Two #3
As in, maybe not ever.
I waited for a second, but Mateo didn’t respond. We weren’t that serious, because I didn’t do serious. The fastest way to get me out of your bedroom was to start talking about your feelings. Blech.
Since I had the app open, a few more notices came up. Apparently, there were singles in Lake Sanguis looking to smash.
“Who’s texting you?” Mom asked me, interested, as she lobbed a third muffin into the pond.
“None of your business,” I said.
“Is that Spark?” Mom looked uneasy.
“It’s actually Knife, the new get-matched-with-your-soulmate-serial-killer app.” Diamond Dave slapped his tail against the surface of the water. At least he appreciated my joke.
“Ha. Funny,” Mom said. “But why is it dinging so much?”
“I just got an update about all the available bachelors in my area on the app.”
“Like who?” I saw Mom’s aversion to the app be overridden by blatant curiosity in real time.
We both saw Allen Gordon, the frozen custard king, at the same time and squealed in terror.
“He’s older than your father,” Mom pointed out.
“I’m going to swipe left!” I promised.
“No—wait, let me see his photos.” Mom grabbed my phone and began flicking through the photos of the reviled owner of the Gordon’s Frozen Custard empire.
The first one looked relatively normal: just him and his bald head, red bulbous nose, and acne-scarred face in his red fleece vest with the Gordon’s Frozen Custard logo on it.
But then the pictures quickly devolved into weird.
Like, one of him in front of a fireplace, lying on a bearskin rug on his stomach—buck naked.
“Oh my God. I’m going to vomit,” I threatened.
“Why would you show your ass if there’s pimples on it?” she asked, genuinely baffled. “Has the man ever heard of Photoshop?” Mom shook her head. “I think this is worse than a serial killer.”
I swiped back my phone.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a vintage white Jeep Wagoneer with wood paneling inching along the fence line.
It was going much slower than other traffic, so at first I thought it might be looking for a parking space.
From this angle, its definitely darker-than-regulation tinted windows meant I couldn’t see the driver.
“We got guests today?” I asked Mom, eyeing the Wagoneer.
“No,” Mom said, and sighed as she broke off a bit of banana muffin and threw a single crumb into the pond to try to entice the fish to eat. “None. Not even for the Cider Crawl. Your dad is worried the off-season will be even more off than usual.”
The Wagoneer passed up several empty parking spots. It slowed to a crawl, but the tinted windows just reflected our yard. The hairs on my neck stood at attention. The Wagoneer stopped just past Gordon’s Frozen Custard and waited on the other side of the bamboo gate.
“Expecting a delivery, then?” There had to be some logical explanation. Mom kept her eyes on the fish, who seemed to be starting an impromptu game of water polo with one muffin.
“What? No. Why?” Mom asked, still looking at the fish.
“This car, sitting at the gate.”
Mom glanced up at it and blinked. “Probably somebody who’s lost.”
It didn’t feel like someone who was lost.
I walked a few steps north to try to get a look at the windshield. But every time I took a step, the Wagoneer inched forward, too.
I stopped. It stopped.
I moved. It moved.
It mimicked me, step by step. Couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it?
“Let’s go inside,” I told Mom, alarm bells jangling in my brain.
No sooner had the words left my lips than the Wagoneer took off, a little screech of tires underscoring its hasty exit. The plate on the back was rusted and nearly impossible to read, but it had Abraham Lincoln’s profile on it. Illinois then, not Wisconsin.
I glanced up and down the street once more, trying to shake off the creepy feeling. It wasn’t the Canceled Killer. If anything, it was probably Jared’s attorney, trying to serve me papers. That thought made me really shiver.
I heard a small dog’s barking from the other side of the fence and glanced up to see Tammy walking Barry on a little leash down the sidewalk.
He was trying to bite the ankles of a mail carrier.
Tammy tugged on the leash, gently chastising Barry as she pulled the little dog farther down the block. I turned my attention back to my phone.
I scrolled down to the last comment.
Three skull emojis.
My heart rate kicked up a notch. Blood pulsed in my veins. I pulled up my other social media accounts. Skull emojis on all of them.
Red-hot panic flooded my brain.
How many times had I seen these very skull emojis on victims’ accounts? I’d always thought it was cruel for the killer to taunt victims like that. To let them know there was a countdown clock on their life, so that the last few days or hours they’d be wondering when the end would come.
And now it was my turn.
Cold sweat broke out on the small of my back. I heard an engine rev and my head shot up. The white Jeep Wagoneer was back, idling by the bamboo gate.
My phone pinged again in my hand.
Peekaboo. I see you.