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When she moves, the officer’s gaze drops to the floor. His eyes go wide. “What is that?” he asks, staring at the blood-soaked tablecloth and the lumpy form beneath it. “Don’t tell me that’s…” He leans down and carefully lifts the edge of the cloth, just enough to see Billy’s severed arm. “Sweet God almighty,” he mutters, checking for a pulse. The blood on Billy’s fingers has dried to a dull red, and the officer swallows hard for a moment, turning his face away. “Who—who did this?”

“Not who,” Kimi says, staring at the officer’s profile in a way that would likely make anyone else want to turn invisible.

But when Officer Whitmore raises his face to look at her, his expression is just as sharp. Against the bright overheads, Jane can see streaks of gray starting through his hair, despite his not looking much older than Kimi.

“We know how this is going to sound,” Jackson says, taking a step forward. “But it wasn’t any human or animal that did this.”

“It got my husband too,” Ashley adds, looking gravely out at the empty parking lot to the dark smudges dried in the dirt. “He—he’s still out there somewhere.”

“So is the thing that did this,” Thomas says, nodding to Billy as Officer Whitmore raises an eyebrow. “It’s kept us trapped in here.”

“And it can change into people,” Jane blurts out next. “It changes so it can trick you into letting it inside.”

Officer Whitmore squats next to Billy’s body, frowning at all the dried blood as he listens. When he gets to his feet again, he takes a step back from them all. Then he mutters into the radio at his shoulder, asking for backup at Kimi’s place.

Jim stares down at Billy with watery eyes. “It was the Mimic,” he says, unwavering and unworried about the shotgun in his hands. “I know you’ve heard the story, Nate. You can’t grow up here without hearing it.”

Jane’s eyes drift back to the officer, whose face has gone a full shade paler. He stares at Jim for a few seconds, wide eyed and frozen, like a phantom has just passed through him. Then he wipes a hand over his mustache, clearing his throat. “I see,” he says, and his face hardens. “Thanks for the call, Kimi. I’ll take it from here,” he tells her, smothering her dark gaze with his own.

Officer Whitmore steps up toward Jim, sighing slightly. “Jim, can I ask how much you’ve been drinking tonight?”

The words land hollowly within the adrenaline-charged space. At first, Jane thinks she has misheard. But then Whitmore repeats the question, stiff and immovable.

A brief blur of shame and hurt crosses Jim’s face, quickly won out by anger. “What did you say to me?” he asks, in a voice dripping with warning. Everyone seems to note the weight of the shotgun in the man’s hands, though Kimi simply places a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s alright, Jim,” she says, squeezing him. She looks back at Nate, a snarl flaring at her lips. “Would you just listen to what we’re trying to tell you? Please, Nate.”

It’s not the slight hitch in Kimi’s voice or the gleam to her steely eyes that causes Jane’s teeth to clench; it’s the small satisfied uptick to the line of Whitmore’s mouth.

“It’s the truth,” Jane tells him, crossing her arms. “Why on earth would we make this up?”

Whitmore’s attention locks in on her, sizing up the nasty scar above her eyebrow and the baggy sweater that swallows up her figure. “You tell me, kid.” He steps toward her then with his hands placed on his belt. “Awful young to be caught up in this kind of mess, huh? What’s your name?”

She swallows, not meeting his eyeline. “Jane Wilson.”

“And how ’bout your shadow?” Whitmore asks, nudging his chin at the spot over her shoulder where Thomas stands in a tense, wiry line.

Her brother’s glare is icy as he gives the officer his name, and a crease forms between Whitmore’s brows.

The officer looks between them, then down at Thomas’s Athens University sweatshirt and cast arm. “Wait a minute,” he says, tilting his head to the side slightly. “You’re the siblings who were in that car wreck a while back, aren’t you? The one on AU’s campus, back in October or end of September maybe? Lord, y’all were all over the local news.”

Jane feels certain her heart has fallen to her stomach, where a storm tries to sink it whole. She doesn’t have to look at Thomas to know his body has gone terribly still.

“A buddy of mine in Clarke County was on the scene at that. Said he felt sick for days after,” Whitmore continues in that low, emotionless drawl. “Sure seems like you’ve got a bit of bad luck following the both of you.”

Kimi’s voice mercifully cuts through the tension. “Are you going to help us or not, Nate?”

Whitmore’s eyes flit over Jane’s face, sizing up the scar over her eyebrow again. It’s not the first curious look she’s gotten since the accident and certainly won’t be the last, but still, the officer’s scrutiny sets her teeth on edge.

“Want a fucking picture?” Thomas says from over her shoulder.

Whitmore’s jaw tightens briefly before he slips into a cold smile. “Let’s have a word outside, Kim,” he tells the cashier, then the chirp of a siren sounds twice from the parking lot.

The headlights of a second patrol car emerge in long beams through the dense woods, bumping along the uneven access road. “That’ll be Sheila,” Whitmore announces before nodding at Kimi to walk toward the door.

Her hand rests on the pocketknife at her belt loop. “I’d rather not,” she tells him in an unwavering voice, though Jane swears some of the steel in the cashier’s eyes has dulled.

The laugh that escapes Whitmore’s mouth holds no humor. “It’s not a request, Kim. Outside, now.”