Page 128 of Cruel Games

I spotted my bike at a convenience store and ducked around the corner, knowing damn well ten minutes ago Dingo was across town. Which meant he’d been led here by a called-in sighting.

Ivy had to be close.

Shehadto be.

Dingo emerged from the building without a thing in his hands, confirming my suspicion that he was there looking for her. Without a word, he followed a cashier around the side of the building, into the alley beyond, and didn’t emerge for a few minutes.

Every second counted, but I stayed out of sight, knowing he’d stop me if I tried to help. I couldn’t afford to stop, not now.

Not until I knew she was safe.

When Dingo hopped on my dirtbike and sped out of the parking lot, I took the chance, rushing into the convenience store to find the clerk he’d just spokenwith.

Dude was immediately on edge when I started asking him the same things as Dingo just had.

“If yer working together, then how come he didn’t tell you what was what?”

I growled as he squinted at me, a teenager who had no business working this close to the edge of the dangerous South End. “Port Wylde’s police department doesn’t pay you to play cops and robbers, little man. Tell me what I want to know.”

He acted tough until I grabbed him by the collar and backed him against the wall. All of a sudden, he was full of information, even things he’d conveniently forgotten to tell Dingo.

“She came i-in the front and bought a-a-a soda and a snack cake. Paid with c-cash, man. She was on foot. W-w-went around the back and then came back in and asked for some paper towels. Her hands were red; I-I just thought she’d spilled some transmission fluid or something.”

“When did you find the body?”

He was white as a ghost, so I set his feet back on the floor as he shook and sputtered, trying to get his answers out so I’d leave. “I didn’t. When she came back in, she wrote something on a piece of paper and passed it to me. A big red smiley face was sprayed on the back wall in red paint when I took out the trash. I called the number on the back of the receipt and told them what I saw.” He frowned, brushing off his pants as I released him. “That’s when your buddy showed up and started asking questions.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, marching around to the side of the building where Dingo had just been.

Sprayed on the wall in dripping, still-wet paint, was the Neon Dogs logo, if we were to have one: a sadistic smiling face, done up in bright red, a phone number listed next to it that I realized was hers.

So I called it.

“Not all who wander are lost.”A pause, then she cleared herthroat.“But there are always those who seek what doesn’t want to be found. I hope you won’t waste your time looking for me.”

“I’ll decide what’s a waste and what’s not,” I growled to the emptiness around me, looking for any sign that told me where she’d gone. Anything that could hint at her direction, her whereabouts, anything.

The red paint dripped around to the front of the building, but she hadn’t noticed the faint footprints she left as she walked away, pointing me toward her.

I was so close I could practically smell her.

Taste her lips on mine. Smell her shampoo, feel the soft skin of her neck as I leaned down next to her and nuzzled her like an animal.

I was hallucinating now, and it would likely get worse if I didn’t rest. But I was so close; quitting now was out of the question.

I followed those footprints to the nearby abandoned park, aware the light was fading quickly and this innocent-looking place would become very dangerous very fast. Someone who grew up on the rich end of town didn’t stand a chance in this area after dark, no matter how many men she’d killed.

The need to find her grew inside me, along with a new worry that she’d die before I could tell her how I felt.

I didn’t know love. Hadn’t since I was a small child. And I wasn’t sure I could even give it, considering I didn’t understand it. But I needed her like I needed sleep, like I needed air to breathe, water to quench my thirst, food to calm my empty stomach. She was my survival, and though I couldn’t give her a normal life, I could give her mine.

Now. Forever. Until death came to claim us both.

Where are you, Ivy?

She was a smart girl; she’d likely have someplace easily defendable to hole up. Some place that was not immediatelyobvious to the naked eye. My eyes scanned the darkening ground and found a few little indentations in the dirt. With a prayer to my dead parents, I pleaded with them to give me a shot of good luck, and make those her tracks.

I followed them until the trees created a midnight-dark environment, and then I fell to my knees and started feeling around for them, hoping to find them with my fingertips, searching for any unnatural-shaped indent in the soft dirt?—

---