Page 77 of The Executioners Three
As one, Cat and Kyle spotted the sheriff—and as one, they swore.
“Hurry,” Freddie insisted.
“But you gotta come too,” Kyle said.
“I can distract her,” Freddie insisted with way more confidence than she actually felt. “I’ve known her a long time.”
“But why is she evenlookingfor us?” Cat’s voice was shrill with panic. “People cut school all the time, and no one cares!”
“I don’t know.” It was true: Freddie didn’t know—though her gut was starting to curdle with a sickening sense that things were about to get really bad, really fast. “Just go, okay? There’s not much time.”
“Right,” Cat exhaled. “Thank you, Freddie. You’re a real friend.” She shot off toward the nearest dumpster. Kyle, however, didn’t move. He simply looked at Freddie. Swallowed once, Adam’s apple bobbing, before finally leaning in.
Freddie realized half a second too late that he was going to kiss her—and half a second too late, she realized that she didn’t want that at all.
She twisted her head sideways. Kyle’s lips connected with her cheek.
“Oof,” he mumbled.
“Eep,” she replied, and it was like a kettle boiling over. Fiery shame took hold of Freddie’s muscles, and in a graceless burst of speed, she sprinted away from Kyle—no goodbyes, no looking back—and ran straight for Sheriff Bowman.
Bowman was halfway across the parking lot when Freddie finally cut into her path. And Freddie realized the instant she caught sight of Bowman’s face close up that she had made a huge mistake.
Because Bowman was wearing betrayal in her blue eyes.
Freddie couldn’t stop now, though. She had offered to sacrifice herself for Cat and Kyle; she had to follow through. She came to a stumbling stop beside a turquoise Ford Ranger. Two booming heartbeats later, Sheriff Bowman reached her. “Where have you been, Gellar?”
It was not a promising introduction, and one by one, Freddie felt all of her organs squeeze. Oh—and there were her secrets too, just bubbling to the surface and begging for release.
“I get to the high school,” Bowman continued, “and what do I learn? You haven’t come in today. Does your mother know you were skipping?”
“No, ma’am,” Freddie tried, but Bowman was only just getting started.
“I have half a mind to arrest you, you know that?” She sighed, running a hand through her hair in a very Theo way. “Honestly, if this happens one more time, Gellar, I’ll have to put you in handcuffs. Do you understand?”
“Not really,” Freddie murmured—because she didn’t. Since when was skipping school illegal?
Bowman still wasn’t finished, though. “Itoldyou not to mess around. Itoldyou to stay out of trouble. Was I not clear enough on Saturday? No, wait.” She shook her head, a disappointed movement. “I know I was clear enough, but you didn’t listen. Instead, you went and made trouble again.”
Freddie recoiled. There was only one thing Bowman could be talking about, and it did not deserve a reaction like this. “It was just a prank, Sheriff. No one can get hurt from—”
“Aprank?” Bowman scoffed. “Frederica Gellar, it’s called obstruction of justice and worth up to twenty years in prison.”
Freddie’s jaw went slack. She felt like she’d been slapped.“Prison?”
“You lied to me.” Bowman waved in the direction of town. “You sent me and my deputies on a wild-goose chase and then you had thenerveto give me fake film too, even though you must have known I would catch you! You must haveknownI would walk into that forest and find nothing, and that I would get those photos developed and find them empty—”
“Wait,what?”
“—but you still pranked me anyway. Did you think it would be funny, Gellar? Or is this a cry for help?”
Freddie’s hands shot up defensively. “Sheriff, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you mean the photos were empty?”
“You knowdamned wellwhat I mean!” Bowman snapped this, her disappointment giving way to anger. “You took photos of an empty forest!”
“But I didn’t!” Freddie cried. “I took photos of a water bottle, exactly like I told you—”
“Stop lying to me, Gellar.”
