Page 82 of False Idols

Pastor Mike doubles over and has to brace his hands on his knees. “The evil in this world grows.”

“He did, left it sitting on top of a dumpster,” Detective Lucien says and his partner glares at him while Mrs. Du Pont and I cover our mouths in horror.

“Lucien, zip it.”

He shrugs. “She was going to find out anyway, if she comes to the station.”

Beau grips my hand tighter. “Which, she’s fucking not. We’re going out of town.”

Beau’s mother drops her hands and glares at us. “You are not taking that girl to our lake house.”

“I am,” Beau returns, “and unless you’re going to charge me with something, we’re leaving. I know my rights, remember? Doing time does that.”

Everyone falls silent. I know Beau bringing up his imprisonment is the right button to push with how quickly the fight goes out of the detectives. The glare from his mother tells me she isn’t going to let my part in all of it go anytime soon, but I can swallow that pill when the detectives relent and agree to let us leave. But not without giving us a police detail. Pastor Mike showing up when he did was a blessing really, with his insistence that my safety be looked after.

“He’s not going to stop coming for you, Nevaeh. We have to keep you safe.”

The detectives agree and after a hasty goodbye and a hug from Pastor Mike, they usher us towards Beau’s car with the promise that two officers will accompany us out to the Du Pont lake house.

“They’ll stay nearby and monitor your safety. We’ll make sure they report in regularly. If you see anything suspicious, you let them know and they’ll make contact with us.”

“Sure thing. We’re going by her dorm first. She needs clothes,” Beau tells them, but Mr. Du Pont speaks up, stopping us.

“She can use what’s there. Go on to the lake house, son.”

“Those are my clothes!” Mrs. Du Pont snaps, but her husband waves her off.

“For Christ's sake, Claire! It’s only clothes. They need to get indoors now! If Beau wants her, then he’s going to have her. End of story.”

Mrs. Du Pont snaps her mouth shut but the murder in her eyes has me thinking she is on par with The Reaper. If she could kill me, find some way that I didn’t exist, she’d take it.

“Your mom hates me,” I whisper to Beau while he puts himself between me and everyone else and opens my door for me.

“Oh yeah, she fucking hates you.”

31

NEVAEH

The ride to the lake house is longer than I thought it would be. It’s about a half hour outside of Bloom and tucked away on a road that I’ve never even noticed. But that’s easy all the way out here. Besides, I never had any business coming out to the lake. This was a place where only Bloom’s rich went. It was reserved for them and them alone. I don’t even think my mom had any client’s out here. If she did, she never brought me along with her.

“How painful do you think her death was?” I have to ask it, even if I shouldn’t. I can’t stop thinking about what the detective said. I look in the rearview mirror to see the headlights from the cop car bouncing along behind us. Beau’s car is newer and he’s driving fast, so the car is always just coming around a corner when we’re moving on to the next. The headlights vanish from sight when Beau sighs and speeds up. The roads here are winding and rise up on hills. When I look out, I can see Bloom glittering below us. I always thought Bloom Point was the highest you could go, but I should have known there was more to see.

“I-I didn’t know her but I wish-that shouldn’t have happened to her,” I whisper.

“Fuck that guy for saying that in front of you. Don’t think about it.”

Beau doesn’t want me to think about it, but I can’t help but ask him the question that’s been on my mind since I stood up on that deserted street and there was no one there but The Reaper looking back at me. “Do you think he’s going to do-”

“No,” Beau spits out. “No, Nevaeh.”

I fall silent. We drive for a few minutes longer before he turns onto an access road and drives up to a gate with a keypad. “The code is 4289,” he tells me while he punches the code in and the gates part. The cop car rolls in behind us and then parks at the bottom of the hill I see stretching in front of us before we go on.

There are lights that go up the length of the driveway and the lake house rises up in front of us, all lit up. It’s a two story house with so many windows it almost feels like the house is made of glass.

“Everything is on an app,” he says. “They made sure to turn on the lights so it felt safer.”

I nod. The gesture is nice, though I know The Reaper would come for us even with a fully lit house. It isn’t like when we were kids and thought every bad thing was just under the bed or in the darkness of our bedrooms and would vanish with the flick of a switch.There isn’t enough light in the world to keep him away. He killed a girl in broad daylight today. He did that and no one saw him carry her heart for a block.

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