OLIVIA LET OUT THE BREATH SHE’D BEEN HOLDING, THEN opened the passenger door and tumbled out of Kitty’s car. “Logan!”
But instead of his usual smile, Logan’s face was hard, his eyes narrow. “What the hell is going on?”
Kitty scrambled out of the driver’s side, closer to Logan. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to calm him down. “I can explain.”
Olivia had no idea what she was talking about. “Explain what?”
Logan yanked his cell phone from his pocket. “I should call the cops right now. Tell them what you’ve been up to.”
“Dude, calm down.” John placed his hand on Logan’s arm.
“Calm down?” Logan cried, shaking John off. “Your girlfriend tried to kill my girlfriend. Don’t tell me to calm down, dude.”
John shook his head. “It’s not like that.”
Logan pointed at Olivia. “And I told you about those Gertler guys and now they’ve disappeared.”
“Logan,” Kitty said, her hands held up before her. “You don’t understand.”
“Damn right I don’t understand.”
But Olivia understood perfectly. Logan thought they were the ones behind the killings, the ones who had attacked Margot. It was so ridiculous, especially since until about twenty seconds ago, they thought the killer was behind the wheel of Logan’s silver SUV, that she burst out laughing.
“Really?” John said, turning to her.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia gasped, gripping her stomach. “Can’t help it. He thinks we’re the killers!”
“Why is that funny?” Logan asked with complete sincerity.
“Because we thought you were the killer,” John said.
Logan’s eyes grew wide. “Me?”
“Well, whoever was chasing us,” Kitty explained. “By the way, why were you chasing us?”
“Um . . .” Logan scratched his chin. “I guess I don’t really know. I saw the fight in the gym and then Olivia followed Amber outside. I saw her get into your car and . . .”
“And you thought we were all in it together,” Kitty said, completing his thought.
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Olivia said, coming around the car and taking Logan by the arm. “But not in the way you think. We’re all on the same side.”
“Same side of what?” Logan asked.
Olivia tugged him toward his SUV. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll explain on the way. We have a date to keep.”
“So you’re using Amber as bait to try and find Rex’s killer?” Logan asked as he halted his SUV down the hill from Amber’s house.
“That’s the plan,” Olivia said. She’d kinda sorta filled him in on the drive, leaving out key information, like the fact that she, Kitty, and Margot were members of DGM. Best not to bring him into the fold without Margot’s permission.
Logan stared at the steering wheel. “If it’s the same dude who attacked Margot . . .” His voice trailed off, and Olivia watched the tendons around his jaw ripple as he clenched his teeth.
“Then we’ll hand him over to the police,” Olivia said softly, finishing his sentence.
“And Margot will be safe,” he added.
Olivia could see the mix of emotions playing themselves out in the minute changes in Logan’s facial features. Tightly pressed lips denoted his anger, his furrowed brow showed the worry, and hints of loneliness and confusion could be found in his searching brown eyes and wrinkled forehead, respectively. There was nothing else Olivia could say without giving away too many of DGM’s secrets, so instead she patted his hand and opened the door. “Come on.”
Olivia and Logan climbed out of the car just as Kitty pulled up behind them.
“Dude,” John said, with a nod at Logan. “When you’re not chasing someone, you drive like my grandma.”
Logan smiled, and all traces of his earlier worry vanished. “My mom threatened to yank my car if I get a ticket. So I try to drive like she does.” His smile deepened. “When I’m not in car chases.”
Kitty linked her arm through Olivia’s and started up the street. “Which one’s her house?”
“This way.”
Olivia and Kitty hurried ahead, separating themselves from the boys. “What did he say?” Kitty whispered as soon as they were out of earshot.
Olivia spoke low and fast. “He’s figured out that the attack on Margot is somehow related to the murders, but he doesn’t know how.”
“Did you tell him?”
Olivia shook her head. “Not about DGM. Just that we were trying to protect Amber.”
“Okay.” Kitty squeezed her arm. “Hopefully, in a few hours, this will all be over.”
Olivia nodded, and turned into a steep driveway. “Here it is.”
The boys jogged up behind them as they hiked to Amber’s front door, which flew open before Olivia even had a chance to knock.
Amber rushed out and threw her arms around John’s neck. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, holding him close.
“Er, yeah,” John said, playing along. “We want to keep you safe.”
“And Kyle and Tyler are coming too?” Amber asked.
Kitty nodded. “They should be here any minute.”
Amber leaned into John, who stiffened at her touch. “I’m lucky to have so many strong men here to protect me.”
“So now what do we do?” Logan asked, peering out the window.
Kitty followed his line of sight. The living room had a bird’s-eye view of the driveway and the winding street below. If anyone came looking for Amber after she’d declared she was going home, alone, they’d see him or her coming. Kitty just prayed the killer took the bait.
“Now,” she said calmly. “We wait.”
Olivia curled up in the corner behind the sofa, hidden from sight by a large plastic ficus, and kept her eyes on Amber. She lounged amid the sofa cushions, languidly flipping channels on the television. Olivia was pretty sure she’d fallen asleep at some point, but despite the tediousness of the afternoon, Amber hadn’t complained once. She sat as she was supposed to, calm and casual, seemingly alone in a well-lit house. The bait dangling at the end of the line.
Olivia, on the other hand, had been a fidgety mess. She’d sat opposite Kitty at the dining room window for the first two hours, but had so much trouble keeping her body still, Kitty banished her to the other side of the room where her restlessness wouldn’t rustle the curtains and give away her presence.
It was the silence more than the waiting that was getting to her, and she was almost grateful when Amber finally opened up the conversation.
“No one’s coming,” she said softly.
“We don’t know that.”
“They’d be here by now.”
“We don’t know that either.”
“This sucks.”
At least Olivia could agree with that.
“He’ll come,” Olivia said, trying to sound confident. “And we’ll get him.”
They had lookouts at every entrance. Kyle had taken the sliding door that led from the kitchen to the backyard. Tyler staked out the laundry room, which opened to the side of the house. John and Logan took the upstairs, where they could command a view of the entire block. They had every angle covered, every entrance to the house accounted for. If the killer did show up, they’d see him.
Only he hadn’t.
“I know Rex could be an asshole,” Amber said. “But I loved him.”
From where she sat, Olivia couldn’t see Amber’s face, but her voice was sad, an emotion Olivia had never seen in her before.
“The night of the bonfire,” Olivia began. She needed to get this off her chest. “What you saw, me and Rex, it wasn’t what you thought.”
She paused, but Amber didn’t say anything.
“I know I told you that I broke up with Donté, but that’s not how it went down. He dumped me.”
“What?”
“Yep,” Olivia said. “So I was just trying to make him jealous. Rex was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing.”
She decided to omit the fact that Rex, even when sober, was a pig who hit on her at every opportunity. He was dead, and Amber deserved to remember him in any way she chose.
“He knew what he was doing,” Amber said softly. “When it came to you, he always knew.”
Olivia wasn’t sure what to say.
Amber took a deep breath, then exhaled loudly. “Rex was always talking about you. Whenever he was trying to get me to do something I didn’t want to do, he’d make a comment about how hot you looked, or how talented you were. I’d give in every time.”
Something she didn’t want to do? Olivia thought of Ronny DeStefano and how, at one point, she’d thought Rex and Amber might have killed him.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia said.
Amber laughed, drily and without a hint of mirth. “He even tried to use me to pay off a debt.”
“What?” Olivia cried. She couldn’t help herself.
“Shh!” Kitty whispered from across the room.
“Yeah,” Amber said, her voice lower. “This guy wanted money from Rex for . . .” She paused, and Olivia wondered if she’d spill Rex’s biggest secret. “For something,” she said instead. “And he offered the guy a night with me as payment.”
“Oh my God, Amber,” Olivia said, shocked. Rex was even more of a monster than she’d realized. “I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t do it,” Amber said. “Gave him some jewelry instead. But that was Rex.”
Olivia pushed herself to her knees and crawled to the edge of the sofa. She didn’t care if she could be seen from the street; she needed to look Amber in the eyes. For all the bad blood between them, Olivia wouldn’t have wished Rex on her worst enemy, and she was just now beginning to understand what Amber’s relationship with him had been like.
“Amber,” she said, staring at her friend in the growing twilight. “You deserve better than that.”
Amber’s smile was tight. “Do I?”
“Yes,” Olivia said. “And don’t ever forget it.”
Kitty crouched on the dining room floor, hidden behind the silk damask curtains, knees hugged tightly to her chest, head resting against the wall as the sun gradually shifted across the horizon.
Several cars had passed on Amber’s secluded block. None had so much as slowed down, let alone stopped. She’d seen three nannies pushing their wards in strollers, cell phones fixed to their ears as they walked. Two joggers, one with dog accompaniment, one without. A FedEx truck had caused a brief flurry of anxiety as it squealed to a stop in front of the house, but the driver merely checked his GPS before he roared up the street.
From the pocket of her jeans, Kitty’s phone vibrated. The noise sounded so loud in the tense silence of Amber’s living room, she jumped.
“Do you see something?” Olivia whispered. She scrambled to Kitty’s side.
Kitty shook her head. “Cell phone.”
“Oh.”
The message was from Mika.
Where are you? Practice started half an hour ago.
Kitty hadn’t told anyone she was bailing on school, let alone volleyball practice two days before a huge tournament. She thought about responding, coming up with a lie about food poisoning or something, so Mika wouldn’t worry about her, but then a second message came in.
Or are you at some special ’Maine Men meeting?
Kitty could practically hear the derision in Mika’s voice, and suddenly, she didn’t care if her best friend knew where she was or not.
Fifteen minutes later, a flurry of texts lit up her phone.
Donté: Mika said you didn’t show up for practice. Is everything okay?
Mika: Seriously, where are you? Coach is biting through nails she’s so pissed.
Coach Miles: Wei! You’d better have a good excuse for missing practice or I’m benching you for Sunday’s tournament.
Coach Miles: This is not NCAA behavior.
Donté: I’m worried. Please let me know you’re safe.
Coach Miles: Especially after I did you that favor, getting Vreeland on the team at Gunn. I am not impressed, Wei.
Donté: Kitty?
Enough! She typed two quick words to Donté so he didn’t call the cops and report her as a missing person. I’m fine. Then she powered off her phone and shoved it back in her pocket. She needed to be on her game for something much more important than a volleyball tournament. People’s lives were on the line and if she wasn’t—
Kitty froze. Out of the corner of her eye, a shadowy figure crept across the neighbors’ front lawn.
“What?” Olivia asked. “What do you—”
Kitty held up her hand and Olivia fell silent.
Had she really seen something or was it just a trick of the departing light? Kitty stared out onto the front lawn, hardly daring to breathe.
It felt like an hour as she sat there, body rigid, waiting to see if something moved outside the window. Her quads ached from crouching, and in the lengthening late-afternoon shadows, her eyes began to play tricks on her as every tree, bush, and mailbox seemed to move when her eyes were fixed elsewhere. She was just about to give up and call the whole thing quits when she saw it again.
This time there was no mistaking the darkened figure that darted from behind the garbage bin across the street and disappeared into the hedges at the edge of the Stevenses’ property.
Someone was outside.
“Oh my God!” Olivia gasped.
“You saw it too?”
A creak from the floor above, then John’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. “Did you guys see that?”
“What?” Amber asked. There was a catch in her throat.
Kitty knew exactly what she was feeling. Panic. Even though they had superior numbers and the element of surprise, their anonymous stalker had killed three people. They couldn’t take him lightly.
“Kyle!” Kitty said, her voice hushed. “Get ready.”
“On it!”
She turned back to the window in time to see the dark mass dash across the front lawn to the door. Kitty fought the instinct to lunge at the door and lock it, even though they’d intentionally left it unlocked for the ambush, and as she crouched behind the curtain, legs ready to pounce, she couldn’t help but think they’d all made a horrible mistake.
Her heart pounded in her chest, so loudly she almost missed the imperceptible click of the handle. There was a rush of air as the door silently swung open, then closed, and a hooded figure tiptoed into the living room.
“Now!” Kyle yelled.
Bodies flew from every direction. Kyle, Tyler, Logan, and John all seemed to tackle the intruder at once, smothering him. Olivia dashed to the wall and switched on the overhead lights, while Kitty slowly rose to her feet and approached the dog pile of tangled limbs.
“I’ve got him!” John cried.
Logan groaned. “That’s me, dude.”
“I called 911,” Kyle barked. “The cops will be here any second. Don’t even bother trying to escape.”
“I’m not trying to escape!” came a familiar voice.
“Ed?” Kitty said.
Kyle, John, and Logan peeled away to reveal Ed the Head, who had Tyler in a half nelson.
“Let me go!” Tyler roared.
“Fine.” Ed released Tyler, who rolled off him and collapsed onto his side. “You were too easy to pin anyway.”
“What the hell is he doing here?” Amber asked.
Olivia was pale as a sheet and still trembling. “You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on Tammi Barnes.”
“What’s wrong?” Kitty asked.
Ed climbed to his feet, as the blare of sirens grew louder outside. “Tammi Barnes has disappeared.”
