The Devil You Know (18 page)

He says more words but they sound far away and faint, as if he's talking from the other end of a long tunnel. I close my eyes again, and the words just stop.

I wake to sticky eyelids and a hangover ache as if I've been drunk. I don't know how long I was asleep but it feels like a very long time and I don't remember dozing off. My head is too heavy for my neck, and I prop my elbow on the edge of the window to hold myself upright. The first thing I notice are the headlight beams pushing out into the darkness, illuminating scrubby trees and a narrow two-lane road that doesn't look like any road I've traveled before. The sky stretches out around us forever, inky blue and riddled with more stars than I've ever seen.

The Cougar races down this nowhere stretch of road,
and a yellow diamond-shaped deer crossing sign is no help at all. My heart hammers double-time as I ask, “Where are we?”

Matt leans toward the steering wheel as if shifting his body forward will get us there—wherever “there” is—faster. The tires squeal as we speed around a curve, and I grip the door handle. He's grinning when he finally looks at me, but it's no longer sweet. No longer kind. “About five miles from Flamingo.”

“But—”

Realization wraps a cold hand around me and threatens to drag me under. There was a picture of me at the campfire party on Noah's phone. I was standing by the beer trough, wearing my dress and boots. Before we went skinny-dipping. Before I met Noah. They have identical phones. Identical waterproof cases. Except in Noah's photos, my hair would be wet and I'd be wearing his Trojan All-Stars T-shirt. “Oh my God. That's your phone.”

“Yep.”

And the other photos—the ones of Jason, Brian, and Lindsey—were manipulated. Rearranged to devastate me and make me believe.

“Noah didn't—” My mouth goes dry with fear. Matt is driving me to the barely inhabited tip of Florida where—oh, God. How did I get this so wrong? “He didn't kill Lindsey. He didn't kill anyone, did he?”

“Nope.” So casual, his tone. With a hint of pride.

I slide my hands beneath my thighs to keep them from shaking. “Why?”

“The guy up in Georgia was practice.” His shrug is constructed of utter disregard. “But Lindsey was just for fun. She was irrelevant.”

“Lindsey wasn't irrelevant.”

“Oh, please. She was a pain-in-the-ass little backwoods hick.”

“Like me?”

“Lindsey was a means to an end. When you said you'd come with us, her time ran out,” he says. “But you—you're still useful.”

“Oh, well, that's a relief.” My sarcasm falls flat when my voice trembles, but Matt laughs anyway.

“See, this is why I like you, Cadie,” he says. “You're brave, even when you're sitting over there terrified that I'm going to kill you. And you're smart to be scared. I probably will.”

I consider jumping from the car, but even if I survive the impact without breaking myself, we're still forty miles from anywhere. Flamingo is a town that has the Everglades creeping in on it from three sides while its back is pressed against the Gulf of Mexico. I could escape Matt but get lost in the vastness of the glades and die of starvation. Or be eaten by an alligator.

“Pretty shitty odds, huh?” he says, and I'm startled we're both thinking the same thing. “You should just wait
for Noah to try to rescue you—and he will because he's got this weird white-knight complex, you know? So the odds still won't be good, but they'll be better.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“She left him the car.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The words explode out of me, and even Matt looks startled. “All this is because your grandmother gave him a car? You're insane.”

His arm shoots across the car, the back of his hand making contact with my mouth. My lips sting from the slap. “What the—”

Matt slaps me again. “Stop talking.”

My lower lip throbs with pain, and when I lick it I taste blood. I do what Matt says. Partly because I'm afraid he'll hit me again, but mostly because I'm afraid he'll do worse.

As we drive through Flamingo, I realize it isn't as deserted as I'd imagined. There is a fairly new marina and a visitors' center—both closed for the night, so there's no hope of finding refuge there—and a vacant campground. But at this time of night and at this time of year, when tropical storms threaten the coastline, Flamingo might as well be a ghost town.

Matt bypasses the well-lit center and drives down a darkened road to what used to be a neighborhood. There are concrete pads where houses once stood, and the few remaining homes are buttoned up for hurricane season. No streetlights. No cars.

I am alone at the end of Florida with a boy who plans to kill me.

A hysterical laugh bubbles up my throat.

Matt's head whips in my direction, and I shrink into the farthest corner of the front seat, pressing against the door, for fear he's going to smack me again. He doesn't. He just gives me a self-satisfied smile, as if I'm the unruly dog he's beaten into submission. He pulls into the gravel driveway of what was once a waterfront home site, and a thin line of mangroves is all that stands between us and the beach. Matt fiddles with the radio dial, trying to get a sharper signal on the country music filtering through the speakers. My hand is on the door latch, and I consider getting out. Running away.

Matt slides his hand beneath the driver's seat and pulls out Noah's gun. “You can run if you want.” He gestures at the door as if I'm free to go. “I like shooting at moving targets. I'm pretty good with rabbits and squirrels. The neighbor's poodle was a challenge, but I got him, too.”

I slump back against the seat and blink about a million times trying to keep from crying. Matt's phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket, smiles at the screen as he places it on the dashboard, and turns on the speaker function. “Perfect timing.”

“What the hell, Matt? I've tried calling a million times. Where are you?” Noah's confused voice comes out of the phone, and hope snakes through my veins. I seize the opportunity.

“Noah, we're in Flamingo! Call the police!”

Matt's hand comes across the car again, splitting my swollen lip wider. My face burns, and the metallic tang of blood seeps into my mouth.

“Before you think about calling the police,” Matt says, “you should decide if you want Cadie's death on your head. Because if the police show up here, I will kill her.” Matt presses the snub-nosed barrel of the gun against my temple. I freeze in place, not wanting to do anything that might make his finger slip on the trigger. Tears course down my cheeks and snot dribbles from my nose, but I don't dare wipe them away. “She's been really brave, Noah. Give her a sporting chance. Come alone.”

The line is silent, and I pray to God, to my mom, to anyone in the heavens who might be listening, that we didn't lose signal out here in the middle of nowhere.

“What's going on, Matty?” Noah sounds calm, and even though I'm shaking so hard the barrel of the gun presses against my skin over and over and over again, I'm somehow comforted by the sound of his voice. “Why are you doing this?”

“He wants the car.” I turn my face quickly toward the window so Matt can't hit me again. The gun touches the back of my head, and I can hear the scratch of the barrel as it rubs against my hair. I pinch my eyes shut tight, but still can't help picturing my brains splattered against the window.

“It's yours,” Noah says. “Done.”

“It's already mine.” Matt's voice is dead calm. “Every summer when I was a kid, Granddad would take me for a ride in this car and tell me that someday it would be mine. That stupid old bitch willed it to you, but it's my car. Someday is here.”

“You have the Cougar, Matt. Just let Cadie go.”

“Not until you get here.”

“I'm already on my way,” Noah says, and I wonder how. Is someone driving him? Where did he find a car? Is he close? “We'll talk, okay? Just don't—Cadie, I'll be there soon.”

“No cops.” For just a moment Matt sounds young and desperate, and I think maybe he's afraid of Noah. After all, if a fifteen-year-old Noah could damage a grown man, what might this Noah do to Matt? But the coldness returns to Matt's voice when he says, “I already killed Lindsey. I won't think twice about killing Cadie.”

“No cops,” Noah repeats. “I promise.”

Matt touches the button to end the call, and the phone sits there on the dashboard. I lunge for it, and he pushes me away, cracking the side of my head against the window. Not hard enough to break the glass—or me—but pain radiates through my skull. I don't even know who I could have called. Even if Dad drove the whole way to the canoe landing at Gardner, he's still too far away to help me now. Duane can't come rescue me. And if I keep doing stupid
things like this, maybe Noah won't even make it in time.

“Goddamn it, Cadie! Stop making me hurt you.”

“Is that how it works? It's my fault?” My voice is thick with tears. “Did Jason make you hurt him?”

“He needed to be taught a lesson about respect,” Matt says. “He got what he deserved, but you were too stupid to see it as punishment. You felt sorry for him.”

“What about Lindsey? What did she do wrong?”

“Nothing.” Matt smiles at me, and my stomach turns inside out. I can't help wondering if his lies about Noah were truths about himself. Sociopath. Psychopath. Murderer. Monster. No matter what the label, there's something very wrong with Matt.

He grabs the phone and the gun and gets out of the car, slamming the door closed.

As he stands in the beam of the headlights, my eyes dart to the ignition. Shit. The keys are gone, too.

I think again about running, but I'm not certain I could reach the hiking trail that lies beyond him before he shoots me, and I'm not sure where the trail even leads. The water is closer, but how long—or where—could I swim before I was too exhausted to go on? Are there sharks in those waters? I don't know, but the threat of alligators is very real out here in the Everglades. The smartest option—which is, admittedly, not a smart option at
all—would be to run to one of the houses and try to hide. But even if I could get inside, if Matt finds me, I'll be trapped. If this was all part of his plan to kill Noah in a place where it would take weeks for his body to be discovered—if ever—it's a terrifyingly brilliant plan.

My head goes in circles for a long while, trying to figure out how I can get away from Matt, until my mind snags on Jason needing a lesson in respect. I get out of the car and comb my fingers through my tangled hair. There's absolutely nothing sexy about me at this moment, but it might be the only weapon I have.

Matt is leaning against the hood of the car, watching the road. Waiting for Noah.

“Hey, um—you know that whole thing with Jason?” I work on sounding a little bit shy and a little bit flirty, and I can't tell if I'm successful at either. “You did that for me?”

“Doesn't matter now.”

“Of course it matters.” I stand close enough beside him that we're almost touching. I keep my voice light and hope it's not shaking. “I'm sorry I didn't understand. Jason has always been a jerk to me, so I appreciate what you did.”

Matt's eyebrows pull together, and his dark eyes register skepticism. Because I'm lying and he's not stupid. But I have to convince him I'm sincere. On his side. It's the only way I can think to stay alive until Noah gets
here. The closer I am to Matt, the better chance I have of saving us both.

“It's too late for that,” he says.

“Is it?” I lean beside him against the car. “I know you probably don't believe me, Matt, but I get it now. I do. Noah is a total loser who wormed his way right into your family and took everything that should be yours. Even I was fooled, but you were smart enough to see through it all.”

“Exactly.”

“I should have stayed with you at the party,” I say. “But when I saw you with Lindsey I got jealous. Especially since I was the one who invited you. I waited for you, Matt.”

“You picked him.”

“Only because I thought you were blowing me off for her,” I say. “And I'm still here now.”

He laughs. “That's because I have a gun.”

“Well, yeah,” I say. “But I haven't made a run for it.”

“Yet.”

“Do you have any idea how much it sucks to be fourteen years old and raising a baby? I gave up my life to take care of my little brother.” My breath hitches in my throat, and I have to pause to keep from crying because this isn't part of the charade. But the thing is, I would live this life all over again for Danny. “I'm just so damn sick of it, you
know? Enough to run off into the wilderness with a couple of strangers.”

I glance at Matt, and he's nodding. Maybe he's buying it. Maybe he's playing me. Either way, I forge on.