Once he leaves, I slip her phone out of her pocket and text Maggie. Didn’t feel well. Tessa and I got a ride home. I open her bedroom window to air out the room. She’s starting to sweat out the poison she put into her body earlier. Outside, thick summer rain begins to fall in sheets. I close Callie’s door and shut myself in the guest room. After I change into my pajamas, I crawl under the bed and stick my earbuds in. My fingers are trembling so hard that it takes me three tries to find the song I’m looking for—Peter Gabriel’s “Red Rain.” When I close my eyes, all I see is Ariel with her Rainbow Brite backpack, floating facedown in the Ohio River. I think of Wyatt Stokes—blond ponytail, sullen, hollow eyes. Wyatt Stokes, who strangled his victims and left them naked along the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania. Wyatt Stokes, who couldn’t have killed Ariel, because he’s in jail. Stokes was twenty-three around the time of the first murder—Marisa Perez, a seventeen-year-old runaway.
What do You think about The Darkest Corners (2016)?
