilt, because she wants to believe it.”
“Okay. I might know somewhere we can get rid of the body.”
“Where’s that?” Baron asks.
“The less people who know, the better,” she says.
My eyes narrow. “How do we know you’re not going to go to the cops? You could be setting us up.”
She just smiles that mysterious little smile of hers. “Haven’t you ever heard someone say that Darlings can get away with murder in this town? That’s not hyperbole. They can, and they have. Trust me, I can take care of it.”
“Why not have Dahlia do it?” Baron asks. “She did a good job in Maine.”
“I don’t have any way to contact her except to go hunting online, and that just creates another body.”
I shiver at her wording, how callously she says it. I’m beginning to think Baron’s not the biggest psycho among us. After all, she’s the one who had every single one of those men killed, including the ones Baron killed for her. I’m not sure I buy that she didn’t know he’d do that. She must have.
“Why would we trust your family to do it?” I ask. “They’ve probably been waiting for a chance to take revenge on us.”
“They won’t know you had anything to do with it,” she says. “I’ll go to them and tell them I need help, and they’ll help me. The Darlings always cover for their own. Look at what Preston just did for us. Unless you want to bury it at Hickory House.”
“No,” I say, picturing Olive coming out, nosing around, and finding us with a corpse. “There are too many kids there. Plus, there’s only the backyard, so people would see the ground all dug up. It’s not like doing it in the woods where no one goes.”
I can’t help but think about Jane, though. About the fact that someone went there and found her body. If she was alive, if she walked out, she would have come back for Olive, so that’s the only explanation.
“Do you know a good way to get rid of a body and leave very little evidence linking back to us?” Mabel asks. “Or do you want to trust that I know? I’m literally going to school for it.”
“That is convenient,” Baron muses. “I’ll come with you.”
“No,” she says, holding up a hand. “I’m not going to bring you along and let you see which of my family members know and are therefore complicit. I’ve trusted you. Now it’s your turn to trust me.”
She and Baron stare each other down a long minute, and then he pushes his glasses up and picks up a napkin. “Okay. It’s all yours.”
“Are you serious?” I demand. “She’s going to set us up!”
“I’m the one who did it,” Baron says. “I’m willing to trust her.”
“And I know all about it,” I say. “About all of them. Which makesmecomplicit.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to trust her too,” he says. “We’re all in this together. We’re all a part of it. If anyone gets caught, we all go down together. That’s how this works. Everyone plays their part. Everyone does their job. This job is Mabel’s.”
I jump up and toss my napkin on the table. “I didn’t ask to be on a fucking serial killer team,” I snap. “I just wanted to get a girlfriend and keep my brother.”
“And you did,” Baron says evenly. “I’m the one taking the biggest risk. If we get caught, you’ll do a little time. You’re anaccomplice. I’ll get the chair. I did the actual killing. I’m willing to do that, for us. If I don’t, will you?”
“No, I won’t fucking kill people,” I say, throwing my hands up. “Listen to yourselves!”
“It sounds like, if anyone is going to break and go to the police, it would be you,” Mabel says. “Are you thinking about it? Is that why you’re accusing me?”
“I told you to cut back on the Alice,” Baron says. “That it’s making you paranoid.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I snarl, knocking my bowl across the table at him. I wheel around and stomp towards the house.
“Would you rather we hadn’t told you?” Mabel calls after me.
I slam the door hard behind me, then lean against it, breathing hard. I’m losing my fucking mind. Baron’s right. The Alice is obviously fucking with my head, but they’re doing it too. I can’t tell if they’re doing it on purpose, or if it’s the drug making me think so.
