These Deadly Games(85)
Dylan turned the knob all the way and pushed. But the door didn’t budge. I’d remembered to lock the dead bolt after all.
Still, if he really wanted to get in, he could. He could throw a rock into the living room window or—
Bam. He pounded low on the door, hard, like he suspected I was crouching beneath his line of sight. I swallowed back a scream, clasping my mouth. He was trying to get me to cry out. He was trying to get me to reveal myself. Instead, Whiskers skittered away from the door, her back paw nails loudly skidding on the hardwood as she rounded the corner into the living room.
I heard Dylan grunt, and then his shadow disappeared as footsteps stormed down the front stoop’s steps. He must’ve thought the cat was making all the noise.
That little fuzzball saved me.
Legs shaking, I peeked outside. Instead of heading toward his Jeep in the driveway, he veered left.
Toward Zoey’s house.
I’ll keep playing without you.
No.
No.
I hadn’t been able to lock her front door behind me. He could easily let himself in and find Zoey in the basement. If he were clever—which, clearly, he was—he’d kill her without touching anything, and it would be my fingerprints all over the crime scene, and mine alone. Fury swelled in my chest like pressurized lava. Brady’s death was an accident. How dare he snatch our lives away like this!
I dashed into the dining room to get a clearer view of Zoey’s house. If he killed her, I’d never get to apologize. Just like I never got to tell Matty how I felt. More unspoken words. More death. I couldn’t let it happen. But if I confronted Dylan now, I wouldn’t be able to follow him to Caelyn. She’d be trapped for God knew how long, or worse, bleed out—if she hadn’t already.
No. I had to assume she was still alive. She was alive and needed to get to a hospital.
All I could see of Dylan was his blue plaid coat sleeve as he rang Zoey’s doorbell, the chimes faint through the window. Had he tried the doorknob? He shouted Zoey’s name, but she wouldn’t hear him in the soundproofed basement. Was he tracking her phone? I’d chucked it onto her kitchen table on the way out, having no need for another locked phone. I braced to run over if he went inside. I couldn’t let him hurt her.
But after a few moments, he dashed back down the stairs. As far as he knew, she had no reason to avoid him, so he must’ve thought she wasn’t home. “Oh, thank God,” I whispered, getting my first clear view of his face as he crossed my yard—jaw clenched, mouth set in a grim line, brow furrowed. Frustrated. Maybe a little worried. His plan had gone awry after all.
As Dylan climbed into his Jeep and backed down the driveway, I huddled at the front door and slid the knife into my coat pocket, hoping it wouldn’t tear through the fabric. Once he turned down the street, I’d have to move fast. Hope and fear mingled in my chest—this might lead me to Caelyn, but how the hell would I rescue her?
Dylan waited for a car to pass, then backed into the street. As soon as he accelerated, disappearing down the street, I whipped the door open and sprinted toward my car. It’d stopped raining, but the walkway was slick with patches of black ice, and I almost fell. By the time I teetered the rest of the way to my Prius and turned onto the road, he was gone.
“Dammit!” I smacked the steering wheel. But when the road curved, I spotted him up ahead, stopped at a red light. I slowed a few car lengths behind him. If he glanced at his rearview mirror, he’d spot me. But the light turned green, and Dylan made a right turn without indicating.
I followed, palms slick with sweat, keeping some distance between us. The light up ahead turned yellow. There’d only be time for Dylan to whiz through. It was a long light, too—Caelyn and I had gotten stuck there yesterday morning. This was no action movie; I couldn’t blast through the red light once traffic started in the other direction, swerving around cars screeching out of the way—
But Dylan slowed before reaching the traffic light and turned onto a long driveway.
Um? Where was he going? You couldn’t see the house from the street, but this was the Nelsons’ old property.
After we’d found Brady in their storage locker, the Nelsons put their house up for sale, just like the Cullens had. But their house was more of a fixer-upper, and whispers of the boy who’d died in the backyard reached any prospective buyers. Unlike the Cullens with their cookie-cutter modern home, they had a tough time getting offers.
And then Mr. Nelson passed away—cancer, I’d heard—and Mrs. Nelson followed soon after. The house had stood empty ever since, now belonging to their only child, who lived in France with her husband. I’d overheard Mom and Chantel gabbing about her once, speculating she was saving it to move back here if she ever had children of her own.
Going down the driveway wouldn’t exactly be subtle, so I pulled off onto the shoulder and headed toward the house on foot, sticking to the shadows under the pine trees lining the driveway. Spotting Dylan, I scrambled behind a wide tree trunk. He’d parked in the old detached garage and was jogging to the front door.
What on earth?
Had Dylan been squatting here all this time? He always drove to my house … but this was walking distance. He’d made it seem like he lived across town, when really, he’d been right around the corner.
Once he was inside, I crept to the wraparound porch. All the window shades were drawn, but one room’s shades had torn reams, and I could see movement inside. As I climbed the porch stairs, the middle step creaked under my boot, and I froze. But the space between the torn shades went light and dark, light and dark. There he was. Pacing. He hadn’t heard me.