got a little freaked out by that, thinking I was being followed. So I left, hoping that if he was on my tail, he’d follow me and leave you out of anything.”
“Did he?”
He shakes his head. “Never saw the truck again. But you did.”
At the house where Chloe was killed. “And I got the plates. Which we have to give to the police.”
A dark truck comes down the ramp, and we’re both silent, but I feel his whole body relax. “That’s a Tundra. Different truck.” He turns back to me. “We’re not giving anything to the police, Kenzie.”
“What? Two girls are dead.”
“Exactly.”
I don’t follow, and then I do. “Do you think they’ll accuse you?”
“I think that if they stop thinking these deaths are accidents, then I’m their number one suspect.”
“But you’re innocent!” I insist. “And girls on this list are dying. And everything we know is—”
“A bunch of coincidence and conjecture to the police,” he says, staring at the ramp as if he can will our truck to come back. “Kids like me make perfect fall guys, Kenzie. And I think that’s why I’ve been paid to be in the wrong place at the—There he is.”
The truck pulls off at the bottom of the ramp, the driver’s side away from us. For a few minutes it just sits there. Then the same guy we saw parked at Kipler’s gets out, his jacket hood still up over his head. We’re even farther away than we were before, and it’s impossible to see any details of his appearance. He goes directly to the bushes and bends over where we left the coin.
“I was right,” Levi murmurs. “It’s a tracking device.”
After a minute, the driver gets back in the truck, turns around in the Dairy Queen parking lot, and gets on the ramp in the direction he came from.
“Let’s go,” Levi whispers, starting the engine. “This time we’re following him.”
I’m not quite as terrified on the ride home toward Vienna, since Levi doesn’t seem to want to break the speed limit or kill us. Relaxing into his back with my arms comfortably wrapped around him and my thighs pressed against his, I actually breathe steadily and lean into the turns.
A few of them are fun. Or maybe that’s just being this close to Levi Sterling. All around me, the golds and russets of the trees and the brisk autumn scents are intensified, each sensation at war with the confusing questions in my head. Questions focused on Josh Collier.
Why did he have that coin? Did he leave it on purpose? Did he take me out to the middle of nowhere for a reason? Is he involved with the guy in the truck? Is the guy some kind of recruiter for his grandfather’s ropes course challenge?
With those questions on my mind, I’m not completely stunned when I see where the black F-150 is leading us … to the easternmost edge of Nacht Woods. Levi widens the distance between us and the truck, and we finally lose track of it when it turns into what looks like a slight clearing in the woods, not exactly a legit road.
He weaves the bike around and we follow the perimeter of the forest, most of it rimmed with a stony creek, evergreens, and brush so dense it would be impossible to penetrate. But periodically, there are fire roads and breaks in the trees, and it looks like if you go deep enough, there might be a way through the woods.
After a few minutes, we come to a road that eventually leads to the Collier house.
“I don’t want to see Josh,” I say to Levi.
He nods and we head back east where the truck has gone. Finally, he stops the bike and braces us with his feet. “This is more or less the beginning of the ropes course,” he says.
“Can I see it?”
He angles his head to get a look at me. “You want to go in there?”
“I want to read some of the Latin instructions. And to find out how hard it would be to do the course.”
He considers this for a minute, and then agrees. “Let me stash the bike and I’ll show you the first challenge. It’s not far.”
After we hide the bike, Levi pops the seat up and pulls out a navy bandana that he ties to a tree. “You can get pretty lost in here.”
He takes my hand and we work our way through some thick trees before the forest clears. In October, there are