For at least a while, it would be just Thelma and me. And Wesley, if he was trying to pull off a sneak attack.
Thelma was still coming.
“Stop,” I said. “Don’t take another step.”
She stopped.
“Put both your hands up. Put ’em on top of your head.”
She obeyed. Her breasts lifted. So did her entire blouse, a little bit.
I thought about frisking her.
Not just so I could feel her up, either: the way her blouse hung down, big and loose, there was plenty of room for hiding weapons.
The other two gals would be here soon, though, so I gave up the idea of checking her.
“Do you have any weapons?” I asked.
“No,” she muttered. She had a dull, sullen look in her eyes. “I didn’t come here to cause any…”
“Thelma!” Kimberly blurted. I looked back and saw her break into a run. Billie hurried after her. Over at her shelter, Connie didn’t want to miss out. She was getting to her hands and knees.
Kimberly raced past me, then slowed, then stopped a few strides from her sister.
Thelma started to lower her hands.
“Don’t.” Kimberly jabbed out with the spear, prodding her in the ribs.
“Ow!”
“Stay put.” She held the spear in both hands, its point an inch or so away from Thelma’s chest.
Billie arrived. Both of us moved in and stood with Kimberly.
“Can I put my hands down, now?” Thelma asked.
“No. Don’t move. Billie, you wanta search her?”
With a nod, Billie stepped forward. She went behind Thelma. Using both hands, she started at the armpits and worked her way down Thelma’s sides.
“I haven’t got anything.”
“We’ll see,” Kimberly said.
Billie patted the pockets of Thelma’s baggy shorts. After checking around the waist, her hands moved up Thelma’s front. She stayed outside the blouse, but pushed in the fabric until she met flesh. She rubbed up and down, lifted and shoved Thelma’s breasts this way and that as she checked underneath and between them.
Thelma grimaced while this went on. She also winced a lot, as if she were being hurt.
“Does he have to watch this?” Thelma wanted to know.
Meaning me.
“Make him look the other way.”
“Shut up,” Kimberly told her.
Squatting, Billie squeezed Thelma’s rump, patted the legs of her shorts, and shoved a hand up between her legs. When the hand jammed against her crotch, Thelma gasped and went to her tiptoes.
“Nothing,” Billie announced.
“Okay, you can put your arms down.”
She lowered her arms.
Billie came around to the front, and stood beside me. A second later, Connie joined us. This was the first rime since the attack yesterday that she’d been up and walking without any help. But she seemed to be on the verge of falling over. She leaned against her mother.
We all stared at Thelma.
Her chin was trembling. She sniffed. “I… I know you’re all mad at me. You have a right to be, I guess. I shouldn’t have…”
“Cut the shit,” Kimberly said. “Where’s Wesley?”
She struggled to speak. When her voice came out, it sounded so high it was almost a squeak. “Dead.”
“What?”
“Dead!” she blurted. “He’s dead!”
“Yeah, right,” Connie muttered.
“He is!”
“When did he die?” Kimberly asked.
“Yesterday.”
“When yesterday?”
“Morning.”
“Who did that to Connie at the falls?” Billie asked.
Thelma blinked and shook her head.
“Did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Throw that damn rock over the falls?”
“No! We… We weren’t at any falls.”
“Where were you?” I asked.
“His place. Wesley has this… secret place. It’s past the falls. It’s nowhere near the falls.”
Billie glared at her. “If you didn’t throw the rock, who did?”
“I don’t know!”
“Did Wesley throw it?” I asked.
Before Thelma could answer, Kimberly said, “He was dead by then, remember?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Which means you did it,” Kimberly said, and gave Thelma another quick poke with the spear.
“Ouch! Don’t!” She grabbed the hurt place.
“You did it,” Kimberly said, and jabbed the back of her hand. The spear put a pale dent in it.
“Stop that!”
“Tell the truth.”
“Wesley made me!”
“What do you mean, he made you? He was already dead.”
“No. He wasn’t. We were there. We were watching you all. We were up there above the falls, and spying on you, and he wanted to, you know, kill him.” She nodded at me.
“Me?” I asked.
“Yeah, you. I told him we shouldn’t. I didn’t want anybody else getting killed, but Wesley said he’d kill me if I didn’t do it. What could I do? He would’ve killed me. So I went and snuck down to the stream and did it.” She glanced at Connie. “It wasn’t supposed to hit you. It was supposed to hit him.”
“Stupid bitch,” Connie muttered.
“I’m sorry. What can I say? I couldn’t see what I was doing. Just a quick little peek or two. Somebody would’ve seen me up there watching, so I just had to throw it blind, and it got you by mistake.”
“Sure,” Connie said.
“It’s the truth! If you think I hurt you on purpose… I never would’ve done it on purpose. Look what Wesley did to me!” She raised both hands, open fingers trembling toward her face. “He beat me. Look how he beat me! All because I hit you instead of that boy!”
That boy.
Nice.
“He didn’t want you getting hurt. And he wanted him getting killed—so when I hit you instead, he blamed me for screwing up everything. He… he beat me and…”
“Pretty damn active for a dead guy,” Kimberly said.
“He wasn’t dead then.”
“Ah. So you were lying when you said he died yesterday morning.”
“It was after you all left the lagoon and everything.”
“He beat you up, and then he died.”
“Must’ve taken a lot out of him,” I said.
