“Why are you running?”
“Well, it’s sure as shit not for my health. I do not run in three-hundred-dollar heels if I can help it.” She panted into the speaker. “Where exactly are you headed?”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” Her eye roll was almost audible. “You’re not doing this alone.”
* * *
I sat in my car in the dirt lot at the edge of the train tracks, fiddling with my keys. There was no one around, so far as I knew, but I was jittery with paranoia and nervous energy.
I wasn’t sure about this.
Not remotely.
Through my windshield, I eyed the rusted-out school bus that had been left to rot here since the late 80s, if I had to wager a guess. Its sides were covered with at least a generation’s worth of graffiti. Trash littered the ground around it, along with dozens of discarded tires, their treads worn smooth. Several discolored mattresses had been dumped unceremoniously into the ditch that ran along the railway.
The longer I waited, the more anxious I became. I’d been here twenty minutes already. I wasn’t waiting another twenty. If Gwen didn’t show up soon…
Socks gave a low whine from the passenger seat.
I glanced over and saw the turquoise Thunderbird rolling into the lot, tires kicking up a cloud of dust. Tossing my peas onto the floor — they were mostly thawed mush by this point, anyway — I hopped out. Socks followed, testing the limits of his leash as we rounded the hood.
Gwen slid out of the driver’s seat, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt that saidSLAY. It was the most casual outfit I’d ever seen her wear. Her long red hair was swept up in a pony tail. The bruise on her cheekbone looked much better, barely visible under her concealer.
“Slayin the Gen-Z sense of the word, or the Buffy sense of the word?” I asked.
“Buffy. Obviously.” She grinned. “I have matching sleep-shorts that sayChosen Oneon the ass.”
The passenger door flew open unexpectedly. I felt my eyes widen as Georgia glided out of it. They went even wider when Florence half-fell out of the back seat, nearly tumbling to the dirt in her haste.
“Where the eff are we?” Her gaze swung around, halting abruptly on my face. “And what the eff happened to your eye, Imogen?”
Gwen and Gigi both swooped in for a closer look.
Embarrassed, I reached up to cover the shiner. “My asshole ex is in town. Paid me a surprise visit this morning.”
“Oh my god!” Gwen gasped.
“Are you okay?” Gigi asked.
“I’m fine. I don’t even think it’s going to bruise very badly.”
No one looked convinced.
“Fucking hell. As if we don’t have enough problems to deal with.” Florence scowled. “Remind me again why we aren’t calling the police for backup with this little search party at the far edges of civilization?”
“Because, I’m not dragging anyone else all the way out into the sticks until I’m absolutely sure it’s not a wild goose chase. Which is why I planned on going—” I shot Gwen a pointed look. “—alone.”
She merely shrugged. “Forgive me if I didn’t want youdyingalone on this wild goose chase of yours.”
“Is it still a wild goose chase if there are four of us going?” Flo’s brows lifted. “Or does that make it a wild geese chase?”
I looked heavenward. “Lord, help us.”
“I don’t care if it’s a dead end,” Gigi interjected. “What if it’s not? The police still have so much ground to cover in the heart of the woods, it could be days before they get all the way out here to the fringes.”
This was true.