KITTY SLOUCHED LOW IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT, KEY READY AND waiting in the ignition, and watched the side door of the school.
“You sure this is going to work?” John asked from the back.
“No.”
“Awesome.”
She didn’t elaborate. Kitty’s stomach was already doing backflips, and she didn’t need to be reminded that plan B wasn’t exactly the most well-thought-out strategy in the history of secret missions.
Before she had time to further worry herself into an ulcer, the school door flew open and Amber raced down the stairs to the parking lot. Her face was beet red, her blouse disheveled, hair a tangled mess. It looked as if Amber had been in one hell of a catfight.
“You should see the other guy,” John mumbled.
A squeal of tires pierced the silence of the parking lot, and before Kitty could even turn over the ignition in her old Camry, Amber had peeled her Mercedes out of the lot.
Seconds later, the “other guy” appeared as Olivia scampered down the stairs. Like Amber, her clothes were in disarray and her pixie-short curls a rat’s nest. She hurried to Kitty’s car and climbed daintily into the front seat.
“How did it go?” Kitty asked.
A satisfied smile lit up Olivia’s delicate features. “It was amazing.”
Kitty held up her hand and gave Olivia an enthusiastic high five.
“It was the best acting performance Amber’s ever given,” Olivia added. “By far.”
“Yeah,” John said, “because she wasn’t really acting.”
Kitty grinned. “Neither was Olivia.”
It had been remarkably easy to get Amber onboard with the plan . . . as long as John was involved. Kitty had approached Kyle and Tyler with the idea before school, doubling down on her new position as leader of the ’Maine Men. She suggested they go on the offensive and try to catch the killer themselves, then laid out the plan to use Amber as bait.
Meanwhile, John recruited Amber via text, playing up his concern over her safety, and his wish that they could do something about it. He’d even managed to get Amber to suggest the staged catfight herself.
To Kyle, Tyler, and Amber, today’s plan seemed to be their idea. No one suspected DGM at all.
Not bad for a morning’s work.
“Stay with her,” Olivia advised. She fumbled with her seat belt as she tried to put it on. “But not, you know, too close.”
“Fly casual?” John suggested.
Olivia glanced back at John. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“Nope,” John said.
“Stay on target,” Kitty said as she released the parking brake. John and Bree weren’t the only ones who knew Star Wars by heart.
In the rearview mirror, she saw John nodding in approval. “Nice one.”
“It’s like you’re speaking a language I don’t understand,” Olivia said.
John leaned forward. “How can you not understand the best movie trilogy ever made?”
“American Pie?” Olivia asked.
John shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t think I can talk to you right now.”
“Good.” Olivia turned back around. “Can we hurry up and catch Amber?”
Kitty gritted her teeth as she sped after Amber’s black Mercedes coupe, trying to ignore Olivia’s nonstop stream of passenger-seat driving. Run that light. She’s switching lanes. Watch that pedestrian. You’re too far behind. Now you’re too close.
“Why do we have to tail her, Kojak?” John asked as they sped through an intersection, barely avoiding a red light. “Haven’t you been to her house like a million times?”
Kitty saw Olivia’s body tense up. “I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
John snorted. “Between school and here?”
The light mood of a few moments ago had evaporated. Kitty knew exactly why Olivia was so worried, and she needed John to understand that the risk factor here was very, very real. She caught his eye in the mirror as they stopped at a light. “Remember what he’s capable of.”
Amber was four or five cars ahead of them when the light turned green. According to Olivia’s directions, Amber should have turned at the intersection, but instead, she kept going straight.
“What’s she doing?” Kitty asked.
Olivia bit the inside of her lower lip. “I don’t know. Stay with her, though.”
Kitty followed the line of cars, her eyes peeled for the shiny black coupe in case Amber realized she’d missed her turn and flipped a bitch in the middle of the street. They’d gone almost a mile before Amber veered off the road into the Coffee Clash parking lot.
“She wants a latte?” John asked as Amber hurried up the steps and into the coffeehouse. “Now?”
“An iced triple-shot nonfat vanilla soy latte with two Splenda,” Olivia corrected.
“This is ridiculous.” Kitty pulled into a spot at the far end of the mini-mall and looked around. There were three other cars in the lot, plus a silver SUV at a meter in front. It was pretty deserted for a Friday afternoon, and Kitty could see through the glass doors into the café, where Amber was paying for her drink.
“At least we know no one’s following her,” Olivia said. “That’s something.”
Kitty pursed her lips. “I guess.”
Two minutes later, Amber strolled out of the café, iced coffee concoction in hand, and rolled her car out of the lot. Without a word, Kitty followed, again leaving a few cars between them. They’d gone three blocks before Kitty noticed a car close behind them. The same silver SUV that had been parked in front of the Coffee Clash.
Amber pulled into the left turn lane, but instead of following her, Kitty switched lanes to the right, keeping an eye on the SUV. She was probably imagining things, but she just wanted to make sure they weren’t being followed.
“What are you doing?” Olivia asked as they passed Amber’s car.
Kitty glanced at the rearview mirror. “Checking something.”
Olivia twisted in her seat and stared out the back window. “Is someone following us?”
“I don’t know,” Kitty answered. The SUV hadn’t followed them into the new lane. They drove a few more blocks in tense silence, then Kitty let out a slow breath. “I think we’re fine.”
Olivia relaxed back into her seat. “Thank God.”
Kitty made a U-turn at the next intersection and headed back toward Amber’s house.
“Was it the silver SUV you were worried about?” John asked from the backseat.
“Yeah,” Kitty said. “Why?”
“Because it just made a U-turn to follow us.”
“Are you sure?” Olivia asked.
Without waiting for an answer, Kitty slammed on the accelerator. The aging engine strained, the RPMs rocketing into the red zone. She zigzagged around cars, weaving in and out of lanes like a race-car driver. If the SUV was actually following them, he’d have to match her speed and her course. To her horror, she saw the SUV accelerate rapidly, and whiz around several cars in an attempt to keep up with her.
“Shit.”
“Oh my God!” Olivia cried. “It’s him!”
Whether or not the killer who’d been terrorizing them for weeks was, at that very moment, tailing them through the streets of Menlo Park, Kitty couldn’t say for sure. There was a logical argument against it, but at the moment, the logical-argument part of her brain wasn’t working. Just the panic reflex.
“Can you get the license plate?” Kitty asked.
John spun around in his seat. “Looks like California, but I can’t get digits. He’s too far away.”
“Dammit!”
Kitty scanned the road ahead, looking for an escape route. Her eyes landed on a large delivery truck in the far right lane two blocks ahead.
“Hang on!” she said. The engine roared as Kitty coaxed even more speed out of the old Camry. They careened through a yellow light, then just as she passed the truck, she zipped in front of him, slammed on the brakes, and made a dangerous right turn onto a side street. With any luck, their pursuer had lost sight of them for a split second when Kitty pulled in front of the truck, and didn’t see her turn off the main road.
Foot back on the accelerator, she raced through the suburban neighborhood, praying no one stepped into the street, then turned into someone’s driveway and cut the engine.
“Everybody down!” she ordered.
Seat belts off, Kitty and Olivia crouched low in the front seat while John flattened himself in the back.
“Do you think we lost him?” Olivia whispered.
“I hope so.” Even if he did see them turn onto the side street, Kitty was counting on the fact that her nondescript Camry was a pretty common car, and whoever was following them might not notice one parked in a driveway.
“I don’t understand,” John said. “I thought we wanted the killer to show up at Amber’s house. Why were we trying to lose him?”
“I . . .” That was a good question, after all. But Kitty couldn’t explain the abject terror she felt at the idea that the killer had been following them. It was like an instinctual reaction to flee.
Before Kitty could answer, she heard a sound that made her blood run cold. A car pulling up alongside.
She held her breath as a car door opened, then slammed shut. Maybe it was just the homeowners? Footsteps on concrete as someone walked up to the door and knocked on the window.
“What are you guys doing?”
Kitty knew that voice. She sat up and found the slightly confused face of Logan Blaine on the other side of the glass.
