Page 54

I know this part of the park well. I’ve been here a thousand times. The Diana Ross Playground is to our left, its gates closed and locked. On our right sits the exit curve of the Seventy-Ninth Street Transverse. Yet night has transformed the park into something forbidden and unfamiliar. I barely recognize it. A mist has rolled in, shivery and thick. It whispers against my skin and haloes the lamps along the path, diffusing their glow. Muted circles of light creep across the grass and get tangled in the trees, making the park’s woods seem thicker, more wild.
I try not to think about the woods surrounding Pine Cottage, even though it’s all I can think about. That thick forest, filled with hidden dangers. It’s like I’m back there again, ready to break out into my life-or-death race through the trees.
Sam heads deeper into the park. I follow, even as a chant of worry forms in my thoughts—This is dangerous. Wrong.
Through the mist, I see the hazy outline of the Delacorte Theater. Just beyond it is Belvedere Castle, a miniature fortress rising from a rock outcropping. Its fog-shrouded silhouette brings to mind fairy-tale forests.
One could get lost in a place like this, I think. One could stray from the path and never be seen again.
Just like Janelle.
Like all of them.
For now, Sam and I keep on the path as we head south, staying close to the park’s western border. Despite the hour, we are not alone. I glimpse other people—moving shadows in the distance. A couple crossing the park swiftly, heads lowered against the mist. A late-night jogger behind us, breath heavy, tinny music drifting out of earbuds. Their appearances make my heart crash like cymbals.
Then there are the solitary men with fog-blurred faces who cruise the park’s paths, looking for the erotic thrill of illicit, anonymous sex. Many of them wear similar clothes, as if there’s a dress code involved. Track pants and expensive running shoes, hooded sweatshirts unzipped to expose tight T-shirts. They emerge from the mist in all directions. Roaming, circling, searching. They don’t give Sam and me a second glance. We’re not their type.
“We should go back,” I say.
“Chill,” Sam says.
She shares the same restlessness as those discreetly prowling men. There’s something driving her. A hunger. A need. She plops onto a bench, her right leg fidgeting as she searches the horizon. A hardness has replaced the earlier fire in her eyes, her stare cold and coal-black.
I sit beside her, my heart beating so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shake the bench. Sam digs a cigarette out of her jacket pocket and lights up. The flare of her lighter in the fog gets the attention of one of the prowlers—a leather-clad moth drawn to the flame. I tense up as he gets closer. My hand tightens around the pepper spray in my pocket.
Once he reaches our bench, his features clear. He’s handsome and lithe, with a peppery stubble tracing the line of his jaw. An air of dark sexiness radiates off him.
“Hey,” he says, voice hushed and apologetic, as if talking isn’t allowed. “Can I bum a smoke?”
Sam obliges, slipping a cigarette from her pocket and into his palm with the ease of a dime-bag dealer. She flicks her lighter and theman leans forward, cigarette tip catching, glowing hot a moment before darkening into a smolder. He nods at Sam, blowing out smoke that mingles with the mist.
“Thanks.”
“No prob,” Sam says. “Good luck tonight.”
The man smiles, sly and sexy. He begins to walk away in a leather-clad strut, saying over his shoulder, “Luck has nothing to do with it, sweetie.” Then he’s gone, vanishing back into the fog from which he emerged.
I think about Him. In a different woods. In a different time. If only He had disappeared like that, slipping away, leaving us alone.
“Sam, I want to go home,” I say.
“Fine,” Sam replies. “Go.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“Nope.”
“What are we doing here?”
Sam shushes me, suddenly alert. She stands, looking in the direction we just came from, body taut, poised, ready to pounce. I follow her gaze, seeing what she sees. A woman has appeared in the mist, roughly a hundred yards away. Alone, she hurries through the park with an unwieldy canvas tote held tight against her chest. Young and hungry, probably. Crossing the park on foot to save on cab fare, not thinking about how spectacularly bad an idea that really is.
A man emerges from the fog right behind her, so close he could be her shadow. Shrouded in a black hoodie, he even looks like a shadow. He moves at a steady clip, faster than the girl, gaining on her. She realizes this and quickens her pace, on the cusp of a run.
“Sam?” I say as my heart begins to thud hollowly in my chest. “Do you think he’s going to mug her? Or—”
Worse. That’s what I’m about to say.Or worse.
I don’t get the chance because the half-man, half-shadow is already upon the girl, a hand clamping down on her shoulder, the other reaching for either the tote bag or her breasts hidden behind it.