Page 57 of Cruel Riches

As I headed out of the lot and up to the street, I was suddenly struck by the same creeping sensation from earlier; that strange prickle on the nape of my neck.

I looked around, and my heart skipped a beat as I caught sight of a gray car with tinted windows. That very same car had tailed me up here from Arcadia Bay a few hours earlier. At the time, I thought it was just someone who happened to be going the same way as me.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

I decided to test them to see if they were actually following me. I crossed the street and headed toward a stone bridge on the other side which overlooked the lake in the park. Then I stood on the sidewalk near the bridge and pretended to look at something on my phone. As I did so, I also pretended to pick my nose.

I once read somewhere that doing something gross or embarrassing was the best way to make other people think you were totally oblivious to them looking at you. After all, who would pick their nose if they knew someone was watching them?

If the person in the gray car was actually following me, they’d think I had no clue about their presence, and they’d feel safe enough to come closer.

I was right.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the gray car start up and slowly creep closer to the bridge. I kept scratching at my nose, waiting for them to get even closer, and then I started walking toward the edge of the park.

The car kept following me.

Heart pounding, I stepped into the lush green park and headed up the main path toward a café and playground which stood in the center. On the opposite side of the park, there was a café strip on a narrow street. That was where I needed to pretend to be going.

I walked briskly along the path, eyes focused on the café strip, and then I quickly stepped in front of a group of moms with strollers so that the person in the car would momentarily lose sight of me. After that, I ducked behind a thick tree. A minute later, I doubled back to the park café and went straight into the bathroom.

I peeked out of the window on the far side of the bathroom and spotted the gray car slowly heading down the road that ran along the side of the park. After a moment, they headed over to the café strip and sped up, presumably realizing that they’d lost me.

“Too bad, asshole,” I muttered under my breath. I sank down to the tiled floor and played on my new phone for a while.

When I figured it was probably safe to leave, I headed back through the park and over to the mall parking lot. My heart was still pounding, and I kept looking over my shoulder, half-expecting to see the same gray car stalking me again.

When I finally left the city and turned onto the road that led to Arcadia Bay, I called my sister.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded slightly tinny as it came through my car speakers.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said. “How was your artist workshop?”

“My what?”

“You said you had an artist workshop event earlier.”

She let out a short, irritated sigh. “Oh, that,” she said. “It didn’t go for as long as I expected, but it sucked.”

“Oh?”

“Some guy from LA was there judging everyone’s stuff. I swear, everything that was done by a man, he loved, even if it wasn’t that great, and then everything that was done by a woman, he insulted nonstop.”

“Sounds like a dick.”

“Yeah. Anyway, how was your shopping trip? And why’d you need another new phone?”

“That’s actually part of the reason I decided to call you,” I said. “Some creepy shit has been happening.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, voice laced with concern.

I hesitated for a moment before I answered.

I hadn’t filled Sascha in on the fake sex tape incident, and I hadn’t told her that Nate knew our true identities, either, because I didn’t want to upset her. She was a very anxious person, so I worried that I’d send her to an early grave from stress if she knew everything.

“Well, basically, there’s this guy at Blackthorne who totally hates me,” I began. “He’s been following me around and doing weird stuff, and I was worried he might’ve hacked my phone, so I got a new one today to avoid him. Then the weirdest thing happened after I was done shopping.”

“What?”

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