All The Pretty Dead Girls (43 page)

“To think,” Marjorie Pequod said as she wiped down the counter at the Yellow Bird, “all of this was going on right under our noses here in Lebanon.”

“I never liked that Ted Gregory,” Wally said from the kitchen, shaking his head and dropping some frozen french fries down into the deep fryer. “Or his wife either.”

Marjorie shuddered. “Perry told me they found the remains of those two missing girls, Joelle Bartlett and Tish Lewis, in the ruins of the dean’s house.”

“The Gregorys were sick,” Wally opined. “Sick and twisted.”

Marjorie was nodding emphatically. “Well, it’ll all come out in the story Gayle Honeycutt is writing.” She folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow to look at Wally. “She claims she was there that night at the dean’s house as an undercover reporter. She claims she never really joined the cult—she just told people she did in order to get inside and get a scoop.”

Wally laughed. “It’s absurd really. In this day and age. People worshipping the devil as if he was real.”

Marjorie’s eyes moved up to the TV set on the wall, where the Reverend Bobby Vandiver was preaching one of his infamous fire-and-brimstone sermons as below him, a 1-800 number scrolled across the screen for people to call in and donate their money.

Marjorie snapped off the television. “Maybe the devil is more real than you think,” she muttered under her breath.

“To think so many good people got sucked in. Cops, teachers…” Wally shuddered.

“Well, at least one good thing came out of it,” Marjorie said. “Perry being named acting sheriff. Wasn’t it wonderful how everyone was crowing over him, praising him for how he rooted out the cult in our midst? He’ll be elected officially this spring, you just watch! And to think people called that boy crazy!”

“For me,” Wally was saying, “the creepiest part of all was how that TV commentator Joyce Davenport was found burned to death—hanging upside down on a cross! How twisted is
that
?”

Indeed, Joyce’s death had ensured that Lebanon was all over the national news. Crews from all the networks had poured into the little town, filming the blackened husk of the dean’s house. They reported that Joyce Davenport had been a graduate of the college, but her connection to the cult was unclear.

“I can’t imagine Wilbourne surviving all this,” Wally said, flipping a hamburger. “I mean—to think there’s been a cult of devil worshippers operating at the place for decades!”

“Well, that Dr. Virginia Marshall seems like one smart lady,” Marjorie said. “I heard the interview she gave on TV yesterday. The board of trustees—the ones who haven’t been arrested, that is—asked her to serve as interim dean of students.”

“Has she agreed?” Wally asked.

Marjorie nodded. “She said she would, so long as she didn’t have to teach any classes. She has a book to finish, she said.”

Wally grunted. “I’ll bet she does. Everyone connected with this thing will write a book.”

He placed hamburgers on each of three plates, then loaded them up with fries as well. “Order up,” he told Marjorie.

“I just hope the town’s back to normal by next week,” Marjorie said, expertly taking hold of all three plates at once. “After all, it’s Christmas.”

She brought the burgers and fries to the three kids in the booth. Billy Honeycutt and Mike and Bernadette deSalis.

“Thanks, Marjorie,” Billy said.

“You bet,” she said. “Hey, Mike. You’re all better, eh?”

Mike smiled. “Yes, ma’am. Fine as can be.”

Billy clapped him on the back. “It’s good to have my buddy again.”

“And you, too, Bernie?” Marjorie asked. “Feeling fine yourself?”

The girl nodded. “No more visions,” she said. But there was a tinge of sadness in her voice as well.

After Marjorie left, Billy took a bite of his burger and fixed his eyes on Bernadette.

“So,” he asked, “what do you think happened to Sue?”

Sue
. The name had not passed his lips since the night of the fire. He’d been wanting to ask Bernie about her, but hadn’t dared. Mr. and Mrs. DeSalis had refused to let Billy’s mother speak to the girl for the article she was writing, and Billy refused to be put in the position of knowing something his mother would try to pry out of him. Not that Mom could intimidate him quite as easily as she once had. He believed her when she said she hadn’t known the cult planned on murder, but he had his doubts over her claim that she’d only gotten involved in order to land a scoop. He knew his mother too well, and she knew he knew her. There was a new balance between Billy and Gayle, and he was glad of that.

But now, after nearly a week, his thoughts had returned to the girl he had loved so briefly. The girl he’d never really had the chance to love—but whose feelings for him, and his for her, might have prevented something even more terrible from happening that night in the dean’s basement.

Neither Bernie nor Mike said anything in response to Billy’s question. They simply looked down at their plates.

“I know she must have burned to death,” Billy said. “Even if they’re still unable to identify her body.”

“Then why are you asking, dude?” Mike said.

“I mean—well, do you really think she was what they said she was?”

Bernadette lifted her dark eyes to face him. “What does it matter now, Billy?”

“I just want to know—if she died—what happened to her.”

Bernadette looked out the window, and seemed momentarily interested in something she saw there. Then she smiled, and returned her eyes to Billy.

“Remember what Dr. Marshall said,” she told him. “Sue was as much her mother’s daughter as her father’s.”

Billy just nodded, and began eating his lunch.

“Excuse me a minute, guys,” Bernadette said. “I just saw a friend of mine from school. I’ll be right back.”

She slid out of the booth, struggling into her down parka. Outside, she crossed the street, and hurried after the figure in the blue jacket she’d spotted from the window.

“Wait!” Bernadette called.

The figure, wearing a wool hat and scarf, paused.

“Where are you going?” Bernadette asked.

She looked up at the other girl’s face.

“I’m not quite sure,” Sue answered.

Bernadette was certain Billy and her brother couldn’t see who she was talking to. She smiled at Sue.

“I was positive that you survived,” Bernadette said. “But I’m no longer absolutely certain about things. I’ve kind of lost my second sight.”

Sue smiled. “You get to go back to being a normal girl. Lucky you.”

“You can be a normal girl, too.”

Sue scowled. “After all that’s happened? After all I’ve learned?”

“You’re just as much—”

“I know, I know.” Sue looked back at the diner. “Just as much my mother’s daughter.” She sighed. “I just wanted to see Billy one more time, even from a distance. That’s why I walked past the diner on my way to the bus station.”

“Are you leaving town? Oh, no, Sue! There’s so much you could tell us. The police, Dr. Marshall…”

Sue shook her head. “It’s better that I go far, far away. There are those who are still out there. Very powerful people who want to bring about the end times. They’ll be looking for me.”

Bernadette grabbed her hand. No electric shock this time. Just the warmth of two hands coming together in the cold air. “You have free will, Sue—the right to choose,” she told her. “I might not be in direct communication with the divine anymore, but this much I still know. You have the choice to do good, to do evil, or to do nothing at all.”

“Yes,” Sue said, her eyes betraying nothing as she looked at Bernadette. “I am aware of that.”

“So—what then?” Bernadette’s eyes pleaded with her. “What will it be, Sue? What will you choose?”

She didn’t answer. She looked away, her face folding in anguish. She seemed not to know the answer.

Bernadette let her hand go, and Sue resumed walking.

“Where will you go?” Bernadette called after her.

“We will see,” she said, without looking around, “where the road leads.”

Bernadette stood there watching her until she was just a tiny dark figure against the bright white of the snow.