It Begins by Richie Tankersley Cusick

the sliding glass doors.
    Her name was Lucy, he discovered.
    Lucy …
    He’d found it stamped on an airline ticket that she’d tossed on her dresser; he’d seen it written on a luggage tag still attached to a suitcase full of clothes.
    Lucy. Lucy Dennison.
    He hadn’t expected an interruption. He’d paused and listened, mildly annoyed, as the back door unlocked, as the kitchen cupboards banged open and shut, as the cleaning lady made her slow, labored journey up the stairs and down the hall.
    But still, he’d had time to walk around Lucy’s room.
    To touch Lucy’s things.
    And, in those last few seconds before taking his leave, to lie down … smiling … in Lucy’s bed.

13
    “Why don’t
you
drive?” Angela insisted as she opened the garage door.
    Lucy paused beside the little red Corvette, her eyes wide with feigned innocence.
Good one, Angela—now you can honestly say you didn’t drive your car anywhere except back and forth to school.
“Me? Oh, no, I’d rather
you
did. I mean, if you’ve been having trouble with it—”
    “The thing is,” Angela said quickly, “is that I’m sort of getting a headache.”
    “Oh. Well then, maybe we’d better stay home.”
    “I can’t. I mean, I shouldn’t. I mean, I promised my friends—you know, I’m supposed to be working one of the booths tonight at the fair, so I have to at least show up and help.”
    Was she telling the truth? Lucy doubted it, but told herself it didn’t matter anyway. Whatwas more important right now was just getting out of the house and getting along with her cousin.
    “So what exactly is this Fall Festival?” she asked, as Angela guided her through the neighborhood and toward the opposite end of town.
    Angela slumped down in her seat and sounded bored. “It’s the school’s biggest fundraiser, and they have it every year.”
    “That’s it?”
    “It’s like a fair, okay?” The girl gave an exasperated sigh. “They do it every year. Anyone can participate, so the school rents space to set up booths and then we get to keep whatever money we make. Lots of people come in from other towns, and there’s, like, this little carnival, and they have food and stupid crafts for sale, and dumb games and prizes and stuff.”
    Lucy was only half listening, driving with one hand, using the other to fiddle with the radio. “Sounds fascinating. So where do you work?”
    “Hey, that’s my favorite station!” Angela complained. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    “I just wanted to catch the news. Just for one second, okay?”
    “
One
.”
    “Thanks. Now …
where
do you work?”
    “Pin the nose on the scarecrow.”
    “Really?” The announcer was highlighting the day’s local headlines. Fall Festival … daycare facility closing … fender bender on the old highway … “You make scarecrows?” No mention of dead bodies, no girls in open graves, no murders in Pine Ridge.
I couldn’t have imagined it
all,
could I? Did I imagine Byron, too? And the necklace in class … and the girl in the bathroom … and the scar on my hand—
    “Watch out!” Angela yelped. “What is
wrong
with you?”
    Startled, Lucy swung the car back to her own side of the road. “Sorry.”
    “Well, it might help if you stopped looking at your hand and kept both of them on the steering wheel, for God’s sake.”
    “Sorry.” Lucy’s brain struggled to reengage. “What were you saying about scarecrows?”
    “I
said
, of course I don’t make scarecrows. It’s a
game.
You blindfold people and spin themaround, and then they have to stick this ridiculous nose on the scarecrow.”
    “Like pin the tail on the donkey?”
    “Exactly. And if you get the nose in the right place, you win a prize. Except we use velcro, not pins.”
    “What kind of prize?”
    Angela sighed. “A scarecrow doll, what do you think?”
    “Well … it sounds kind of fun.”
    “Yeah, if you have no
life.
Turn here.”
    Lucy did as she was told. They followed a narrow strip of