She told me

Chapter 22

"Lucas?"

I whip around and Peyton is staring at me with a concerned expression, "you look like you've seen a ghost".

"I just wanted to say goodbye to your mom" I reply, recovering quickly, "but she seems kind of busy so I'm just going to leave".

"I'll walk you out" she says, taking my hand. It would have been romantic if I wasn't still processing the Cathy is Valerie revelation.

As soon as we're outside, she grabs me and kisses me before smiling and shutting the door in my face. I shake my head; I was absolutely not looking forward to having to tell Peyton about Maya. I smile to myself. She'd kissed me, the hottest girl in high school had freaking kissed me.

My phone buzzes and I take it out of my pocket, "hello?"

"Lucas?" my mother sounds mildly annoyed, "where are you?"

"Out" I say simply, "why?"

"I was worried" she says, "you could make it a point to leave a note at least"

"Next time I will" I say and cut the call before I said something I would regret.

Maya was obviously not at her house which meant I had to find her. I needed to find good, solid proof because I couldn't just saunter into the police station and ask them to arrest a teenage girl for three murders because I found a pendant of hers near the third victim.

There were several places she could be but in light of her recent drug habit, I decided she would probably be at some place that was isolated and free of cops. Peyton had said something about her spending a lot of time at the graveyard so that was where my next stop was.

It was creepy, if Maya did turn out to be the killer but it also kind of made sense in a way. She was organised, methodical, smart, and kept a pretty low profile despite being popular. Besides, if she had been close to Valerie, which seemed pretty likely, she would have known that she had been dating Kevin and that Kevin wasn't responsible for her death, which might have made her target the people who let the real killer get off scot free, although it was really starting to look like Valerie's death was a plain and simple tragic accident with no one to blame.

I get back on my bike and continue on my way, cycling past my house. It was petty but I wanted my mom to be waiting on me for once. I come to a stop outside the cemetery, pulling my shirt a little closer to me, it isn't cold but there's a definitely a chill in the air, which weakens my resolve. Like what am I even doing here? What's my plan?

I know I'm going to chicken out, so I take a deep breath, turn on my phone recorder and push the rusty main gate of the cemetery which moves with a creaking sound that quite literally sends chills up my spine.

Understandably, there's no one crazy enough to spend a dark, gloomy morning in a cemetery except me and Maya so its pretty easy to spot her hunched figure, dressed in green, amidst the grey headstones that cover almost every square inch of the place.

My heart is thudding in my chest, but I force myself to approach her, "Maya?"

She doesn't turn so I take another step forward.

I don't like it here.

I almost jump out of my skin at Cathy's sudden announcement, "Dammit".

Maya turns around but she doesn't look surprised to see me. She studies me for a while without saying a word and I start to think that just maybe I should have bought Peyton along.

"Why are you here?" she says, finally.

She's so sad.

"Not now Cathy" I mumble, "just go back to sleep for a while".